Obsessions : The Twisted Cruelty

This book explores the interrelatedness between obsessive compulsive disorders, thinking disorders, and depression. The issue is considered both from a psychiatric viewpoint and from a psychodynamic perspective. The age of the cases presented in the book ranges from childhood through adolescence to adulthood.

This book explores the interrelatedness between obsessive compulsive disorders, thinking disorders, and depression. The issue is considered both from a psychiatric viewpoint and from a psychodynamic perspective. The age of the cases presented in the book ranges from childhood through adolescence to adulthood. Obsessions: The Twisted Cruelty is a challenging contribution to contemporary clinical debate, especially regarding the role of analytically-oriented psychotherapy in the treatment of OCD, and how to deal with the psychiatric treatment and combine the two approaches, while keeping the focus on the transference-countertransference interplay. After the first theoretical chapter, the relationship between obsessions and thinking impairments is discussed, with specific reference to delusional ideation. A section entitled "the anal conundrum" follows. Encopresis and anal masturbation during childhood are discussed, as well as the identification of the child with a maternal "faecal object. The last section explores the connection with depression, and some specific features of sadism.