Collusive induction in perverse relating: Perverse enactments and bastions as a camouflage for death anxiety

Abstract

The author argues that one of the main functions of perverse relatedness is to induce the analyst into becoming the patient's unconscious accomplice in a “perverse pact” against the analytic work aimed at disavowing intolerable aspects of reality. The intense power of collusive induction in perverse relating leads the analyst to participate in transference‐countertransference enactments and to the crystallization of a silent and chronic unconscious collusion between the patient and analyst in the analytic field, stagnating the process (bastion; Baranger and Baranger). The author claims that analysis of perverse pathology should not be limited to interpretation of the patient's intrapsychic functioning but should also focus on the information obtained by the analyst through his participation in collusive enactments; the analyst should also take a “second look” at the analytic “field” to detect underlying bastions. The author reviews the main psychoanalytic contributions that have clarified the phenomenon of collusive induction in perverse relating and as an illustration, describes the analysis of a man with a perverse character; in this patient, one of the main functions of his perverse relatedness was to induce the analyst to become an accomplice in his disavowal of his terror of death. The author highlights the influence of death anxiety in the bastions that develop in the treatment of perverse patients.