Related Experiment Video
Updated: Apr 30, 2026

Exploring X Chromosomal Aberrations in Ovarian Cells by Using Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization
Published on: April 7, 2023
Sexual aberration or instinctual vicissitude? Revisiting freud's "the sexual aberrations"
1Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine and a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis, New Haven, Connecticut.
Abstract:
The author reconsiders Freud's "The Sexual Aberrations," the first of his Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), in light of contemporary psychoanalytic theory. Are the concepts of sexual aberration and norm still viable? The author argues that they are necessary but insufficient elements in current theory. He then presents a competing model in which sexuality can be reduced to a more elemental level of disturbance and wish, where it is an expression of a nonsexual wish--for example, to possess or control the object to eliminate separateness. The author presents clinical material to demonstrate this alternative model.
Related Concept Videos
Psychosexual Theory of Development
The Five Stages of Psychosexual Development
Freud's psychosexual...
Psychosexual Stages of Personality: Phallic
Psychosexual Stages of Personality: Genital
Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory
Freud's concept of psychic determinism asserts...
Instinct Theory
Criticisms of the Evolutionary Perspective
Evolutionary psychology provides one explanation for these findings, suggesting...

