Jonah Bossewitch	October 24, 1995

PSY 365	Professor Sugarman

The Economic Problem in Masochism

In the wake of the radical paradigm shift that began in Beyond the Pleasure Principle Freud is left scrambling to reassemble the shattered remnants of his earlier theory. In this article he revisits Sado-masochistic behavior and re-explains it in terms of the Death instinct and the corresponding ego-id model. Along the way he elaborates and clarifies his new paradigm as we watch it being applied to Sado-masochism. In this new picture sadism is associated with the super-ego, and masochism with the ego. Freud also distinguishes between three types of masochism: erotogenic, feminine, and moral. According to this revised account the progression of this neurosis is reversed, and masochism is the necessary precursor to sadism. Freud reminds us that "we never have to deal with pure life-instincts and death-instincts at all, but only with combinations of them in different degrees." (p. 195) In this piece Freud also recognizes that Russian character types exhibit the psychic dynamics that he is describing. I have heard that Freud once said that he learned all of his psychology from reading Dostoyevsky. Did he really say that?