The word “masochism” is usually associated with pathology, including its manifestations in sexuality. However, masochism has multiple dimensions and is more often found in forms that we would not call masochistic. Below I outline various manifestations of self-destructive behaviour provoked by an unconscious sense of guilt and the desire for self-punishment.
On this occasion, in her book, “Astrological Neptune and the Quest for Redemption,” Liz Greene writes:
“The compulsive expiation of guilt-generated masochism can make us destroy our relationships, perpetrate our own material failures, spoil our job interviews, wreck our creative projects, and espouse all kinds of self-destructive and self-denigrating behaviour. It can make us fall in love with those who reject, abuse, and humiliate us, or those whose own manipulative needs make our lives a hell of frustration.”
We usually project our impulses for self-destruction into the fate or the actions of other people. Someone else is the cause of our failures and successes. Yet the psyche is profoundly complex, and its hidden dynamics are often the opposite of our conscious attitudes. This is one of the fundamental reasons why psychotherapy exists as a profession.
The vast majority of the reasons for what happens to us is in the unconscious and obeys patterns we don’t even suspect exist. If we wish to know and integrate the dark part of the psyche, we need not only radical inner honesty but also knowledge of the hidden dynamics of mental processes. These will help us recognize our hidden complicity in the self-destructive scenario and irrational motivation to be a failure. And then to change this scenario.
In the chapter “The Pursuit of Suffering”, Liz Greenе presents various aspects of self-destructive behavior from a psychoanalytic perspective (Sigmund Freud, Wilhelm Reich, and Karen Horney) and their relationship to the archetypal longing for redemption and self-sacrifice. I find them extremely valuable, so I will present them briefly below.
Masochism as instant redemption
According to Freud, masochism reflects a fusion of the pleasure principle with a self-destructive tendency inherent in the psyche. When these two impulses are fused in the unconscious, they are experienced as pleasure from pain – the true essence of masochism. And the compulsive need to inflict pain on ourselves stems from the guilt and anxiety that accompany the desire for pleasure.
“Freud understood masochism to reflect a fixation or arresting of development, at a point where stimulation and erotic excitement were fused with pain, submission, and humiliation. Masochism may be defined as pleasure in pain. Freud eventually concluded that this fusion of pleasure and pain results from the terrible guilt and anxiety invoked by incestuous desires. An automatic need for self-punishment therefore accompanies any experience of pleasurable fulfilment.
It is a kind of instant expiation which takes place at the same time as the sin, thus forestalling the vengeance of God or parent, while at the same time claiming the forbidden fruit.
This instant expiation need not occur solely in the sexual sphere, where the original incest-taboo has been breached. It can attach itself to anything in life which becomes an object of desire—a person, a vocational ambition, or an inner experience of self-esteem and confidence.”
Liz Greene
Masochism and fear of one’s own aggression
According to Wilhelm Reich, the defence mechanism behind masochism is to prevent the individual from becoming aware of and expressing his emotions of aggression and rage. This is the realm of what is commonly called “passive aggression.”
“Wilhelm Reich was interested in the aggressive elements in masochistic behaviour; he believed that masochistic individuals use their self-inflicted suffering to defend themselves against the consequences of their rage. This premise is reflected in the resentment which self-victimising behaviour arouses in others, where sympathy might be expected instead; for others sense, even if they do not recognise, that the masochist’s passivity masks far more hateful feelings.
The aggression implicit in masochistic behaviour is a reflection, in clinical terms, of the apocalyptic fantasy of the Day of Judgement, when the tyrannical evil rulers of the world are punished and overthrown, and the suffering righteous inherit the Earth. Reich saw the future masochist as a person who has been excessively frustrated or hurt in childhood, but in whom the intractability of the parents, combined with his or her own inherent passivity and fear of separateness, results in deep defences against the unleashing of aggression.”
Liz Greene
Masochism and the illusion of power
Karen Horney completes the picture for understanding self-destructive behaviour by adding another element – self-inflicted suffering maintains the illusion that we have power over our pain, so we are not powerless.
“Karen Horney understood the masochist to have established the ‘strategic value of suffering’ as a defence against feelings of weakness, insignificance, and inordinate needs for affection and approval. Burdened by a sense of unbearable impotence in the face of a rejecting or frustrating world, the masochist submerges himself or herself in a Dionysian orgy of torment, which, because it is self-inflicted, gives the illusion of power and choice.
The ecstasy of pain or repeated failure thus becomes a defence against feelings of utter helplessness, because one’s suffering appears to be under one’s own control. It is often ennobled by being called ‘self-sacrifice.’ This may sound incredibly perverse; but there is Neptunian method in the madness.”
Liz Greene
Masochism and the quest for self-punishment
The essence of self-sacrifice is the experience of self-imposed suffering, but the same applies to masochism. What turns self-imposed suffering into masochism, i.e., into pathology, is if it serves unhealthy mechanisms of the ego’s defence against moral conflicts that it does not have the resources to resolve in other, healthier ways. Another way of saying the same thing is that behind masochism is the desire to self-punish in order to avoid rejection or punishment from other people when they see our “dark” side.
The irony is that instead of a denial of ego (the true essence of self-sacrifice), masochism manifests the opposite – a defence of ego, albeit in a highly distorted way. And this happens because the ego is not yet sufficiently shaped to withstand the strain of internal conflicts. It is not yet ready to give up its childish longing for paradise, which would mean a life without conflict and pain, without loneliness and sin. And here comes the even greater irony – it is this renunciation of paradise that is the true sacrifice. There really is no other sacrifice (see: Liz Greene on what true sacrifice is).
When we make this sacrifice, the compulsion to self-punish disappears.
In this sense, masochism as an expression of pathology is a means of avoiding pain – we inflict suffering on ourselves in order to avoid real suffering. And so masochism is a defence mechanism of the self that protects the individual from unbearable feelings of guilt and anxiety about his incestuous desires (Freud). It is an expression of self-inflicted pain designed to punish one for one’s sinfulness and aggressive impulses (Reich).
It is also a means of avoiding the feeling of powerlessness by creating the illusion of imaginary power, since at least the self-inflicted suffering is within one’s control (Horney). What these different psychoanalytic interpretations of the motivation behind self-destructive behaviour have in common is that it is a means of avoiding the experience of real pain – the confrontation with our dark side, as well as a resistance to the feeling of powerlessness.
Masochism and the longing for redemption
From this point onward I move beyond Greene’s psychoanalytic framework and offer my own reflections.
As usual, the solution to inner conflicts can be found in the spiritual dimension. And the spiritual dimension of the desire for suffering is the longing for redemption. For this redemption to happen, we need to stop running away from the real pain. When we let go of neurotic suffering, only the existential remains. Only then does self-destructive behaviour begin to manifest in a positive way, namely, as a sacrifice of the ego-will and its submission to a higher will. In my experience, many psychological problems and unhealthy defence mechanisms stem not so much from conscious resistance to pain as from ignorance.
So knowing that masochism is a form of escape from real pain helps to stop the running. We look in the mirror with the intention of seeing everything about ourselves that we don’t like. Everything that makes us feel ashamed and evil and unworthy. And when we see it, we don’t run away. The task is to remain present—to allow the truth to be there, even when it hurts. It is being present in this truth, however painful, that cures us of pathological forms of masochism, because it is the means to inner wholeness. Apart from ignorance, another cause of resistance to existential suffering, which manifests itself through unconscious forms of self-destructive behaviour, is the lack of sufficient honesty with oneself and a willingness to make the true sacrifice. When dealing with this kind of resistance, psychotherapy is powerless to help.
“Horney’s description of masochism is evident in the peculiar resistance which the self-victimising person displays toward any real help. It is important to defeat the offerings of the psychotherapist, and even the astrologer, because this preserves the illusion that one is powerful enough to reject others. Most individuals working in the helping professions have experienced this resistance at first hand. When dealing with such a client, analytically trained psychotherapists understand their own feelings of helplessness as countertransference (the client wishes to make the therapist feel the powerlessness he or she is trying to avoid feeling).
Masochistic behaviour is a means of assuming omnipotence through making others feel guilty and impotent themselves. It is also a means of assuming control through a process of self-injury far more powerful than anything others can do to inflict harm.”
Liz Greene
Another irony is that the one who resists powerlessness and refuses to give up his omnipotence is the god inhabiting the body of man. This is the unconscious Yahweh. His conscious opposite is the Son, the redeemer. Christ is the most vivid symbol of the archetype of martyrdom, which is no longer manifested in pathological forms of self-victimisation, but in the purest forms of self-sacrifice, compassion, and love.
The difference between these two is very thin, however, and this is where I see the value of what Liz Greene has written in this book. It helps us understand when we are talking about healthy forms of self-imposed suffering – conscious self-sacrifice – and when that self-imposed suffering is an expression of pathology and masochism (resistance to true self-sacrifice).
Kameliya Hadzhiyska
All quotes above are from the book Greene, Liz. The Astrological Neptune and the Quest for Redemption
