Types
Alfred Binet, a French psychologist, lawyer and hypnotist, proposed that fetishes be classified as either "spiritual love" or "plastic love". "Spiritual love" occupied the devotion for specific mental phenomena, such as attitudes, social class, or occupational roles; while "plastic love" referred to the devotion exhibited towards material objects such as animals, body parts, garments, textures or shoes.
The existential approach to mental disorders developed in the 1940s and influenced a view that fetishes had complex personal meanings beyond the general categories of psychoanalytical treatment. For instance, the Austrian neurologist and logotherapist Viktor Frankl once noted the case of a man with a sexual fetish involving, simultaneously, both frogs and glue. However, Frankl's logotherapy is but one of dozens of psychological systems or methods of psychotherapy that compete with psychoanalysis.
The concept of spiritual love is not accepted globally because it is impossible to fully define what exactly is "spiritual love." Mental phenomena, attitudes, and social class are all things that can be obsessed over, but it is hard to prove that they would be a sexual obsession. It is also hard to incorporate any "idea" into a sexual act or stimulation. However, a mental obsession, such as an idea or excessive thought, can be progressed into a "plastic love." For example, role playing. If a person has a mental obsession with cowboys, their partner could dress up as a cowboy to make it a real thing or "plastic love."
Read more about this topic: Sexual Fetishism
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