Isidor Isaak Sadger was a forensic doctor and psychoanalyst in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

. He studied with Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...

 from 1895 to 1904 with a concentration in homosexuality

Homosexuality

Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...

 and fetishism

Fetishism

A fetish is an object believed to have supernatural powers, or in particular, a man-made object that has power over others...

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

Narcissism

Narcissism is a term with a wide range of meanings, depending on whether it is used to describe a central concept of psychoanalytic theory, a mental illness, a social or cultural problem, or simply a personality trait...

). In September 1942, he was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, 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 der 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. 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

Orgasm is the peak of the plateau phase of the sexual response cycle, characterized by an intense sensation of pleasure...

 so that they can magically

Magical thinking

Magical thinking is causal reasoning that looks for correlation between acts or utterances and certain events. In religion, folk religion, and superstition, the correlation posited is between religious ritual, such as prayer, sacrifice, or the observance of a taboo, and an expected benefit or...

 incorporate their masculinity

Masculinity

Masculinity is possessing qualities or characteristics considered typical of or appropriate to a man. The term can be used to describe any human, animal or object that has the quality of being masculine...

and finally obtain access to the mother.