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Portnoy’s Complaint

Name: Portnoy’s Complaint
Rating: 3.71 (73425 reviews)
Author: Philip Roth

Philip Roth January 1, 1969

3.71 73.4k Ratings

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Synopsis

This is an alternative cover edition for ISBN 9780099399018

Portnoy’s Complaint n. [after Alexander Portnoy (1933– )] A disorder in which strongly-felt ethical and altruistic impulses are perpetually warring with extreme sexual longings, often of a perverse nature. Spielvogel says: ‘Acts of exhibtionism, voyeurism, fetishism, auto-eroticism and oral coitus are plentiful; as a consequence of the patient’s “morality,” however neither fantasy or act issues in genuine sexual gratification, but rather in overriding feelings of shame and the dread of retribution, particularly in the form of castration.’ (Spielvogel, O. ‘The Puzzled Penis’, Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, Vol. XXIV, p. 909.) It is believed by Spielvogel that many of the symptoms can be traced to the bonds obtaining in the mother-child relationship.

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