Janie Riley:

1. Describe Freud’s theory of polymorphous perversion and distinguish between sexuality and the infantile sexual as described by Dominique Scarfone, so as to lay a foundation for understanding the historical roots and evolving ideas about perversion within psychoanalysis.
2. Define the psychoanalytic term “disavowal” (i.e. of truth, loss, lack) as a concept linked to perversity and discuss Lynn Layton’s applications of perversity and the uses of disavowal within a socio-political context.
3. List three characteristics of Arnold Cooper’s “central core of perversion” and describe how children in the preoedipal developmental phase begin to employ dehumanization and fantasy as a way to tolerate feelings of overwhelming helplessness.
4. Explain the role of perversion as part of the “glue” in pathological organizations of the personality as articulated by John Steiner, and articulate how they might “hold” within themselves and with patients, the idea that something at work in the patient or in the therapy dyad is in conflict with the expressed aims of therapy; and compare Steiner’s intrapsychic theory of perverse states with Layton’s ideas about the genesis of perversity located in the social.
5. Describe two features of Mirilia Aisenstein’s theory of the “masochistic structure of desire,” and demonstrate their grasp of Donald Moss’s theory of “the work of desire” including the difference between two categories of patients who are typically troubled by encounters with desire.
6. Apply Gila Ashtor’s ideas regarding sex versus sexuality to their clinical thinking and describe Ashtor’s distinction between the two terms; and define Jean LaPlanche’s concept of “enlarged sexuality” to expand Ashtor’s conceptualizations of the universality of perversity within the context of queer theory.
7. Discuss J. Chasseguet-Smirgel’s conceptualization of perversion as a universal and existential aspect of the psyche desiring and expressing longing to escape from the human condition.
8. Describe Rosine Perelberg’s formulation of a the link between her violent patient’s “acting out” and his need to preserve the treatment; and utilize Rather’s formulation of difficult countertransference scenarios to address their concerns in working with perversity in their clinical practices.

Daniel Butler:

1. Define polymorphous perversion.
2. Distinguish drive, object, and aim.
3. List three critiques of perversion as a concept.
4. Distinguish psychoanalytic from non-psychoanalytic theories of sexuality.
5. Differentiate non-normative sexuality from perverse character structures.
6. Identify three attributes of perverse character structures.
7. Apply three interventions for treating perverse character structures.
8. Apply three interventions for analyzing perverse transference-countertransference dynamics.

Michael Levin:

1. Discuss Freud’s Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality and how they introduce the psychoanalytic metapsychological and developmental theory of perversion.
2. Explain how Bela Grunberger expanded on Freud’s theory of perversion to incorporate the role of narcissism.
3. Discuss the way Ruth Stein elaborates a theory of pathological perversion as a characterological defense against psychosis and describes its manifestations in psychoanalytic clinical transference-countertransference dynamics.
4. Analyze Christopher Bollas' concept of the Fascist State of Mind to examine how totalitarian psychic structures contribute to perverse dynamics individually and socially.
5. Compare and contrast the ways Freud, Grunberger, Stein and Bollas conceived of perversion and its functioning and manifestations in psychopathology.
6. Identify, discuss, and apply fundamental psychoanalytic theoretical concepts and models that aim to define intrapsychic forces and structures underlying psychosexually, morally, socially, and politically perverse impulses, fantasies, personality organizations, and social formations.
7. Identify, describe, and discuss the developmental, and historical forces involved in the formation of various examples of psychosexually, morally, socially, and politically perverse impulses, fantasies, personality organizations, and social formations from a psychoanalytic theoretical perspective.
8. Identify, diagnose, and formulate treatment approaches to perverse character disorders and other perverse phenomena encountered in clinical practice, from a psychoanalytic perspective.

Sydney Tan:

1. Identify and define perversion within the Lacanian framework.
2. State and specify how perversion and the perverse use of fantasy functions.
3. Explain the notion of perversion in relation to the imaginary and symbolic phallus.
4. Identify and situate perversion within the Oedipus problematic.
5. Explain the role of identification in perversion.