Origins of sadism

Origins of sadism
Monday June 12, 2006

Dear Dr Miller,

On reading your excellent piece on the origins of torture I wrote to the two websites asking for permission to quote. One of them said I could so long as I acknowledged where the piece had come from and the other provided me with this email.

I am a British psychoanalyst and consultant child psychotherapist who works totally in the field of learning disability (mental retardation), sexual abuse, ritual abuse and dissociative identity disorder. I have struggled with the tension between my views and work in this field and mainstream psychoanalysis. I have been so profoundly helped in my work thanks to all your books.

And many of my patients and clients over the years have been profoundly helped by you too. Thank you.

I quoted from your paper at a conference on origins of sadism in childhood and the speakers were Dr Felicity de Zuliueta (from the Maudsley), brian Masters, who has written on addictive killers and myself .

Best wishes

V. S.

AM: Thank you for your letter. Could you explain us how you can use my findings about the origins of sadism in childood mistreatment in your work as psychoanalyst? Doesn’t it create a contradiction?