PERSONS in the grip of neurotic hopelessness manage to “carry on” in one way or another. If their capacity to be creative has not been too greatly damaged by their neurosis they may be able fairly consciously to resign themselves to the state of their personal lives and concentrate on a field in which they can be productive. They may submerge themselves in a social or religious movement or in the work of an organization. Their work may be useful; the fact that they lack zest can be outweighed by their having no personal ax to grind.
Others, in adapting themselves to their particular frame of life, may cease to question it but yet not attach much meaning to it, trying merely to fulfill their obligations. John Marquand depicts this kind of life in So Little Time. It is, I believe, the state that Erich Fromm 1 describes as a “defect” condition, in contrast to neurosis. I interpret it, however, as the outcome of neurotic processes.
They may, on the other hand, give up all serious or promising pursuits and turn to the periphery of life, trying to snatch from it some bit of enjoyment, finding their interest in a hobby or in incidental pleasures like good eating, convivial drinking, minor sexual affairs. Or they may drift and deteriorate, let themselves go to pieces. Unable to do any consistent work, they take to drink, gambling, whoring. The kind of alcoholism described by Charles Jackson in The Lost Week-End would represent an end stage of such a condition. In this connection it might be interesting to examine whether an unconscious determination to go to pieces may not supply a powerful psychic contribution to such chronic diseases as tuberculosis and cancer.
Finally, persons without hope may turn destructive, but at the same time make an attempt at restitution by living vicariously. This, in my opinion, is the meaning of sadistic trends.
Because Freud regarded sadistic trends as instinctual, psychoanalytical interest has been largely focused on the so-called sadistic perversions. Sadistic patterns in everyday relationships, though not ignored, have not been strictly defined. Any kind of assertive or aggressive behavior is conceived of as a modification or sublimation of instinctual sadistic trends. Freud, for instance, regarded a striving for power as such a sublimation. It is true that a striving for power can be sadistic; but in a person who sees life as a battle of all against all, it can merely represent a struggle for survival. Actually, it need not be neurotic at all. The result of this lack of discrimination is that we have neither a comprehensive picture of the forms sadistic attitudes may take nor any criteria as to precisely what is sadistic. It is left pretty much to individual intuition to determine what may rightly be called sadism and what may not—a situation hardly conducive to sound observation.
The mere act of hurting others is in itself no indication of a sadistic tendency. A man may be engaged in a struggle of a personal or general nature in the course of which he has to hurt not only his adversaries but his associates as well. Hostility toward others may also be merely reactive. A person can feel hurt or frightened and want to hit back with a force that, while disproportionate to the objective provocation, is subjectively quite in keeping with it. It is easy, however, to deceive oneself on this score: all too often a justifiable reaction is claimed when actually a sadistic tendency was in operation. But the difficulty in distinguishing one from the other does not mean that reactive hostility is nonexistent. Finally, there are all those offensive tactics of the aggressive type who feels he is fighting for survival. I should not call any of these aggressions sadistic; others may get hurt in the process, but the hurting or damaging is an inevitable by-product rather than a prime intention. To put it simply, we could say that although the kinds of action we refer to here are aggressive or even hostile, they are not perpetrated in a mean spirit. There is no conscious or unconscious satisfaction derived from the very fact of hurting.
In contrast, let us consider some typical sadistic attitudes. We can best observe these in persons who are fairly uninhibited in expressing their sadistic tendencies toward others, whether they themselves are conscious of having such tendencies or not. When, in the following, I speak of a sadistic person, I mean a person whose attitudes toward others are predominantly sadistic.
Such a person may want to enslave others or to enslave the partner in particular. His “victim” must be a superman’s slave, a creature not only without wishes, feelings, or initiative of his own but without any claims whatever upon the master. This tendency may take the form of molding or educating the victim, as Professor Higgins in Pygmalion molds Eliza. At best it can have some constructive aspects, as in the case of parents with children or teachers with pupils. Occasionally this aspect obtains in sexual relations, particularly if the sadistic partner is the more mature. It is sometimes conspicuous in homosexual relations between an older and a younger man. But even there the devil’s horns will show themselves if the slave gives any indication of meaning to go his own way, of having friends or interests of his own. Frequently, though not invariably, the master is haunted by a possessive jealousy and uses it as a means of torture. It is peculiar to sadistic relationships of this kind that keeping a hold over the victim is of more absorbing interest than the person’s own life. He will neglect his career, forego the pleasures or advantages of meeting other persons rather than grant the partner any independence.
The ways in which the partner is kept enslaved are characteristic. They vary only within a comparatively limited range and depend on the personality structure of both members. The sadistic person will give the partner just enough to make the relationship appear worth his while. He will fulfill certain of the partner’s needs —though rarely more than will keep him at a minimum subsistence level, psychically speaking. And he will impress upon him the unique quality of what he gives. Nobody else, he will point out, could give him such understanding, such support, so much sexual satisfaction or so many interests; nobody else, indeed, would ever put up with him. Again, he may hold him with the lure of better times—implicitly or explicitly, he will promise love or marriage or a better financial status or better treatment. Sometimes he will stress his own need of the partner and appeal to him on that ground. All these tactics are the more effective in that by being so possessive and so disparaging he isolates the partner from others. If the latter is made sufficiently dependent he may finally threaten to leave him. Still further means of intimidation may be employed, but these have so much a life of their own that they will be discussed separately, in another context. Naturally, we cannot understand what goes on in such a relationship without taking into account the characteristics of the partner. Often he is of the compliant type and hence in dread of desertion; or he may be a person who has profoundly repressed his own sadistic drives and is helpless on that account—as will be shown later.
The mutual dependence that accrues from such a situation arouses resentment not only in the enslaved but in the enslaver as well. If the latter’s need for detachment is pronounced, he is especially resentful of the partner’s absorbing so much of his thought and energy. Not realizing that he himself has created these cramping ties, he may reproach the partner for being grasping or clinging. His wanting to break away on such occasions is as much an expression of fear and resentment as a means of intimidation.
Not all sadistic craving aims at enslavement. Another sort finds its satisfaction in playing on the emotions of another person as on an instrument. In his novel, Diary of the Seducer, Søren Kirkegaard shows how a man who expects nothing of his own life can be entirely absorbed by the game itself. He knows when to show interest and when to be indifferent. He is hypersensitive in anticipating and observing the girl’s reactions to him. He knows what will arouse and what will check her erotic desires. But his sensitivity is limited to the requirements of the sadistic play: he is totally unconcerned with what this experience might mean to the girl’s life. What in Kirkegaard’s novel is conscious shrewd calculation, more often goes on unconsciously. But it is the same game of attracting and rejecting, charming and disappointing, elevating and degrading, bringing joy and bringing grief.
A third characteristic is to exploit the partner. Exploitation is not necessarily a sadistic enterprise; it may be employed merely for the sake of gain. In sadistic exploitation, too, gain may be a consideration, but it is often illusory and wholly out of proportion to the affect put into its pursuit. For the sadist, exploitation becomes a kind of passion in its own right. What matters is to experience the triumph of getting the better of others. Its specifically sadistic coloring appears in the means used for exploitation. The partner is subjected, directly and indirectly, to ever mounting demands, and is made to feel guilty or humiliated if he does not fulfill them. The sadistic person can always find a justification for feeling discontented or unfairly treated, and for demanding still more on that account. Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler illustrates how the fulfilling of such demands never evokes gratitude, and how the demands themselves are often prompted by the desire to hurt the other person and put him in his place. They may have to do with material things or sexual needs or aid in establishing a career; they may be demands for special consideration, exclusive devotion, boundless tolerance. There is nothing specifically sadistic in their content: what does point to sadism is the expectation that the partner should, by whatever means are available, fill out a life that is emotionally empty. This, too, is well illustrated by Hedda Gabler in her constant complaints of feeling bored and wanting stimulation and excitement. The need to feed, vampirelike, on the emotional vitality of another person is as a rule completely unconscious. But it is probable that it is at the bottom of the craving to exploit and that it is the soil from which the expressed demands draw their sustenance.
The nature of the exploitation becomes still clearer when we realize that there is simultaneously a tendency to frustrate others. It would be a mistake to say that the sadistic person never wants to give anything. Under certain conditions he may even be generous. What is typical of sadism is not a niggardliness in the sense of withholding but a much more active, though unconscious, impulse to thwart others—to kill their joy and to disappoint their expectations. Any satisfaction or buoyancy of the partner’s almost irresistibly provokes the sadistic person to spoil it in some way. If the partner looks forward to seeing him, he tends to be sullen. If the partner wants sexual intercourse, he will be frigid or impotent. He may not even have to do, or fail to do, anything positive. By simply radiating gloom he acts as a depressant. To quote Aldous Huxley:2 “He did not have to do anything: it was enough for him just to be. They shriveled and turned black by mere infection.” And a little later: “What an exquisite refinement of the will to power, what an elegant cruelty! And what an amazing gift for that contagious gloom which damps even the highest spirits and stifles the very possibility of joy.”
As significant as any of these is the sadistic person’s tendency to disparage and humiliate others. He is remarkably keen at seeing shortcomings, at discovering the weak spots in others and pointing them out. He knows intuitively where others are sensitive and can be hurt. And he tends to use his intuition mercilessly for derogatory criticism. This may be rationalized as honesty or as a wish to be helpful; he may believe himself to be sincerely troubled by doubts in regard to the other person’s competence or integrity—but he will become panicky if the sincerity of his doubts is questioned. It may also appear as mere suspiciousness. The patient may say: “If only I could trust that person!” But after having translated him in his dreams into everything loathsome from a cockroach to a rat, how could he expect to trust him! In other words, suspiciousness can be merely a consequence of disparaging another person in one’s own mind. And if the sadistic person is unaware of his disparaging attitude he may be conscious only of the resulting suspiciousness. Again it would seem more appropriate to speak of a passion for fault-finding than of simply a tendency. He not only turns his searchlight on actual flaws but is extremely adept at externalizing his own faults and so building up a case against the other fellow. If, for instance, he has upset someone by his own behavior, he will immediately show concern or even contempt for that person’s emotional instability. If the partner, being intimidated, is not entirely frank with him, he will reproach him for his secrecy or for lying. He will reproach him for being dependent on him when he himself has done all he could to make him so. Such undermining is not just a matter of words but is accompanied by all sorts of scornful behavior. Humiliating and degrading sexual practices can be one of its expressions.
When any of these drives is frustrated, or when the tables are turned and the sadistic person feels himself dominated, exploited, or scorned, he may have spells of an almost insane rage. In his imagination, then, no torture is great enough to inflict upon the offender: he may kick him, beat him, slice him to pieces. These spells of sadistic rage can in turn be repressed, and give rise to a state of acute panic or some functional somatic disturbance pointing to an increase of inner tension.
What, then, is the meaning of these trends? What are the inner necessities that compel a person to behave with such cruelty? The assumption that sadistic trends are the expression of a perverted sexual drive has no basis in fact. It is true that they can be expressed in sexual behavior. In this they are no exception to the general rule that all our character attitudes are bound to manifest themselves in the sexual sphere—as they do in our way of working, in our gait, in our handwriting. It is also true that many sadistic pursuits are carried on with a certain excitement or, as I have said repeatedly, with an absorbing passion. The conclusion, however, that these affects of thrill or excitement are sexual in nature, even when they are not felt as such, merely rests on the premise that every excitement is in itself sexual. But there is no evidence to substantiate such a premise. Phenomenologically the two sensations of sadistic thrill and sexual abandon are entirely different in nature.
The assertion that sadistic impulses are a persisting infantile trend has a certain appeal in that young children are often cruel to animals or younger children, and apparently get a thrill out of it. In view of this superficial similarity one might say that the elementary cruelty of the child has merely been refined. But actually it is not only refined: the cruelty of the adult sadist is different in kind. As we have seen, it has distinct characteristics which are lacking in the child’s outright cruelty. The child’s cruelty seems to be a comparatively simple response to feeling oppressed or humiliated. He asserts himself by exercising his vengeance on weaker folk. Specifically sadistic trends are more complicated and grow from more complicated roots. Besides, like every attempt to account for later peculiarities by relating them directly to early experiences, this one, too, leaves an all-important question unanswered: What are the factors that account for the persistence and elaboration of the cruelty?
Each of the above hypotheses fastens upon only a single aspect of sadism—sexuality in the one case, cruelty in the other—and fails to account even for these characteristics. The same can be said of an explanation offered by Erich Fromm,3 though it comes closer to the essentials than do the others. Fromm points out that the sadistic person does not want to destroy the one to whom he attaches himself, but because he cannot live his own life must use the partner for a symbiotic existence. This is definitely true, but it still does not sufficiently explain why a person is compulsively driven to tamper with the lives of others, or why the tampering takes the particular forms that it does.
If we regard sadism as a neurotic symptom, we must start, as always, not by trying to explain the symptom but by seeking to understand the structure of the personality that develops it. When we approach the problem from this angle we recognize that nobody develops pronounced sadistic trends who has not a profound feeling of futility as regards his own life. Poets intuitively sensed this underlying condition long before we were able to dig it out with our prodding clinical scrutiny. In the case of both Hedda Gabler and the Seducer, the possibility of ever making something of themselves or their lives was a more or less closed issue. If under these circumstances a person cannot find his way to resignation, he of necessity becomes utterly resentful. He feels forever excluded, forever defeated.
Hence he starts to hate life and all that is positive in it. But he hates it with the burning envy of one who is withheld from something he ardently desires. It is the bitter, begrudging envy of a person who feels that life is passing him by. “Lebensneid,” Nietzsche called it. He does not feel that others have their sorrows, too: “they” sit at the table while he goes hungry; “they” love, create, enjoy, feel healthy and at ease, belong somewhere. The happiness of others and their “naïve” expectations of pleasure and joy irritate him. If he cannot be happy and free, why should they be so? In the words of Dostoevski’s Idiot, he cannot forgive them their happiness. He must trample on the joy of others. His attitude is illustrated by the story of the teacher doomed by tuberculosis who spits on his pupil’s sandwiches and is elated at his power to crush them. That was a conscious act of vindictive envy. In the sadist the tendency to frustrate and to crush the spirit of others is as a rule deeply unconscious. But the purpose is the same sinister one as that of the teacher: to impart his suffering to others; if others are as defeated and degraded as he, his own misery is tempered in that he no longer feels himself the only one afflicted.
Another way he alleviates his gnawing envy is by a “sour grapes” tactic, mastered to such perfection that even the trained observer is easily deceived by it. As a matter of fact, his envy is so deeply buried that he himself would deride any suggestion of its existence. His focusing upon the painful, burdensome, or ugly side of life is thus not only an expression of his bitterness but even more of his interest in proving to himself that he is not missing anything. His constant faultfinding and devaluating stem in part from this source. He will take note, for instance, of the one part of a beautiful woman’s body that is not perfect. Coming into a room, his eyes will be arrested by the one color or piece of furniture that does not match the rest. He will pick out the one flaw in an otherwise good speech. Similarly, whatever is wrong in other persons’ lives or in their characters or in their possible motivations will loom large in his mind. If he is sophisticated he will ascribe this attitude to his being sensitive to imperfections. But the fact is that he turns his searchlight on these alone, leaving everything else in the dark.
Although he succeeds in assuaging his envy and discharging his resentment, his devaluating attitude in turn gives rise to a permanent feeling of disappointment and discontent. If he has children, for instance, he thinks primarily of the burdens and obligations that go with them; if he has no children he feels that this most important human experience has been denied him. If he has no sexual relations he feels deprived and is concerned about the dangers of continence; if he has sexual relations he feels humiliated by them and ashamed of them. If he has an opportunity to make a trip, he chafes under the inconveniences; if he cannot travel he deems it a disgrace to have to stay at home. Since it does not occur to him that the sources of his chronic discontent could lie within himself, he feels entitled to impress upon others how they fail him and to make ever greater demands whose fulfillment can never satisfy him.
The bitter envy, the tendency to devaluate and the resulting discontent account to some extent for certain of the sadistic trends. We understand why the sadist is driven to frustrate others, to inflict suffering, to find fault, to make insatiable demands. But we can appreciate neither the extent of his destructiveness nor his arrogant self-righteousness until we consider what his hopelessness does to his relation to himself.
While he violates the most elementary requirements of human decency, he at the same time harbors within himself an idealized image of particularly high and rigid moral standards. He is one of those (we have spoken of them before) who, despairing of ever being able to measure up to such standards, have consciously or unconsciously resolved to be as “bad” as possible. He may succeed in being “bad” and wallow in it with a kind of desperate delight. But by doing so the chasm between the idealized image and the actual self becomes unbridgeable. He feels beyond repair and beyond forgiveness. His hopelessness becomes deeper and he develops the recklessness of a person who has nothing to lose. As long as this condition persists it is factually impossible for him to assume a constructive attitude toward himself. Any direct attempt to make him constructive is doomed to futility and betrays ignorance of his condition.
His self-loathing reaches such dimensions that he cannot take a look at himself. He must fortify himself against it by reinforcing an already existing armor of righteousness. The slightest criticism, neglect, or absence of special recognition can mobilize his self-contempt and so must be rejected as unfair. He is compelled, therefore, to externalize his self-contempt, to blame, berate, humiliate others. This, however, throws him into the toils of a vicious circle. The more he despises others the less is he aware of his self-contempt— and the self-contempt grows more violent and merciless the more hopeless he becomes. To strike out against others is then a matter of self-preservation. The process is illustrated by the example cited previously of the patient who accused her husband of indecision and wanted to tear herself to pieces when she realized that she was really furious at her own indecision.
In this light we begin to appreciate why it is imperative for the sadistic person to disparage others. And we can see now, too, the inner logic of his compulsive and often fanatical drive to reform others, or at least to reform the partner. Since he himself cannot measure up to his idealized image, the partner must do so; and the merciless rage he feels toward himself is vented on the partner for any failure in this direction. He may ask himself sometimes: “Why don’t I leave him alone?” But it is apparent that such rational considerations are of no avail as long as the inner battle persists and is externalized. He usually rationalizes the pressure he exerts on the partner as “love” or interest in the partner’s “development.” Needless to say, it is not love. But neither is it an interest in the partner’s development along his own lines, in accordance with his own inner laws. In reality he tries to enforce upon the partner the impossible task of realizing his—the sadist’s—idealized image. The righteousness which he had to develop as a shield against self-contempt permits him to do so with smug assurance.
An understanding of this inner struggle provides us also with a better insight into another more general factor inherent in sadistic symptoms: the vindictiveness that often seeps through every cell of the sadist’s personality like a poison. He is and must be vindictive because he turns his violent contempt for himself outward. Since his righteousness prevents him from seeing his share in any difficulty that arises he must feel that he is the one who is abused and victimized; since he cannot see that the source of all his despair lies within himself he must hold others responsible for it. They have ruined his life, they have to make up for it—they have to take what’s coming to them. It is this vindictiveness, more than any other factor, that kills within him all feelings of sympathy and mercy. Why should he have sympathy for those who have spoiled his life—and in addition are better off than he? In individual instances the desire for revenge may be conscious; he may be aware of it, for example, in reference to his parents. He is not aware, however, that it is a pervasive character trend.
The sadistic person, as we have seen him thus far, is one who because he feels excluded and doomed runs amok, venting his rage at others in blind vindictiveness. And we understand, now, that by making others miserable he seeks to alleviate his own misery. But this can hardly be the whole explanation. The destructive aspects alone do not explain the absorbing passion characteristic of so many sadistic pursuits. There must be some more positive gains, gains that for the sadistic person are of vital importance. This statement might seem to contradict the assumption that sadism is an outgrowth of hopelessness. How can a hopeless person hope for something and go after it, what is more, with such consuming energy? The fact is, however, that from a subjective standpoint there is considerable to be gained. In degrading others he not only allays his intolerable self-contempt but at the same time gives himself a feeling of superiority. When he molds the lives of others he not only gains a stimulating feeling of power over them but also finds a substitute meaning for his life. When he exploits others emotionally he provides a vicarious emotional life for himself that lessens his own sense of barrenness. When he defeats others he wins a triumphant elation which obscures his own hopeless defeat. This craving for vindictive triumph is probably his most intense motivating force.
All his pursuits serve as well to gratify his hunger for thrills and excitement. A healthy, well-balanced person does not need such thrills. The more mature he is the less does he care for them. But the emotional life of the sadistic person is empty. Almost all feelings except those of anger and triumph have been choked off. He is so dead that he needs these sharp stimuli to feel alive.
Last but not least, his sadistic dealings with others provide him with a feeling of strength and pride which reinforce his unconscious feeling of omnipotence. During analysis a patient’s attitude toward his sadistic trends undergoes profound changes. When he first becomes aware of them, he is likely to assume a critical attitude toward them. But his implied rejection is not wholehearted; it is rather a matter of giving lip service to current standards. Intermittently he may have spells of self-loathing. At a later period, however, when he is on the verge of relinquishing his sadistic way of living, he may suddenly feel that he is about to lose something precious. He may then for the first time consciously experience elation at being able to do with others as he pleases. He may express concern lest analysis turn him into a contemptible weakling. And again, as so often in analysis, the patient’s concern is subjectively warranted: bereft of his power to make others serve his emotional needs he sees himself as a wretched and helpless creature. In time he will realize that the feeling of strength and pride he derived from being sadistic is a poor substitute. It was precious to him only because real strength and real pride were unattainable.
When we are aware of the nature of these gains we see that there is no contradiction in the statement that a hopeless person may be frantically searching for something. But it is not greater freedom or greater self-fulfillment that he expects to find: all that goes to make up his hopelessness remains unchanged, and he does not count on changing it. What he pursues are substitutes.
The emotional gains are achieved by living vicariously. To be sadistic means to live aggressively and for the most part destructively, through other persons. But this is the only way a person so utterly defeated can live. The recklessness with which he pursues his goals is the recklessness born of despair. Having nothing to lose, he can only gain. In this sense sadistic strivings have a positive goal and must be regarded as an attempt at restitution. The reason why the goal is so passionately pursued is that in triumphing over others the sadistic person is able to remove his own abject sense of defeat.
The destructive elements inherent in these strivings cannot, however, remain without repercussions on the individual himself. We have already pointed to the heightening of self-contempt. An equally significant repercussion is the generation of anxiety. This is in part a fear of retaliation: he fears that others will treat him as he treats them—or wants to treat them. Consciously, it appears not so much as a fear as in simply taking it for granted that they would “give him a raw deal” if they could—that is, if he does not prevent it by being constantly on the offensive. He must be so alert in foreseeing and forestalling any possible attack that for all practical purposes he will be inviolable. The unconscious conviction of his own inviolability often plays a considerable role. It gives him a lordly feeling of security: he could never be hurt, he could never be exposed, he could never have an accident or contract a disease; he could not, indeed, ever die. If nonetheless he does get hurt, by persons or circumstances, his pseudo security is shattered and he is likely to be seized by acute panic.
In part, his anxiety is a fear of the explosive, destructive elements within himself He feels like a person who carries a highly charged bomb around with him. Excessive self-control and continuous vigilance are needed to keep these dangerous elements in check. They may come to the surface when he drinks, if he is not too frightened to loosen up under the influence of liquor. He may then become violently destructive. The impulses may also come closer to awareness under special conditions that for him represent temptation. Thus the sadist in Zola’s Bête Humaine becomes panicky when attracted by a girl because this arouses an impulse to murder her. Witnessing an accident or any act of cruelty may bring on a seizure of fear because these awaken his own impulse to destroy.
These two factors—self-contempt and anxiety—are largely responsible for the repression of sadistic impulses. The thoroughness and depth of repression vary. Often the destructive impulses are merely kept from awareness. By and large it is astonishing how much sadistic behavior can be lived out without the individual’s knowing it. He is conscious only of occasional desires to mistreat a weaker person, of being excited when he reads about sadistic acts, or of having some obviously sadistic fantasies. But these sporadic glimpses remain isolated. The bulk of what he does to others in his daily behavior is for the most part unconscious. His numbness of feeling for himself and others is one factor that blurs the issue; until this is dispelled he cannot emotionally experience what he does. Besides, the justifications brought to bear to conceal the sadistic trends are often clever enough to deceive not only the sadistic person himself but even those affected by them. We must not forget that sadism is an end stage of a severe neurosis. Hence the kind of justification employed will depend upon the structure of the particular neurosis from which the sadistic trends stem. The compliant type, for instance, will enslave the partner under the unconscious pretense of love. His demands will be attributed to his needs. Because he is so helpless or so apprehensive or so ill, the partner should do things for him. Because he cannot be alone, the partner should always be with him. His reproaches will be expressed indirectly by his demonstrating, unconsciously, how much others make him suffer.
The aggressive type expresses sadistic trends quite undisguisedly—which, however, does not mean that he is any more aware of them. He has no hesitation in showing his discontent, his scorn, and his demands but feels that, besides being entirely justified, he is simply being frank. He will also externalize his lack of regard for others and the fact that he exploits them, and will intimidate them by telling them in no uncertain terms how much they abuse him.
The detached person is singularly unobtrusive in expressing sadistic trends. He will frustrate others in a quiet way, making them feel insecure by his readiness to withdraw, conveying the impression that they are cramping or disturbing him, and taking secret delight in letting them make fools of themselves.
But sadistic impulses can be much more deeply repressed, and then give rise to what might be called an inverted sadism. What happens here is that the person so greatly fears his impulses that he leans over backward to keep them from being revealed to himself or others. He will shun everything that resembles assertion, aggression, or hostility and as a result will be profoundly and diffusely inhibited.
A brief outline will give an idea of what this process entails. To lean over backward from enslaving others is to be incapable of giving any order, much less of assuming a position of responsibility or leadership. It makes for overcaution in exerting influence or giving advice. It involves the repression of even the most legitimate jealousy. A good observer will merely notice that the person gets a headache, a stomach ailment, or some other symptom when things do not go his way.
Leaning over backward from exploiting others brings self-effacing tendencies to the fore. It shows in not daring to express any wish—not daring even to have a wish; in not daring to rebel against abuse or even to feel abused; in tending to regard the expectations or demands of others as better justified or more important than one’s own; in preferring to be exploited rather than assert one’s own interest. Such a person is between the devil and the deep blue sea. He is frightened of his impulses to exploit but despises himself for his unassertiveness, which he registers as cowardice. And when he is exploited—as will naturally happen—he is caught in an unsolvable dilemma and may react with a depression or some functional symptom.
Similarly, instead of frustrating others he will be overanxious not to disappoint them, to be considerate and generous. He will go to great lengths to avoid anything that could conceivably hurt their feelings or in any way humiliate them. He will intuitively find something “nice” to say—an appreciative remark, for instance, that will heighten their self-confidence. He tends automatically to take blame on himself and will be profuse in his apologies. If he must make a criticism he will make it in the mildest possible form. Even when others grossly abuse him he will show nothing but “understanding.” But at the same time he is hypersensitive to humiliation and suffers excruciatingly under it.
The sadistic play on emotions, when deeply repressed, may give place to a feeling that one is powerless to attract anyone. Thus a person may honestly believe—often in spite of good evidence to the contrary— that he is unattractive to the opposite sex, that he has to content himself with the crumbs. To speak in this case of a feeling of inferiority is merely to use another word for what the person is conscious of anyhow, and what may simply be an expression of his self-contempt. But of relevance here is the fact that the notion of unattractiveness may be an unconscious recoil from the temptation of playing the exciting game of conquering and rejecting. During analysis it may gradually become clear that the patient has unconsciously falsified the whole picture of his love relations. And a curious change will take place: the “ugly duckling” becomes aware of his desire and capacity to attract people, but turns against them with indignation and contempt as soon as they take his advances seriously.
The consequent personality picture is deceptive and difficult to evaluate. Its similarity to the compliant type is striking. As a matter of fact, while the overtly sadistic person ordinarily belongs to the aggressive type, the inverted sadist began, as a rule, by developing predominantly compliant trends. The likelihood is that he was especially hard hit and crushed into submission in childhood. He may have falsified his feelings, and, instead of rebelling against the oppressor, turned to loving him. As he grew older—perhaps around puberty— the conflicts became unbearable and he took refuge in detachment. But when confronted with failure he could no longer stand the isolation of his ivory tower. He then seemingly reverted to his former dependence, but with this difference: his need for affection became so desperate that he was willing to pay any price not to be left alone. At the same time his chances of finding affection were diminished because his need for detachment— which was still present—constantly interfered with his desire to attach himself to someone. Worn out by this struggle, he became hopeless and developed sadistic tendencies. But his need for people was so insistent that he had not only to repress his sadistic trends but to lean over backward to conceal them.
Being with others is, in this event, a strain—though he may not realize it. He tends to be stilted and shy. He must constantly play a role that is contrary to his sadistic impulses. It is only natural that he himself should think he is really fond of people; and it comes as a shock to him when in analysis he wakes up to the fact that he has very little feeling for them at all, or at least is quite uncertain what his feelings are. At this point he is inclined to take this apparent lack for an unalterable fact. But actually he is merely in process of relinquishing his pretense of positive feelings, and unconsciously prefers to feel nothing rather than face his sadistic impulses. A positive feeling for others can only begin to develop when he recognizes those impulses and starts to overcome them.
There are certain elements in the picture, however, that to the trained observer will indicate the presence of sadistic trends. To begin with, there is always some insidious way in which he can be seen to intimidate, exploit, and frustrate others. There is usually a perceptible though unconscious contempt for others, superficially attributed to their lower moral standards. In addition, there are a number of incongruities which point to sadism. The person, for instance, may sometimes put up with sadistic behavior directed at himself with apparently limitless patience but at other times show hypersensitivity to the slightest domination, exploitation, or humiliation. Finally, he gives the impression of being “masochistic”—namely, of indulging in feeling victimized. But since the term and the concept behind it are misleading, it is better to steer away from it and describe instead the elements involved. Being pervasively inhibited in asserting himself, the inverted sadist will in any case be readily abused. But, in addition, because he chafes under his own weakness, he is often actually attracted to openly sadistic persons, at once admiring and abhorring them—just as the latter, sensing in him a willing victim, are attracted to him. Thus he puts himself in the way of exploitation, frustration, and humiliation. Far from enjoying such maltreatment, however, he suffers under it. What it gives him is an opportunity to live out his own sadistic impulses through someone else, without having to face his own sadism. He can feel innocent and morally indignant—while hoping at the same time that some day he will get the better of the sadistic partner and triumph over him.
Freud observed the picture I describe but vitiated his findings with unwarranted generalizations. In fitting them into the frame of his whole philosophy, he took them as proof that no matter how good a person is on the surface, he is inherently destructive. Actually, the condition is a particular outgrowth of a particular neurosis.
We have come a long way from the point of view that regards a sadistic person as a sexual pervert or that uses elaborate terminology to say he is mean and vicious. The sexual perversions are comparatively rare. When they are present they are merely one expression of a general attitude toward others. The destructive trends are undeniable; but when we understand them we see a suffering human being behind the apparently inhuman behavior. With this we open the possibility of reaching such a human being by therapy. We find him a desperate individual who seeks restitution for a life that has defeated him.
1 Erich Fromm, “Individual and Social Origins of Neurosis,” American Sociological Review, Vol. IX, No. 4, 1944.
2 Aldous Huxley, Time Must Have a Stop, Chatto and Windus, London, 1944.
3 Erich Fromm, The Fear of Freedom, Kegan Paul, London. 1941