The instinct for mastery, in Freud's work, is a concept whose metapsychological status is ambiguous. Mastery cannot be regarded as the action of a single trend, but corresponds to a complex formation of the relationship with the other within which the dialectic interplay (Eros—Thanatos) is precisely located.

In this relationship, the aim is always the wish of the other, to the extent that it is fundamentally alien, and by its nature eludes any possibility of seizure. The perverse and obsessional organizations represent two paradigms of the establishment of such a relationship of mastery. In perversion, the other's wish is captured by seduction;