Psychopathia Sexualis

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The book had a considerable influence on continental European forensic psychiatry in the first part of the 20th century. It is regarded as an important text in the history of psychopathology. [2] paradoxia, sexual excitement occurring independently of the period of the physiological processes in the generative organs

When using the term sadomasochism, contemporary psychiatrists emphasize the mental situation of pleasure in pain, whereas Krafft-Ebing's terms of sadomasochism include pleasure in humiliation, dominance, subjection, and subjugation. Sadism denotes a condition in which erotic pleasure derived inflicting pain or humiliation. The more puzzling condition of masochism is one in which erotic pleasure is obtained from being hurt, restrained, or humiliated. The coupling of the two names in sadomasochism is important as the two conditions are usually present, albeit with one or the other predominating, in one and the same individual. This individual may also display other deviant interests, for instance, in fetishism or transvestism. Krafft-Ebing became deeply interested in the study of the subject. He elaborated an evolutionist theory considering homosexuality as an anomalous process developed during the gestation of the embryo and fetus, evolving into a "sexual inversion" of the brain. Some years later, in 1901, he corrected himself in an article published in the Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen, changing the term "anomaly" to "differentiation." Krafft-Ebing's final conclusions remained forgotten for many years, partly because Sigmund Freud's theories captivated the attention of those that considered homosexuality a "psychological problem" (as did the majority at the time), and partly because Krafft-Ebing had incurred some enmity from the Austrian Catholic church by associating the desire for sanctity and martyrdom with hysteria and masochism (besides denying the perversity of homosexuals). Leahey, Th. H. [1991] 2000. A History of Modern Psychology. Englewood Cliff, NJ. Prentice Hall. 3rd edition. ISBN 0130175730 The psychiatric understanding of perversion signalled that in the modern experience, sexuality, as a distinct impulse with its particular internal physical and psychological mechanisms, dissociated itself from other social domains and began to generate its own meanings. As such, sexuality became associated with profound and complex human emotions and anxieties. Foucault rightly understood the continuity of nineteenth-century psychiatric interference with sexuality and the present-day craving for self-expression. Both are based on the confessional model that proclaims sexuality to be the key to individual authenticity and identity. However, I would argue that Foucault’s assessment of this model of sexuality as limiting possibilities is one-sided. It is more than an instrument of professional power and social control. The formation and articulation of sexual identities only became possible in a self-conscious, reflexive bourgeois society in which there was a dialectic between humanitarian reform and emancipation on the one hand, and efforts to enforce social adaptation and integration on the other. The elaboration of psychological explanations of various sexual tastes at the end of the nineteenth century was advanced by professional psychiatry, as well as by the historical development of individualisation and social democratisation. Psychopathia Sexualis was one of the first books about sexual practices that studied homosexuality/bisexuality. It proposed consideration of the mental state of sex criminals in legal judgements of their crimes. During its time, it became the leading medico–legal textual authority on sexual pathology.

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In 1886 Krafft-Ebing published Psychopathia sexualis, the work for which he would become best known. In effect this was a catalogue of case histories of abnormal sexual fantasies and practices drawn from numerous sources. Although intended as a manual for the medical and legal professions it soon gained a wider readership, and as one edition followed another more and longer case histories were included, and a greater proportion of the cases described were Krafft-Ebing's own. To some extent the book itself generated the case histories, as patients read it and were moved to correspond with its author, and sometimes visit him. The work ultimately ran to 17 German-language editions, and was translated into at least 5 foreign languages (earliest English edition 1892).

Harry Oosterhuis: Stepchildren of nature. Krafft-Ebing, Psychiatry, and the making of sexual Identity. University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2000, ISBN 0-226-63059-5. The first edition of Psychopathia Sexualis (1886) presented four categories of what Krafft-Ebing called "cerebral neuroses": Dr. Krafft-Ebing served as a medical superintendent at a German mental asylum from 1872-1880. The institution functioned more as a prison than a hospital. Krafft-Ebing’s tenure at the asylum afforded him access to patients with a cadre of mental ailments, including those who committed crimes with sexual overtures. He began collecting case studies of his patients, which he used as fodder for his medico-forensic analysis. The original version of the text featured 42 case studies but expanded to 238 case studies by its twelfth edition. The predominant emphasis on the purportedly first-hand patient accounts, which could be considered as confessional narratives, may be the key factor in both the book’s longstanding interest and its voyeuristic cultish appeal. As a professor at the universities of Graz (1872–89) and Vienna (1889–1902) and working in many fields of psychiatry, Krafft-Ebing was one of the most prominent psychiatrists in Central Europe and a leading forensic expert. 5 He was also one of the founding fathers of medical sexology and he is remembered nowadays chiefly as the author of Psychopathia sexualis and several other works on sexual pathology. 6 The first edition of the bestselling Psychopathia sexualis, which Krafft-Ebing wrote, in the first instance, for lawyers and doctors considering sexual crimes in court, appeared in 1886. It was soon followed by several new and more elaborated editions and by translations in several other languages. Krafft-Ebing revised his book several times, especially by adding further case histories and introducing new sexual categories. By naming and classifying virtually all non-procreative sexuality, he synthesised the new psychiatric knowledge about perversion. 7 Masochism, which Krafft-Ebing focuses on at length, is for example defined as a particular erotic sensibility, in which the individual is, "in his sexual feelings and thoughts, dominated by the idea of being absolutely and unconditionally subjected to a person of the other sex". [1]Norbert Weiss: Das Grazer Universitäts-Klinikum: Eine Jubiläumsgeschichte in hundert Bildern. KAGesVerlag, Graz 2013, ISBN 978-3-9502281-5-1, S. 55. In Krafft-Ebing’s work there was a gradual shift away from a classification of perversions within clear boundaries to a tentative understanding of ‘normal’ sexuality in the context of deviance. He ceased to make hard distinctions between normal and abnormal mental states as well as sexualities, holding that – in the fashion of experimental physiology – only quantitative differences along a scale of infinite variations could be made. In his Lehrbuch der Psychiatrie auf klinischer Domino Falls translated and edited Psychopathia Sexualis:The Case Histories (1997) ISBN 978-0-9820464-7-0

In 1886, the German-born psychiatrist published Psychopathia Sexualis, which organized various forms of sexual perversion into three categories: hyperaesthesia (pathologically exaggerated sexual instinct), anaesthesia (absence of sexual instinct), and paraesthesia (perversion of sexual instinct). Heinrich Ammerer. "Am Anfang war die Perversion." Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Psychiater und Pionier der modernen Sexualkunde. Vienna: Verlagsgruppe Styria, 2011. ISBN 978-3-222-13321-3. Krafft-Ebing saw and viewed women as basically sexually passive, and recorded no female sadists or fetishists in his case studies. Behavior that would be classified as masochism in men was categorized as "sexual bondage" in women, which was not a perversion, again because such behavior did not interfere with procreation. The following year, his wife Maria Luise Kißling (1846–1903), who was originally from Baden-Baden, joined him there.Bridging two extremes , Psychopathia Sexualis historically inspired theoretical critique across disciplines and created a type of cult following inspiring photographic and film representations. Two literary critics emphasize Krafft-Ebing’s foundational book, particularly his in-depth analysis and the purported first-hand accounts illustrated as case studies on homosexuality or “inversion,” as character inspiration for Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks (1901) and Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness (1928). According to literary scholar Heike Bauer’s analysis of Hall’s work, Krafft-Ebing’s physical sexually charged case studies provided the fodder for the development of Hall’s protagonist, who displayed a “sophisticated understanding of the infinite preferences lesbian sexuality might encompass.” [viii] Bauer contends the complicated gender identity of Hall’s character stems from Krafft-Ebing’s construction of lesbianism provided reference points, for the complicated gender identity of Hall’s character, while further inspiring the novel’s sex scenes, as Hall reconstructed the “sexy bits” of Psychopathia Sexualis’case studies. [ix] Likewise, Schaffner explores Krafft-Ebing’s use of literary sources in his own work as the inspiration for “the conceptual exchange between medicine, psychology, and literature, between fact and fiction.” [x] In this sense, Mann’s literary representation of sexual deviance in the form of homosexual sadomasochism was inspired by the meticulous life stories of Krafft-Ebing’s case studies. The narrative style of the case studies, although told through the lens of the medical authority figure as the sole chronicler of medical history, still privileges the voices and gives validity to the living experiences of homosexuals and others with non-traditional s Yet, it is for his book Psychopathia Sexualis that Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing has entered history. in 1965, an English translation derived from the 12th German edition was written by Franklin S. Kaf, with an introduction by Kaf and a foreword by Joseph LoPiccolo In 2006, an independent film based on the book was made in Atlanta; the film was titled Psychopathia Sexualis. [3] Editions [ edit ]