Masochism has broadly been defined as the enjoyment of suffering or a tendency to seek opportunity for being offended or hurt. Within psychoanalytic thought the precise meaning of masochisrn has undergone a variety of transformations and currently there appears to be little consistency in its usage. As originally conceived by Freud, masochistic sexual behavior was fundamentally and etiologically related to sexual fantasies and perversions. This was the case when a self-defeating behavior was ostensibly non-sexual moral masochism).
Richard Lettieri – Crime Psychologist
Orange County Forensic Psychologist
