I was reading recently about Freud's essay on the debasement of love objects, he suggested that everyone, as a universal trait, experiences either affection towards a love-object or desire and the conflict between feelings of one kind and another accounts for sexual impotence, the feelings of affection are associated with siblings and parents of the opposite sex, so if you experience the same feelings for an object of your desire as your siblings and parents incest taboos result in sexual impotence.
However, I was reading that in coming up with this theory Freud did a lot of extrapolating from the experience and reports of sadists, understandably extreme examples, I would have thought exceptional, pathological or abnormal cases.
My question is how useful do you think that is? Wouldnt that be unrepresentative of universal developmental pathways? Or is it a matter of being precisely the opposite and a good guide to the same, providing obvious insights from exaggerated cases, the only difference being the exaggerated nature.
However, I was reading that in coming up with this theory Freud did a lot of extrapolating from the experience and reports of sadists, understandably extreme examples, I would have thought exceptional, pathological or abnormal cases.
My question is how useful do you think that is? Wouldnt that be unrepresentative of universal developmental pathways? Or is it a matter of being precisely the opposite and a good guide to the same, providing obvious insights from exaggerated cases, the only difference being the exaggerated nature.
