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In this book the well-known writer to whom we are indebted for a number of valuable contributions to the psycho-analytical study of the perversions, 1 writes for a larger public and at greater length. He vehemently
upholds the psycho-analytical conception of the perversions, taking in the main as his basis the views of Freud, but in many respects following paths of his own—a method which unfortunately does not make quite clear to the uninitiated what is to be regarded as held in common by analysts of the present day and what is Sadger's own private view. The title, which recalls the well-known work by Krafft-Ebing, promises more than the book actually contains: the author does not deal with all perversions, but only with homosexuality, the sado-masochistic complex, 2 fetichism and exhibitionism. Before proceeding to the discussion of these perversions, he introduces the reader in a general section to the psycho-analytical conception of the development of sexuality from earliest childhood, laying particular stress on the Oedipus and the castration complexes. He devotes a special chapter to psychic impotence, vaginal anæsthesia in women, and onanism.
The book contains an enormous mass of knowledge, a quite overwhelming profusion of individual observations taken from psycho-analytic practice and from daily life—observations collected in many crowded years of work. At every stage there is revealed a comprehensive and thorough knowledge both of the most recent psycho-analytical literature, which Sadger has fully assimilated, and also of the literature outside psycho-analysis. He is entirely familiar with the nature of narcissism, of the pregenital phase of organization, of the castration complex in women, and of the same complex as expounded by S