Child physical and sexual abuse: the roles of sadism and sexuality

Based on the analytical concepts of narcissism and perversion and clinical material, an hypothesis is presented for the understanding of the mental functioning of the physically and sexually abusive parent. Relating the aggressive instinct to narcissism and the sexual instinct to perversion, two modes of functioning are presented which have some points in common and some diverging but which show the dynamics involved in physical and sexual abuse. Understanding the type of emotional relationship between the parents and the type of their emotional investment in their child allows us to see how the complicity of parents works against the child. This understanding implicitly gives insight into the structuring of the personality of the child-victim, who in turn undergoes the risk of himself becoming a physically and/or sexually abusive parent with his own children.