Perversion: A Jungian Approach

Theoretical understanding of perversion is neglected in analytical psychology, and narrowly developed in psycho-analysis, where it traditionally refers to sexual perversion. Etymological exploration of the word perversion, including its use in religious, moral, sociological and legal contexts, reveals a wider meaning than that adopted in psychoanalysis. The aim of the author is to revise the psychoanalytic model through the introduction of Jungian concepts that extend the understanding of perversion beyond the bounds of sexuality to a more general relational context.

By describing the development of psycho-analytic thinking on perversion in detail, the author is able to highlight the central differences between the Freudian and Jungian interpretive traditions and to explain why Jungian ideas on perversion have remained underdeveloped, leading to the absence of a unique or available Jungian contribution to the theory of perversion. Jungian concepts, together with some from outside the psychoanalytic domain, are combined with psycho-analytic theory in the formulation of an integrated formulation in which perversion is presented as a response to early trauma with intrapsychic deception enacted relationally in the outside world through vengeful behavior, that is not necessarily sexual, but is addictive and symptomatic of a defensive psychic structure that establishes and perpetuates self-deception. The formulation is presented in stages with illustrations drawn from three biographies, exemplifying sexual perversion, bodily perversion, and emotional or cognitive perversion.