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The term mastery has several [[meanings ]] in [[psychoanalysis]]. The first relates to the [[anal ]] [[stage ]] in [[infantile ]] [[sexual ]] [[development]], as Sigmund [[Freud ]] described it in [[Three ]] Essays on the [[Theory ]] of [[Sexuality ]] (1905d). During this period in the [[structuring ]] of the [[personality]], the [[child ]] is becoming better able to exercise muscular [[control ]] over fecal [[contents ]] and finds [[pleasure ]] in the actions of retention and defecation. In "'[[Civilized]]' Sexual [[Morality ]] and Modern Nervous [[Illness]]" (1908d) Freud described three characteristics of the [[anal stage]]: [[order]], [[economy]], and obstinacy. All three are marked by mastery, and they result from the [[sublimation ]] of anal erotism.

It must be noted that anal erotism and mastery of its concomitant [[excitation ]] are articulated with the [[loss ]] of an [[object ]] that is an integral part of the [[body]]. The function of mastery thus has to do with the excitation produced in the anal zone at the very [[moment ]] of defecation and the possible [[perception ]] of a part of the body that becomes detached from the [[whole]]. Anal erotism is commonly associated with sadism and [[aggressivity]]: Mastery over an object can be [[understood ]] as the [[psychic ]] correspondent to control of the sphincter. Some types of [[depression ]] can be linked to [[feelings ]] of powerlessness resulting from an inability to exercise [[complete ]] control over the inevitable [[separation ]] from the object. The [[symbolic ]] equivalency between [[feces]], gifts, and [[money ]] demonstrated by Freud makes it possible to see, throughout this [[chain]], the importance of phenomena of mastery in gifts, indebtedness, and exchanges.

On the level of [[fantasy]], an expression of mastery is found in [[fantasmatic ]] scenarios constructed around beating or [[being ]] beaten, typified by "A Child Is Being Beaten: A Contribution to the Study of the Origin of Sexual Perversions" (1919e). The [[analysis ]] of this fantasy proposed by Freud reveals an [[unconscious ]] [[wish ]] to be beaten by the [[father ]] and refers to the satisfaction—initially maschochistic and secondarily sadistic—of this fantasmatic constellation. The fantasy suggests an appeal to a cruel [[superego ]] that ensures mastery over the ego yet simultaneously procures [[enjoyment ]] ([[jouissance]]) for it. The [[terms ]] [[master ]] and mistress in the [[erotic ]] [[tradition ]] foregrounded by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch [[represent ]] mastery's [[perverse ]] [[dimension]].

It is worthwhile to establish a [[conceptual ]] [[distinction ]] between mastery and dominance. Mastery is more specifically aimed at excitation, whereas in [[Freudian ]] theory, dominance has the status of an [[instinct ]] that specifically involves an object or [[part-object]].

Following Roger Dorey in "La relation d'emprise" (1981; The dominance [[relationship]]), it can be said that mastery involves and presupposes a relative [[recognition ]] of [[alterity ]] as well as a certain [[renunciation ]] of the object. But this notional differentiation, while essential, is not easy to establish in [[clinical ]] [[practice]], since [[fantasies ]] of [[seduction ]] and beatings express in paradoxical ways the effects of both dominance and mastery. It is thus appropriate to consider the specific allocation, for each [[individual]], of the [[processes ]] of dominance aimed at conservation of the object and the processes of mastery of excitation that make it possible to maintain new [[cathexes ]] and identifications. And indeed, it is the perennial [[nature ]] of the identificatory [[project ]] that attests to the efficacy of mastery: It is constitutive of the nature of [[identification]], which is always being reshaped into new [[formations ]] while maintaining the [[narcissistic ]] quest for domination, although this quest is hidden.

The assurance of mastery involves the ego itself in its relation to the [[world]]: Integrating the requirements of the ego [[ideal]], it makes the ego's [[identificatory project ]] a [[process ]] that is simultaneously continuous and differentiated. The [[ego ideal ]] serves as a relay between the [[subject ]] and his or her [[community]], which serves as a symbolic [[model ]] in terms of the taboos against [[murder ]] and [[incest]]. The community exerts a mastery to which the subject is submitted, and which the subject must appropriate to [[signify ]] their membership in the [[human ]] community.

Finally, it is appropriate to situate the [[notion ]] of mastery at the very heart of [[analytic ]] [[technique]]. The rules of free [[association ]] and free-[[floating ]] attention are fundamental and paradoxical from the point of view of mastery. They indicate a pathway that, at first view, entails letting go of [[conscious ]] mastery in order to make possible the resurgence of the primary processes that enable [[unconscious formations ]] to [[pass ]] into the [[preconscious]]. They are also rules of a type of mastery that is specific to the [[psychoanalytic ]] process, on the part of both [[analyst ]] and [[analysand]], allowing unconscious representations and affects to be elicited. The issue of mastery in relation to the analyst's counter-[[transference ]] is essential here in order to [[limit ]] counter-transferential [[projection]], seduction, or even abuse, so that the analysand can be heard in their authentic relationship to their own unconscious [[truth]].

The term mastery has several meanings in psychoanalysis. The first relates to the anal stage in infantile sexual development, as [[Sigmund Freud ]] described it in ''Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality'' (1905d). During this period in the structuring of the personality, the child is becoming better able to exercise muscular control over fecal contents and finds pleasure in the actions of retention and defecation. In "'Civilized' Sexual Morality and Modern Nervous Illness" (1908d) Freud described three characteristics of the anal stage:...

The expression instinct for mastery refers to an instinct whose aim is the appropriation of the object. For Sigmund Freud, this is a nonsexual [[form ]] of instinct that can be blended with the sexual [[instincts]]. The introduction of this [[concept ]] within the evolution of Freudian theory is [[representative ]] of an early stage of the concept of the [[dualism ]] of the instincts.

The instinct for mastery first appears in Freud's Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905d), where it is initially included in the evocation of a Bemächtigungsapparat, or [[apparatus ]] for mastery, and later under its direct [[name ]] of Bemächtigungstreib. There are seventeen occurrences in Freud's [[work ]] from 1905 to 1933.

This instinct has a central [[place ]] in the "Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality" in that Freud places it in the service of the [[satisfaction ]] of hunger and sexual [[needs ]] and posits that sadism derives from it. The elements of the apparatus for mastery must be deduced from Freud's [[text]]; these include the [[sense ]] of touch, the muscular apparatus, and the sensory organs in general. "The [[activity ]] is put into operation by the instinct for mastery through the [[agency ]] of the somatic musculature" (p. 198), he writes. The muscles of the body thus appear as the [[agent ]] of mastery; the hand, whose movements involve the sense of touch and the musculature [[working ]] in tandem, is thus an essential [[organ ]] of the apparatus for mastery.

Freud clearly indicates the [[role ]] of the instinct for mastery as it serves the sexual needs: "A certain amount of [[touching ]] is indispensable (at all events among human beings) before the normal [[sexual aim ]] can be attained" (p. 156). Moreover, in connection with [[masturbation]]: "The preference for the hand which is shown by boys is already evidence of the important contribution which the instinct for mastery is destined to make to [[masculine ]] sexual activity" (p. 188).

He [[links ]] the instinct for mastery and its derivatives—cruelty, the pleasure of [[looking]], and the pleasure of showing—to [[bodily ]] functions "that appear in a sense independently of [[erotogenic ]] zones" (p. 192) or even in the [[case ]] of cruelty "independently of the sexual activities that are attached to erotogenetic zones" (p. 193). He further links the instinct for mastery to the "instinct for [[knowledge]]," which "cannot be counted among the elementary [[instinctual ]] components, nor can it be classed as belonging exclusively to sexuality. Its activity corresponds on the one hand to a sublimated manner of obtaining mastery, while on the [[other ]] hand it makes use of the [[energy ]] of [[scopophilia]]" (p. 194).

The link between the instinct for mastery and cruelty is explained in a way that prefigures the notion of instinctual blends: "The sexuality of most [[male ]] human beings contains an element of aggressiveness—a [[drive ]] to subjugate; the [[biological ]] [[significance ]] of it seems to lie in the [[need ]] for overcoming the [[resistance ]] of the [[sexual object ]] by means other than the process of wooing. Thus sadism would correspond to an [[aggressive ]] component which has become independent and exaggerated and, by [[displacement]], has usurped the leading [[position]]" (pp. 157-158).

The instinct for mastery thus begins to [[change ]] in its status in Freud's work; it starts to appear more as an intermediary concept between the sexual and the non-sexual than as a conceptual pole that can be opposed to the sexual. In his subsequent [[search ]] for a dualism that is more clearly grounded in [[biology]], Freud relegates the instinct for mastery to the background, preferring to focus instead on the notion of [[self]]-preservation instincts as the polar opposite of the sexual instincts ("[[Notes ]] Upon a Case of [[Obsessional ]] [[Neurosis]]" [1909d]). The instinct for mastery nevertheless retains a place in "[[Instincts and Their Vicissitudes]]" (1915c), but finally, from [[about ]] 1920, in the dualism that pits the [[life ]] instincts against the [[death ]] instincts, the instinct for mastery is viewed as merely a derivative of the latter.

Long neglected by theorists, the instinct for mastery returned to prominence in psychoanalytic [[thought ]] only with the publication of [[Jean Laplanche ]] and Jean-Bertrand Pontalis's article on it in their Vocabulaire de la [[psychanalyse ]] (1967). Roger Dorey (1981) discusses it in the context of the "mastery relationship"; Jean Bergeret uses the Freudian concept of the instinct for mastery as his point of departure in his development of the notion of "fundamental [[violence]]"; Jean Gillibert (1982) describes it as the "drive's drive" behind [[destruction]], the result of "[[madness ]] for mastery"; and [[Paul ]] Denis (1992) proposes to reconsider the theory of the [[drives ]] beginning with the hypothesis that the drives themselves, in their constituent organization, bring together a "formative component of mastery" and a "formative component of satisfaction," whose [[economic ]] weight can vary and whose dissociation can be observed.

# [[Freud, Sigmund]]. (1905d). Three essays on the theory of sexuality. SE, 7: 135-243.# ——. (1909d). Notes upon a case of [[obsessional neurosis]]. SE, 10: 155-318.

# Dorey, Roger. (1981). La relation d'emprise. Nouvelle Revue de psychanalyse, 24, 117-140. (Reprinted in Le [[Désir ]] de [[savoir]], [[Paris]]: Denoël, 1988.)