Perversioni: struttura, sintomo o meccanismo?, Jacqueline Amati Mehler

The purpose of this paper is to attempt to distinguish between perversions understood as a structural organisation, and perversions as a series of phenomena responding to symptoms or mechanisms not related to a specific psychic structure. A review of the literature provides a kaleidoscopic outlook on perversions according to the different models used. Taking into account further developments in psychoanalytic theory, two core issues related to the classical description of perversions are discussed: one dealing with the defence mechanisms involved (disavowal and splitting) and the other with those anxieties that, under the general heading of castration anxiety, differ according to the different developmental levels to which they belong.