The analysis of the fictional character Dexter makes it possible to construct metapsychological hypotheses about the origins of perversion. The perverse position in this case is caused by the strong presence of violence at the psychic subject's origin. Dexter expresses the suffered abandonment by acting-out, the serial murders, trying to reverse the state of passivity in which he is. Dexter's anxiety can be organized in two distinct ways: The first is conscious, supported by his father, Harry, who teaches him how not to leave traces of his crimes. The second way is unconscious and translates the desire of subject the other to pain, allowing the perverse, through projective identification, to enjoy the suffering he causes, being remitted to his originary experiences of subjection. We conclude that in perversion, anxiety is not only present but is also constitutive of subject's choice to operate through the path of violence.
Perversion; anxiety; violence