The
perverse subject can be cured from his unhappy situation through a working out
of the depressive position, an abandonment of the toxic reliability of
attachment to the bad object and of submission to the oedipal rival. The way to
do this is described in Edmund Berglers books.
I am speaking from personal experience.
René Girard holds that we desire objects because our models appear to desire them.
In order to be sure of the value of an object, we turn towards models. 'If the model desires the object', so we think, 'it must mean it is a good enough object, a desirable object'.
The desire of the model constitutes an 'ideal' that we feel we need to live up to. Should we prove inable to attain these designated objects, then thereby the proof is given that we are less worthy than our models. Consequentially, there will then be a gap between our self and our ideal self.René Girard holds that we desire objects because our models appear to desire them.
In order to be sure of the value of an object, we turn towards models. 'If the model desires the object', so we think, 'it must mean it is a good enough object, a desirable object'.
The desire of the model constitutes an 'ideal' that we feel we need to live up to. Should we prove inable to attain these designated objects, then thereby the proof is given that we are less worthy than our models. Consequentially, there will then be a gap between our self and our ideal self.
This gap is understood in freudian theory as a cause of unhappiness. It constitutes a slight to our 'narcissism'.
If we are ambitious, we will not settle for just any old person to become our model. We will aim high. But the higher we aim, the more difficult it becomes to attain the ideal which is the correlate of this model. If we aim too low, we will feel guilty because we are underachieving, because we are cheating and opting for comfort and safety rather than heroism and prestige.
I believe that what Bergler calls "psychic masochism" might be motivated by a fundamental discouragement in relation to the ideal correlated to the model. Our model is in that situation felt to be unbeatable, the objects he designates are not available to us. How is one to live on like that?
The unhappy solution of the 'psychic masochist' consists in only allowing himself to enjoy objects that at the same time offer a bitter experience to him. Thus he pays his tribute to his demonic model. In his object choice, he disavows the kind of full enjoyment of objects which the model has, he can only enjoy objects if at the same time he bears testimony of his own degradation, his own inferiority.
This 'psychic masochist' has libidinized his own inferior position. It is, so he thinks, the only way enjoyment of objects is justified for him.
