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It now remains to summarise and order the findings and theories related to perversions and addictions in the light of the structural revision of the general theory of adult, infantile and perverse sexuality. The chapter on “Terror” contains implicitly a theory of the metapsychology of addictions which must now be made explicit, while some of its social implications will be traced later in the chapter on “Tyranny”. Equally, the chapter on the nature of the objects of perversion contains implicitly a theory, which needs relating to the theory of addictions, while some social implications will similarly be examined in the chapter on “Pornography”.
Let us start by a brief definition:—Addiction: a type of narcissistic organisation of the infantile structures which weakens and may totally displace the adult part of the personality in control of behaviour. Its central structure consists of the “good” child parts having turned their dependence away from the parental figures toward the “bad” part of the self, initially as a retreat from depressive pain into the paranoid-schizoid position, but specifically as a defence against the experience of terror in relation to the mother's inside babies which have been killed due to possessive jealousy, oedipal rivalry and fear of weaning. The internal structure of the addiction consists of an enslavement to cynical modes of thought which desecrate the good objects and either expel them (manic) or bury them in the faeces (repression). Essentially dependence upon good objects is replaced by passivity toward bad parts of the self, in a mood of despair. In the process of this surrender, all mental pain related to the hope-hopelessness continuum is obviated. It is essential that the term passivity be reserved for this pathological mode of relation, and not be confused with the many variants of dependence, reliance, trust or helplessness which enter into good relationships, both adult and infantile.
This inner structure of the addiction can fi