Cross-Cultural Dimensions of Sadomasochism in the Psychoanalytic Situation

The psychotherapy setting is a societal crucible that evokes in the two participants the prevailing prejudices within a society and the defenses against them. Intrapsychic patterns with sadomasochistic coloring are often the result of living with prejudices against one's race, religion, country of origin, sex, gender, or sexual orientation. Depending on the given family structure and experiences of sadistic treatment, there may be more or less intense sadistic and masochistic patterns. These become woven into the fabric of an individual's defensive reactions and may be extremely intense. Internalized prejudices toward oneself and the other awaken in a psychoanalytic therapy. The analyst's prejudices and defenses against them will color the countertransference and may become a place where the analysis can founder. The patient may be unable to tolerate the affects that are mobilized when the therapist seems to hold a prejudice similar to the one that has been demeaning the patient within the family, community, or larger society. In the literature review and case that follow, I will discuss intrapsychic, interpersonal, and societal issues that arise particularly in a cross-cultural psychotherapeutic process. The case presented illustrates a sadomasochistic pattern that emerged in our particular cross-cultural psychotherapeutic dyad.

In 1949, Edith Buxbaum analyzed four bilingual patients. She stressed that early language formation contains the affective coloring for pregenital conflicts. She emphasized the role of a second language in the formation of ego and superego. One of her cases was a boy who maintained the accent of his first language, German, in the exact manner of his father. It became evident in the course of the analysis that this was a way