Can BDSM be a form of therapy? Is it therapeutic? What do we actually mean when we use the words “therapy” and “therapeutic”?

Therapy means different things to different people. For individuals dealing with mental illness, therapy can be akin to physiotherapy, except happening in the mind. We need to stretch the mind in a correct and suitable manner so our mind can function normally in daily life.

Therapeutic can also mean different things to different people, but many people use the word to refer to some kind of destressing process. Something that can leave us feeling energised, satisfied, relaxed and healing.

BDSM activities often involve power, violence, and behaviours that are outside of everyday normal activities. It provides a space for individual to engage in transgression that can unlock and free up repressed areas. Having access to a space of personal (emotional and physical) freedom can be therapeutic for some people.

Sadomasochistic practices, in particular, have been discussed as a kind of self-help, in the sense that they hold the potential to transform an individual by providing a window into his or her identity. Andrea Beckmann addresses these ‘transformative potentials’ (Beckmann, 2001: 80) of sadomasochistic activities in her study of practitioners of consensual SM in London; she makes the point that, for some individuals, SM provides a space that ‘allows for a more ‘‘authentic’’ (as founded on experience) relation to ‘‘self’’ and others.
(Beckmann, 2009: 91).” – (Lindemann, 2011) from Sage Journal

In BDSM as Therapy, Lindemann’s article in Sage Journal (linked to at the end of this article), the author outline four overlapping types of “therapeutic” experiences that may be discovered in the process of engaging with BDSM activities:
• as healthful alternatives to sexual repression
• as atonement rituals
• as mechanisms for gaining control over prior trauma
• and (in the case of ‘humiliation sessions’) as processes through which clients experience psychological revitalization through shame

BDSM ACTIVITIES AS A HEALTHY ALTERNATIVE TO SEXUAL REPRESSION

We are taught to behave in particular ways in many different aspects of our lives. Being a civilised human being who is part of a civilised community may mean things like maintaining a blanket of cleaniness, politeness, positivity and self-control.

But, human beinsg are diverse, complex creatures who sometimes desire chaos, aggression and impoliteness. When the normality of society creeps deeper into our bedroom, the sterile, clean, well-behaved citizen who desires raunchy, violent, dirty sex will feel repressed. Sexual repression results from the self-imposed stigma of trying to live up to what we perceive as civilised standards. For some, engaging with BDSM activities by entering a dungeon and doing deviant things that aren’t accepted is self-empowering. Think of it a bit like a secret poetry club, where those who feel too socially repressed to read magical poetry out loud in the light of day, sneak into the woods during the full moon to share their poetry and feel therapeutic.

BDSM AS ATONEMENT

In the dungeon, clients can ‘atone’ for wrongs they have committed in everyday life. Often this ritual of atonement is the explicit focus of the theatrical narrative enacted in the session. Sessions (as well as unpaid BDSM interactions) are commonly referred to as ‘scenes’ and are loosely ‘scripted’ beforehand by both domme and client…

In a ‘domestic discipline’ scene, for instance, the dominatrix takes on a role such as mother or governess and administers ‘corporal punishment’ on the client, who has assumed the role of ‘naughty’ child. One common atonement scenario involves a client doing penance for being unfaithful. A woman in her early 20s who works in a New York dungeon, for instance, explained the last session she had done prior to being interviewed: ‘[The client] told me, ‘‘I cheated on my wife. I want you to punish me for that. Do whatever you want.’.
(Lindemann, 2011)

For some, BDSM activities allow the individual to process their desire to be punished. The desire to be punished may emerge from unresolved conflicts that hold some emotional weight for the individual, sp entering the BDSM space to seek atonement and be punished may help the individual to validify his/her emotions. You no longer need to feel “unforgiven” because you are heavily punished, and took a tremendous amount of pain that balanced that emotional stress.

The article does not give a Dominant’s point of view. It could be that the ritual of atonement works similarly, allowing an individual to enter the BDSM space and process their desire to punish others. That desire might stem from a human nature of violence and sadism, or it may also have its roots in unresolved conflicts.

BDSM AS A MECHANISM FOR CONTROL OVER PRIOR TRAUMA

Respondents indicated that clients not only came to their dungeons to atone for things they had done but to work through wrongs which had been inflicted upon them – reliving traumatic experiences in order to gain control over them.
(Lindemann, 2011)

Lindemann gives three examples in the article:
• a woman who is working through abandonment issues
• adults who have been traumatised by childhood physical abuse (punishment by enema), and
• social anxiety related to racial discrimination.

By scripting a BDSM scene, people who have traumas can re-enact the space for processing emotions and later put closure to the traumas and bridge the past with the present and future. Adults who have fear of enemas may negotiate with Dominants to have enemas as punishment; or spanking, or racist remarks as degradation.

In this way, their emotional stress (intangible and arguably delusional) becomes physical stress (tangible, real, but scripted in the space of BDSM scene). It gives the individual a chance to process their emotional stress in a combination of both physical and emotional levels. Along with the aftercare, BDSM activities may be therapeutic in that context. 

However, this is not without risk. Re-enacting traumatising events without having some knowledge may possibly do secondary damage to the recipient’s well-being. Having traumatic events rupture from the past to the present doesn’t necessarily mean they can be processed in a way that has a positive outcome. It may become more difficult and psychologically damaging for some people. With that caveat, it’s probably better to say that BDSM activities have a “high potential” to be therapeutic in processing traumas.

BDSM (HUMILIATION SCENES) THAT REVITALIZE THROUGH SHAME

Other types of session that respondents commonly discussed in ‘therapeutic’ terms were ‘humiliation scenes’ – scenarios in which the submissive is shamed, ultimately to have his worth reaffirmed. A San Francisco-based pro-domme and psychology graduate student, for instance, indicated that she will do ‘humiliation but not degradation’, explaining, ‘My intent is to always build someone up. And, oftentimes, even if you’re humiliating someone, the result is, in the end, they’re a stronger person. Degradation is where you’re actually tearing the psyche apart, I think.
(Lindemann, 2011)

For some people, engaging in humiliation play, of shaming and degrading, can be a process of breaking down the “civilised good man suit”. It can be a process of making you taking off your social responsibility and security that you wear everyday in many layers. Stripping away the “I am strong”, “I am good”, “I am well-behaved”, “I am proud”.

Humiliation and degradation target making you feel the opposite end of the extreme. It’s goal is “I am a piece worthless shit”, “I am bad”, “I am substandard”, “I am not worthy”.

To be able to go through the process of being degraded potentially lets the person feel that they have run a marathon of shame and humiliation and come to a finish line. They can walk out from the BDSM space back to the civilised space and feel balanced. It can be therapeutic because it legitimises and validifies the overly positive accustomed social behaviours that we have to live within. It acts as a balancing force for us to cry and feel vulnerable in a safe, consensual pre-negotiated environment. There can be immence intimate connection when the pre-constructed self is destructed.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THERAPY AND THERAPEUTIC

Having a cozy cup of tea in the sun on a warm summer’s day may be therapeutic, but it isn’t therapy.

BDSM activities may be considered therapeutic, but it can be risky for some individuals who are struggling with mental illness. The intimacy and strong emotions evoked during BDSM activities will have to come to an end,

Being in a small cage may feel therapeutic for a few hours, a few days or a few weeks, but by itself it won’t help the individual to function in society. Here is where therapy differs from “therapeutic”.

In BDSM activities, one has to be aware of the spaces. How much time can (or should) I stay in a cage? Will staying in a cage help me to process my emotional distress, or might I perhaps become addicted and obsessive about staying in cage and never want to come out to see the light again? Will my partner know the right moment when the cage is enough and not too little or too much?

And “therapeutic” does not account for the many complexities and complications that “therapy” is expected to. Will medications like anti-depressants drop blood sugar and blood pressure and cause safety concerns in engaging with BDSM activities? Is there a danger of potential triggers for PTSD or mental dissociation?

Therapy requires knowledge of cognitive processes. It’s a considered process that allows and assists in rewiring how they think so that they can feel happy, calm and confident in the society that they interact with.

There’s no doubt that many people find that BDSM activities may help “in the moment”, but to be able to consider it a form of “therapy” it has to combine the knowledge of psychology, which involves cognition, medication and an understanding of mental illness. BDSM activities may very well open up a traumatic past. If we are going to consider it “therapy”, I think that needs to encompass having the knowledge to understand how to close it back up again.

REFERENCES

Dannielle Lindemann – BDSM as Therapy