Psychopathia Sexualis

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Krafft-Ebing had particular significance for the scientific study of Homosexuality. He was led to this still relatively unexplored field of work (as per his own accounts in a letter to him) by the writings of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, to whom he pretended to support his theory of the " Urning" as a quasi third gender. In the 19th century, homosexuality was widely considered by the public and especially the churches to be an expression of immoral mindset and lifestyle, a result of seduction, sexual excess, or degenerate heredity ( Decadence theory). It was criminalized in some countries, particularly in England and in Prussia, and was punished with harsh prison sentences. (Victims of this legislation included Oscar Wilde.) Conversely, since the introduction of the Code pénal by Napoleon, it was decriminalized in the Kingdoms of Hanover and Bavaria and other German countries. Krafft-Ebing achieved great publicity as a forensic doctor and as a psychiatrist. His research, gained through criminal cases and in psychiatry, portrayed homosexuals as hereditarily burdened perverts who were not responsible for their innate "reversal" of sexual drive, and therefore should not fall into the hands of criminal judges, but rather into the hands of Neurologists and Psychiatrists. He thereby opened up a new "patient base" for compulsory treatment and research experiments.

The book had a considerable influence on continental European forensic psychiatry in the first part of the 20th century. It is regarded as an important text in the history of psychopathology. [2]

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Masochism, which Krafft-Ebing focuses on at length, is for example defined as a particular erotic sensibility, in which the individual is, "in his sexual feelings and thoughts, dominated by the idea of being absolutely and unconditionally subjected to a person of the other sex". [1] John K. Noyes. The Mastery of Submission. Inventions of Masochism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-8014-3345-2 Given the reputation that Richard von Krafft-Ebing had meanwhile established in the professional world — as he was also frequently consulted abroad (Italy, France, Russia, etc.) — it was inevitable that he was first appointed in 1889 to Vienna at the I. Psychiatric Clinic of the Lower Austrian State Asylum following Maximilian Leidesdorf, and he became a professor of psychiatry at the University of Vienna. [4] In 1892, after the death of Theodor Meynert, he was called to the psychiatric university clinic of the General Hospital of the City of Vienna. Several professional publications appeared again from his pen, such as in 1894 his well-known monographs on Progressive Paralysis—a disease he also highlighted in 1897 at the International Medical Congress in Moscow in a highly regarded lecture. paraesthesia, perversion of the sexual instinct, i.e., excitability of the sexual functions to inadequate stimuli A wide array of actors has attempted to get at just what human sexuality is, how it comes to be, and how it might be altered, if at all. For centuries, religion and its constitutive texts, rules, and prescriptions held the most authority when it came to the “truth” of sexuality. But toward the end of the 19th century, things began to change.

Psychopathia Sexualis was one of the first books about sexual practices that studied homosexuality/bisexuality. It proposed consideration of the mental state of sex criminals in legal judgements of their crimes. During its time, it became the leading medico–legal textual authority on sexual pathology. This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Krafft-Ebing and Moll heralded a new approach to sexuality, not only because they transferred it from the realm of sin and crime to the domain of health and illness, but even more because they made clear that sexual passion was an essential part of human nature. The first characteristic of sexual modernity is the notion that sexuality is a powerful, continuous, compulsive and irresistible force in human life, which is dangerous as well as wholesome, and with which everybody has to come to terms. Following the biological argument of Charles Darwin, Krafft-Ebing believed that self-preservation and sexual gratification were fundamental human instincts. 34 Moll also stressed that the sexual instinct was a basic, irrational, complicated and very powerful drive that was difficult to suppress. 35

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His book Psychopathia Sexualis later became a widely-published standard work. [3] In the same year, 1886, he was elected a member of the Leopoldina. On May 22, 1874, he opened the clinic in Graz and led it until 1880. After years of effort, he was finally relieved from the burdens of his dual role in such a way that he could give up the administration of the Feldhof institution. With appropriate modifications to the clinic and his appointment to a full professorship in 1885, he was solely a Professor of Psychiatry.

Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing [1] (full name Richard Fridolin Joseph Freiherr Krafft von Festenberg auf Frohnberg, genannt von Ebing; 14 August 1840 – 22 December 1902) was a German psychiatrist and author of the foundational work Psychopathia Sexualis (1886). Volkmar Sigusch: Richard von Krafft-Ebing (1840–1902). Eine Erinnerung zur 100. Wiederkehr des Todestages. In: Der Nervenarzt. 75, 2004, ISSN 0028-2804, S. 92–96. Today, most contemporary psychiatrists no longer consider homosexual practices as pathological (as Krafft-Ebing did in his first studies): partly due to new conceptions, and partly due to Krafft-Ebing's own self-correction. His work led to the study of transgenderism or transsexuality as another differentiation correctable by means of surgery, rather than by psychiatry or psychology. Hans Georg Zapotoczky, P. Hofmann: Werk und Person von Krafft-Ebing aus der Sicht unserer Zeit. In: Gerhardt Nissen, Frank Badura (Hrsg.): Schriftenreihe der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften. Band 3. Würzburg 1997, S. 213–225.

Volkmar Sigusch: Geschichte der Sexualwissenschaft. Campus, Frankfurt am Main u. a. 2008, ISBN 978-3-593-38575-4, S. 175–193. Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing (August 14, 1840 – December 22, 1902) was an Austro-German psychiatrist. He published extensively on hypnosis, criminology, and sexual behavior. An earlier industrial revolution in the West spelled great gains in technology and the sciences, as well as the faith that people put into scientists’ ability to explain the world in which we found ourselves.