This article discusses a clinical case in which main symptom was the accomplishment of masochistic desires, expressed both in a specific erotic scene involving risks, pain and humiliation, and in the patient's psychodynamics, grounded on a cult of suffering and guided to self-destruction, which interfered in other dimensions of patient's life: work, intellectual and loving bonds. Initially, the metapsychology of masochism in Freud's work is summarized, as well as a reassessment promoted by the Theory of Generalized Seduction, formulated by Jean Laplanche. Next, the patient's etiology and his mental arrangement are discussed, as well as his psychoanalytic process, with the main moments of acting out and repeating the seduction fantasies in the context of transference. The formulation of symptoms during his psychoanalysis is understood as an effect of a new translation to his sexual enigmas, which were formulated especially from maternal and paternal messages, characterized by sadism and perversion.
Psychoanalysis; clinical case; masochism