The depth-psychology corpus treats ‘fetish’ along several partially overlapping axes, none of which reduces entirely to another. Freud establishes the foundational clinical framework in the Three Essays and beyond: the fetish arises when the sexual object is displaced onto a substitute that screens castration anxiety, and yet a ‘certain degree of fetishism’ inheres in all normal erotic overvaluation. Abraham extends and complicates this account through meticulous case studies of foot- and corset-fetishism, demonstrating that anal-erotic determinants, scopophilic drive, and osphresiolagnia interact with the castration complex to produce the particular object-choice. Lacan, approaching the question through the Platonic agalma, reconceives the fetish as the ‘fetish-accent’ of any object that holds hidden, excessive value — the object-cause of desire condensed into a thing — thereby generalising the concept well beyond clinical perversion. Jung employs the term in a looser, socio-cultural register, noting that structural viewpoints in social science can themselves become ‘fetter and fetish’ (Turner echoes this usage), and that primitive libido-conceptions invest objects with magical potency in ways that prefigure fetishistic symbol-formation. Running beneath all positions is a shared concern with the displacement of charged meaning onto a material surrogate — whether this displacement is read as pathological defence, structural necessity, or the very ground of desire.
A certain degree of fetishism is thus habitually present in normal love, especially in those stages of it in which the normal sexual aim seems unattainable or its fulfilment prevented
Freud argues that fetishism is not a discrete pathology but a structurally normal component of erotic overvaluation, becoming pathological only when the substitute entirely replaces the proper object.
, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, 1905thesis
There are cases of fetishism in which the sexual anomaly shows itself in an unrepressed, i.e. a fully conscious, pleasure in disgusting odours. In this so-called smell-fetishism pleasure is very frequently obtained from the odour of perspiring and unclean feet
Abraham identifies smell-fetishism as a distinct sub-type in which anal-erotic and scopophilic components fuse, illustrating how multiple component instincts converge to determine the fetishistic object.
, Selected Papers on Psychoanalysis, 1927thesis
A CASE OF FOOT AND CORSET FETISHISM … Tight-lacing caused a pressure on the bowels and bladder which was pleasurable to him; and when he had put on corsets for the first time he had had an erection
Abraham demonstrates that corset-fetishism is overdetermined by anal-erotic pressures and auto-erotic habit, showing the symptom’s formation through compromise between instinctual zones.
, Selected Papers on Psychoanalysis, 1927thesis
it is the fetish-accent of the object in question that is always stressed
Lacan generalises the fetish beyond clinical perversion by arguing that agalma — the hidden, luminous kernel within any desired object — always carries a fetish-accent, making the fetish a structural feature of desire itself.
, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book VIII: Transference, 2015thesis
His interest in women who had had an amputation … showed the extraordinary strength of his castration images, for it represented the woman ‘who has had a member cut off’
Abraham links a specific fetishistic object-choice — amputee women — directly to the castration complex, confirming Freud’s structural account through detailed clinical evidence.
, Selected Papers on Psychoanalysis, 1927supporting
His eyes were attracted to women’s shoes as though by magic force. . . . Ugly shoes repelled me and filled me with feelings of disgust
Abraham’s autobiographical case material illustrates the compulsive, affect-laden character of the fetishistic object-choice, emphasising the dialectic of attraction and disgust central to the dynamic.
, Selected Papers on Psychoanalysis, 1927supporting
those in whom, first and foremost, the sexual aim has been altered … who have substituted for the genitals, in one of the partners in the act, another organ or part of the body
Freud situates fetishism within his broader taxonomy of perversions as an alteration of the sexual aim through object-substitution, positioning it systematically among the sexual aberrations.
, Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis, 1917supporting
the structural viewpoint has become in the course of time a fetter and a fetish
Turner employs ‘fetish’ metaphorically to denote the reification of an intellectual method into an unquestioned, quasi-magical idol, extending the concept into social-scientific epistemology.
, The Ritual Process Structure and Anti-Structure, 1966supporting
two fetishes which I admit to an inclination to play Old Harry with, viz., 1) the true/false fetish, 2) the value/fact fetish
Austin’s remark, cited by Derrida, treats entrenched philosophical dichotomies as ‘fetishes’ — objects of unreflective, near-magical attachment — showing the term’s migration into linguistic philosophy.
, Margins of Philosophy, 1982aside
Cover-up is essential to priapic arousal. Soft core, because it invites fantasy beyond what
Hillman implies a structural analogy to fetishism in his analysis of Priapus, suggesting that concealment is constitutive of erotic charge and that the partial object always exceeds what is shown.
, Mythic Figures, 2007aside
Soon after weaning at five to six months he adopted the end of the blanket where the stitching finished … This is a typical example of what I am calling a transitional object
Winnicott’s account of the transitional object implicitly occupies adjacent conceptual territory to the fetish, describing an early invested substitute that mediates separation anxiety without pathological foreclosure.
, Playing and Reality, 1971aside