Perversion and Neurosis: Two Sides of the Same Coin

If analysis has made any positive discovery about libidinal development, it is that the child is a pervert, even a polymorphous pervert.[2] Lacan reminds us that Freud’s contention that the germs of perversion inherent in all subjects remains one of the most important, if widely refuted discoveries of psychoanalysis. This paper aims to interrogate in more detail the oft-quoted phrase ‘neuroses are, so to say, the negative of perversions.’[3] An in-depth examination of the analytic perspective allows us to understand this statement more fully and to grasp how the development of sexuality relates to the emergence of a neurotic position.…