Perverse Modes of Thought

presenter: Richard B. Zimmer, M.D.
discussants: Helen C. Meyers, M.D., and Michael Porder, M.D.

Subtle, non-psychotic disturbances in thinking may cause significant impairment of intellectual functioning and interfere with a patient's capacity to make use of psychoanalytic treatment. As these come under interpretive scrutiny, the intellectual exchange between patient and analyst may emerge as a theater for the enactment of perverse sexual fantasies. In this paper, the author proposes a model which explains the underlying structure of these disturbances in thinking. Clinical material is presented to illustrate how they manifest in the transference, and how interpretation of the condensed part-object transferences may lead to some measure of clinical improvement.