and even criminal acts. A. Paradoxia. Sexual Instinct Manifesting itself Independently of Physiological Processes. 1. Sexual Instinct Manifested in Childhood. Psychopathia Sexualis: eine Klinisch-Forensische Studie ( Sexual Psychopathy: A Clinical-Forensic Study, also known as Psychopathia Sexualis, with Especial Reference to the Antipathetic Sexual Instinct: A Medico-forensic Study) is an 1886 book by Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing and one of the first texts about sexual pathology. The book details a wide range of paraphilias and focuses on male homosexuality/ bisexuality (the "antipathetic instinct" of the subtitle). The book coined the terms " sadism and masochism" as well as borrowing the term bisexual from botanical language.

Leahey, Th. H. [1991] 2000. A History of Modern Psychology. Englewood Cliff, NJ. Prentice Hall. 3rd edition. ISBN 0130175730 in 1965, an English translation derived from the 12th German edition was written by Franklin S. Kaf, with an introduction by Kaf and a foreword by Joseph LoPiccolo John K. Noyes. The Mastery of Submission. Inventions of Masochism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-8014-3345-2 Today, most contemporary psychiatrists no longer consider homosexual practices as pathological (as Krafft-Ebing did in his first studies): partly due to new conceptions, and partly due to Krafft-Ebing's own self-correction. His work led to the study of transgenderism or transsexuality as another differentiation correctable by means of surgery, rather than by psychiatry or psychology.Harry Oosterhuis: Stepchildren of nature. Krafft-Ebing, Psychiatry, and the making of sexual Identity. University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2000, ISBN 0-226-63059-5.

In 2006, an independent film based on the book was made in Atlanta; the film was titled Psychopathia Sexualis. [3] Editions [ edit ] This diagnosis allowed him to advocate for complete decriminalization of homosexuality, arguing that homosexuals were not responsible for their "malformation" and that homosexuality was not contagious. Although Krafft-Ebing was considered an authoritative figure in the field of forensic medicine at his time, this theory remained without consequences for decriminalization.

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Krafft-Ebing's principal work is Psychopathia Sexualis: eine Klinisch-Forensische Studie ( Sexual Psychopathy: A Clinical-Forensic Study), which was first published in 1886 and expanded in subsequent editions. The last edition from the hand of the author (the twelfth) contained a total of 238 case histories of human sexual behaviour. [9] Krafft-Ebing became deeply interested in the study of the subject. He elaborated an evolutionist theory considering homosexuality as an anomalous process developed during the gestation of the embryo and fetus, evolving into a "sexual inversion" of the brain. Some years later, in 1901, he corrected himself in an article published in the Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen, changing the term "anomaly" to "differentiation." Krafft-Ebing's final conclusions remained forgotten for many years, partly because Sigmund Freud's theories captivated the attention of those that considered homosexuality a "psychological problem" (as did the majority at the time), and partly because Krafft-Ebing had incurred some enmity from the Austrian Catholic church by associating the desire for sanctity and martyrdom with hysteria and masochism (besides denying the perversity of homosexuals).

Karl Lenz, Werner Schefold, Wolfgang Schröer: Boundless Life Management: Youth, Gender and Youth Welfare, 2004. This does not necessarily mean that the way individuals understood their sexual self should be considered as a reflection of an internal, psychological essence. Neither psychiatric case histories nor autobiographies are unmediated sources for the voices of the sexual self. Sexual identities crystallised as patterned narratives. As such, their content and form were of a social rather than of a psychological origin. For the materialisation of sexual identity, a cultural model, a script, was necessary. 90 In this respect, the psychiatric case history method and, connected to it, the effects of self-confession and, in Philippe Weber’s words, ‘the drive to narrate’, played a crucial role. 91 Hence, the case histories offered a fitting framework to look at and understand one’s self by making sexual desires and experiences an integral part of one’s life history. Sexual identity presumed a reflexive awareness, an ability to interrogate the past from the perspective of the present, and to tell a coherent story about one’s life in the light of what might be anticipated for the future. Above all, the story of one’s life was told as a continuous process with an inner logic leading up to the present situation. 92 Paolo Savoia. "Sexual Science and Self-Narrative: Epistemology and Narrative Technologies of the Self between Krafft-Ebing and Freud," History of the Human Sciences, 23 (5), 2010.Research into Psychopathia Sexualis], his explanatory focus clearly shifted from a physiological to a more psychological understanding – not so much were bodily characteristics or actual behaviour decisive in the diagnosis of perversion, but inner feelings and personal history. Consequently, he located the seat of sexual desire in the personality. It was the psychological attitude behind outward appearance and behaviour that counted as the defining criterion of contrary sexual feeling, sadism, masochism and fetishism. 82 The association of the abnormal act with its ‘psychological motive’, and the ‘abnormalities of thought and feeling’ were crucial, Krafft-Ebing wrote, even if people were not aware of them; discussing sexual desire he – as well as some of his clients – frequently used the psychological terms ‘unconscious’ and ‘latent’. 83 Principal work [ edit ] The first edition of Psychopathia Sexualis (1886), by Richard von Krafft-Ebing. After a one-year stint at the newly established Psychiatric Clinic of the University of Strasbourg — the university clinic consisted of two beds in a room for men, another two-bed room for women, and two rooms for clinic management — the now thirty-two-year-old university professor had to tolerate these limitations only for a short time.