The story of Sam: continuities and discontinuities in development, transforming into and out of a perversion

The aim of this paper is to suggest new ways of understanding development that offer new therapeutic possibilities. I use observational and interview data showing the development of one research subject over forty years to highlight that the concepts of continuity and discontinuity need to be considered together to grasp the full complexity of psychological development. In the subject an unanticipated transformation occurs at age 14, the emergence of a perversion, whichfades by age 28. I will show that the observations can be best understood by co-ordinating the influence of antecedents that exert a pull backward with the transformative potential arising from the pull forward into new structures, compromises, and organizations.