In 1982–83, Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel held the Freud Chair at University College in London. Based on her lectures, she has written a book, where her research in the field of perversion and creativity is collected and rewritten.

When one compares the original papers with the book, one notices that the book is a bit more Freudian than the papers. The author seems to have taken it upon herself to refer, as carefully as possible, all her findings to the suggestions made by the father of psychoanalysis.

She starts with some short analyses of historical persons and literary characters. Perversion, she here concludes, is a dimension of the human psyche, a temptation in the mind common to all of us. One of her main points is to give a redefinition of the oedipus complex. She rejects the idea