Citation

Hajbi M, Weyergans E, Guionnet A. Ann. Med. Psychol. (Paris) 2007; 165(6): 389-395.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, Societe Medico-Psychologique, Publisher Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.amp.2005.04.018

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The ascendancy that violent persons implement in a conjugal link displays a perverse relation to the object represented by his/her partner. This relationship brings to the fore a denial of otherness and breaches in identification in these subjects. The subject cannot separate from the other, nor can he think about the other as a separate individual, only similarities are enhanced and differences are perceived as a threat. Mastery is a pre-genital and narcissistic issue, in which the other is only a partial object, as opposed to the genital stage that separates and differentiates individuals allowing them to build their own desire. In ascendancy, merging anxiety and separation anxiety are reactivated. Violence, with its paradoxical aspect and the compromise it allows by separating and merging at the same time, is then the costly solution used by the subject. The law, by its forbidding and structuring aspects, can have a role as a separating third party in this specular relationship.
Psychodynamic psychotherapy gives the person the opportunity to revive his/her identification processes, to find his / her position relative to the object and to find the right distance.