Isidor Isaak Sadger (29 October 1867 – 21 December 1942), born in Neu Sandez, Galicia, was a

forensic Forensic science, also known as criminalistics, is the application of science to criminal and civil laws, mainly—on the criminal side—during criminal investigation, as governed by the legal standards of admissible evidence and criminal p ...

doctor and psychoanalyst in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

. A leader in the early development of

psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...

, he began his career as a neurological specialist and, in 1894, began publishing a series of articles on psychophysiology. He studied with

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts ...

from 1895 to 1904 with a concentration in

homosexuality Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to pe ...

and

fetishism A fetish (derived from the French , which comes from the Portuguese , and this in turn from Latin , 'artificial' and , 'to make') is an object believed to have supernatural powers, or in particular, a human-made object that has power over ot ...

and coined the term ''Sadomasochismus'' ( sadomasochism) in 1913. He also coined the term "Narcissmus" (

narcissism Narcissism is a self-centered personality style characterized as having an excessive interest in one's physical appearance or image and an excessive preoccupation with one's own needs, often at the expense of others. Narcissism exists on a co ...

). In September 1942, he was deported to the

Theresienstadt Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia ( German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstadt served as a waystation to the extermination ca ...

concentration camp Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simpl ...

, where he died.

Work

Sadger published "Fragment der Psychoanalyse eines Homosexuellen" in the ''Jahrbuch für sexuellen Zwischenstufen'' in 1908. It described his analysis of a melancholy Danish count who was homosexual. The analysis lasted for only thirteen days before being terminated by the patient, whose sexual orientation was not changed. Later in 1908, Sadger published "Ist die konträre Sexualempfindung heilbar?", which assessed the value of psychoanalysis as a treatment for "contrary sexual feeling", in the ''Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft''. He answered the question of whether it could be cured in patients who were moral and determined "''mit einem runden Ja!''" ("''with a definitive Yes!''"). Sadger believed that it was not enough to establish a spurious kind of heterosexual functioning or "''masturbatio per vaginam''", wanting instead to change a patient's "''Sexualideal''", the internal image of his sexual object. Freud stated in a note in his revised 1910 edition of “Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality” that his conclusions about homosexuality were partly based on information obtained from Sadger. Sadger's main work, ''Die Lehre von den Geschlechtsverwirrugen ..auf psychoanalytischer Grundlage'' was published in 1921. Although he supported a hereditarian degeneracy theory, Sadger usually argued that homosexuality was due to accidental family events, but for unclear reasons he frequently reported family histories of sexual inversion. Sadger followed Freud's idea that gay men unconsciously desire to castrate their fathers by rendering their male partners flaccid through

orgasm Orgasm (from Greek , ; "excitement, swelling") or sexual climax is the sudden discharge of accumulated sexual excitement during the sexual response cycle, resulting in rhythmic, involuntary muscular contractions in the pelvic region chara ...

so that they can magically incorporate their masculinity and finally obtain access to the mother.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sadger, Isidor Isaak 1867 births 1942 deaths Austrian Jews Austrian sexologists Psychoanalysts from Vienna Jewish psychoanalysts Freudians Austrian people who died in the Theresienstadt Ghetto People from Nowy Sącz Members of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society