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Fearful Symmetry: The Development and Treatment of Sadomasochism
Author(s): Jack Novick (Author)
- Publisher: Jason Aronson, Inc.
- Publication Date: July 26, 2007
- Edition: 1st
- Language: English
- Print length: 432 pages
- ISBN-10: 0765705443
- ISBN-13: 9780765705440
Book Description
Using data from infant observation, and child, adolescent, and adult analyses, the Novicks explicate a multidimensional, developmental theory of sadomasochism that has been recognized as a major innovation. According to the Novicks, each phase of development contributes to the clinical manifestations of sadomasochism. Painful experiences in infancy are transformed into a mode of attachment, then into an embraced marker of specialness and unlimited destructive power, then into a conviction of equality with oedipal parents, and, finally, into an omnipotent capacity to gratify infantile wishes through the coercion of others. By school age, these children have established a magic omnipotent system of thought which undermines alternate means of competent interactions with reality.
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Kerry Kelly Novick is a child, adolescent, and adult psychoanalyst who trained with Anna Freud. She is on the faculties of the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute, the Michigan Psychoanalytic Council, the New York University Psychoanalytic Institute, the New York Freudian Society, the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis, and the University of Michigan Medical School. She has been working with children and families for over 40 years and joined other colleagues to found a non-profit psychoanalytic school, Allen Creek Preschool, in Ann Arbor.
