The poetics of the Sadomasochistic Other Flashcards
By Douglas Thomas (50 cards)
What does a Jungian perspective offer in BDSM discourse?
Offers valuable clinical insight on the archetypal meaning of BDSM and the relationship dynamics that develop in this context
Jung’s concept of syzygy gives a?
A framework to understand the value BDSM finds in the creation of a conscious other
What happened a century before BDSM entered the vernacular?
A century before BDSM entered the vernacular, Richard von Krafft- Ebbing published Psychopathis Sexualis in 1886 as a forensic reference book
What did the publication of Psychopathis Sexualis do to the public perception of BDSM?
Psychopathis Sexualis was widely regarded as a landmark in psychiatric writing ad he included sadomasochism and other sexual practices under BDSM as sexual pathologies
What does DSM stand for?
Diagnostics and statistics manual of mental disorders
What does the DSM-5 now say about paraphillias and paraphillic disorders?
Makes a clear distinction between paraphillas and paraphillic disorders.
The manual now states that “ A paraphilia by itself does not justify clinical intervention “
Paraphillia
a condition characterized by abnormal sexual desires, typically involving extreme or dangerous activities.
James Hillman 1960 “ Jung saw that….
Jung saw that the instinct has an imaginal aspect, a mythic factor and therefore the sexual is also an activity of the imagination, a psychological expression; the sexual is the way the soul speaks
What do Jungian psychoanalyst tend to neglect?
The logos of the soul in patient’s sexual lives
Mythopoetic
Relating to the making of myths or myth(s)
Relating to a movement for men that uses activities such as storytelling and poetry reading as a means of self -understanding
Mythopoetic men’s movement
A body of self-help activities and therapeutic workshops and retreats for men undertaken by carious organizations and authors in the US from the early 1980s through the 1990s
What did groups formed during the mythopoetic men’s movement typically avoid?
Political and social advocacy in favour of therapeutic workshops and wilderness retreats, often using Native American rituals such as drumming, chanting and sweat lodges
What were the rituals during the mythopoetic men’s movement done with the aim of?
Aim of personal growth and to connect spiritually with a lost deep masculine identity or inner self
What did the poet Robert Bly ( Iron John: A Book About Men ) argue
Grief in men has been steadily increasing since the start of the Industrial Revolution and has reached a depth that can’t be ignored.
Bly wanted to reimagine masculinity in a way that was distinct from but not opposed to the feminist movement
What did poet Robert Bly urge for men?
To recover a pre-industrial conception of man through spiritual camaraderie with other men in male-only gatherings
What is a numinous experience?
An encounter with the archetype of the Self
Lionel Corbett (2007) describes the numinous feeling
As feeling stunned, astonished, and filled with wonder because we have been addressed by something uncanny, not of our ordinary world and very difficult to put into words”
How does Jungian psychology support experiences such as sub space?
Part of a person’s individuation process, recognizing that numinous feelings signal the presence of deeper transformative archetypal energies
On the interpersonal level, what do they relationships in BDSM do?
They exaggerate the sense of otherness between partners through extreme imbalance of authority and control
As an individual reaches deep within the personal psyche to embody what is dominant or submissive, one encounters….
the Other, the complimentary polarity embodied in the partner
What characterizes BDSM activities
The conscious consensual engagement with otherness (conscious otherness)
What appears in the consulting room when clinicians experience discomfort in the presence of a kinky patient. What is the natural tendency?
The shadow of the Other enters the consulting room when clinicians experience discomfort in the presence of a kinky patient
The natural tendency is to resolve such feelings of discomfort by distancing oneself from the Other and cast a pathologizing eye on patients activities
What can the power of a diagnostic label become for clinician?
Serve as a apotropaic gesture that serves a barrier against our deeper fascination with our own proclivities for cruelty, ugliness, humiliation and violence
Apotropaic
supposedly having the power to avert evil influences or bad luck.
