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Stein's interrogation of perversion generates an elegant clinical template that may prove invaluable to psychological work. The paper focuses on a particular kind of object relatedness wherein hate and suspicion, masquerading as love and excitement, extinguish intimate possibility.
The backdrop is a rich tapestry. Stein winnows historical, religious, cultural, social, political, and artistic surround as she invites us into the controversial centre: ‘a stark link… exists between the perverse and the civilized’ (Stein, p. 779). Implicitly, we face confrontation with the disquieting possibility that ‘perversion is to an extent in every one of us’ (p. 776).
The inquiry can startle. God's might and benevolence reside in the Christian assumption that defines human disobedience (free will) as perverse; perversion subverts what is human while protecting that very humanness from further destruction; fresh perspectives can spring from the deviant crook in the straight path; no categories exist that are separate and stable; paradox resides at the crux of human experience.
Stein's call to awakening is illumined with contemporary art images that depict not only cruelty, but also abject human bodies loosely linked to eviscerated spirit. Here, perverse excitement is paradoxically drenched with the mechanization of the living dead.
Stein asks us to remember the ‘unspoken known’. Translation of what we know but do not speak may help us to listen anew. Stein explores familiar territory through a fresh lens. In the service of calling us to remember, Stein effectively evokes the miasma that accompanies the horrifying confusion of enmeshment wherein it becomes unclear who is penetrating whom.
At the heart of perverse relation is the psychic act of penetrating without being penetrated. Synchronizing form and content, Stein's language holds us both fiercely and tenderly. Her clinical narrative is forceful, honest, eloquent and animated. Her demanding words can generate anguished response. C