The eroticisation of gaze in the psychoanalytic treatment of a paedophile

In this article I discuss the clinical case of a patient whose main symptoms included paedophiliac perversions and an obsessive sexual interest in filming and watching himself whilst performing masturbatory sex in front of a webcam, something that I have come to refer to as “self-voyeurism”. Whereas voyeurism has been widely explored in psychoanalytic literature, to the best of my knowledge the psychological meaning of “self-voyeurism” has not. Based on the relational history of my patient, I will discuss that the “self-voyeurism” was an eroticisation of attachment trauma, specifically the experience of an absent mother’s gaze which constellated a threatening infanticidal presence, along with a way to cope with his subsequent traumata, including sexual and physical abuse at the hands of a violent father. I believe that this perverse symptomatology was both a defence structure against attachment and a powerful way of communicating his wish for closeness and intimacy.