Frank M. Lachmann on ‘Violations of Expectations in Creativity and Perversion’ (Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 2006)

Frank Lachmann draws on his experience of infant research and observation to make connections between violations of expectations in creativity and in perversion. He explains how the phenomenon of mass or serial murder can be illuminated by consideration of the perpetrators’ experiences of having their expectations violated in childhood, and also shows that violation of expectations is central to the experience of many works of art, taking examples from film and music. He gives an illustration of how violation of expectations can play a productive role in a psychoanalytic treatment.