The Ontogeny, Cultural Context, and Treatment of Disgust

This article links Lawrence Josephs’ valuable thoughts on The Treatment of Oedipal Disgust: When one Person’s Sexual Delight is Another’s Disgust to Freud’s ideas concerning negation and the origins of judgment. In keeping with a comparative-integrative spirit, the author references relevant concepts from diverse contributors, from classical to contemporary. Jacobson and Christensen’s acceptance approach that Josephs found useful in a couple’s treatment where disgust was a major issue is discussed in terms of how it might be seen from a variety of psychoanalytic perspectives, with particular reference to the founder of our discipline. The fundamental importance of boundaries is emphasized throughout, with disgust providing an excellent illustration of their significance to the establishment and protection of the self. The evolution of revulsion in individual and cultural development is described. Case material is introduced to illustrate potent links between oral disgust stimulated by relational stress and trauma in the first year of life and subsequent disgust (e.g., oedipal). Revulsion’s role in negative therapeutic reactions is examined.