SADOMASOCHISTIC OBJECT RELATIONS - SOME C LINICAL OBSERVATIONS

This study reported on the repetitious sadomasochistic objectrelations , vis-a-vis her most intimate love attachments, which a 47-year-old wo man experienced throughout her life. These principal ''love relationsh ips'' (four in all) delineated a virtual developmental history of her lost love-attachments through her life; and each in turn contained muc h of the same sadomasochistic organization, fantasy and dynamics as th e previous one. The hidden pattern of this woman's sadomasochistic rel ationships with men began to emerge in her analytic treatment shortly after she became aware of the impending death of her aged father. The traumatic loss of this deeply ingrained sadomasochistic relationship w ith him acted as a depressive spur which pushed her into further analy tic examination of these conflicts. It was concluded in part that her underelying core belief and fantasy, which tended to control all her m ale relationships, consisted of a type of sadomasochistic oedipal lega cy in which she and her father played the central role. In this sense she suffered, like the classical hysteric, from her reminiscenses.