Meetings of the New York Psychoanalytic Society

DISCUSSION: Dr. Phyllis Greenacre agrees that the fetishist is uncertain and oscillates in his attitude concerning the female phallus, but she sees this as a weakness and rift in certain ego functions; she would not go so far as to call it a 'split'. Her 'formula' for the development of perversions postulates early disturbance in mother-infant relationship with severe impairment of object relationship, combined with specifically determined weakness of the body- and self-image; to preserve the body-image, sexual drives are distorted with the the fetish serving as a stopgap to preserve a semblance of adequate sexual performance. Dr. Walter A. Stewart felt that Bak's contribution will take an important position in our understanding of perversion, with the phallic woman fantasy having central and organizing importance for all perversions. However, rather than focusing on castration anxiety in the phallic phase as the determining issue, Stewart suggests a re-emphasis on Freud's concept of a complementary series requiring all the precursors for the final outcome. Dr. Philip Weissman questioned whether the presence of the phallic mother fantasy had an equally profound significance in each case of perversion. Dr. Joachim Flescher felt that perversions can best be treated in dual therapy, with both male and female analysts.