A genuinely developmental theory of sexual enjoyment and its implications for psychoanalytic technique

Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association
Peter Fonagy

Abstract

A small computer-assisted word frequency analysis, indicating the extent of explicit concern with sexuality in the psychoanalytic literature, has revealed an apparent decline of psychoanalytic interest in psychosexuality. The apparent decline may be related to the limitations of drive theory and object relations approaches in offering persuasive and comprehensive accounts of the psychosexual. A new model of human sexual experience is proposed, rooted in an integration of French psychoanalytic ideas with recent developmental observational research, that once again places sexuality at the center of psychoanalytic clinical inquiry. Because emotion regulation arises out of the mirroring of affect by a primary caregiver and sexual feelings are unique in that they are systematically ignored and left unmirrored by caregivers, sexual feelings remain fundamentally dysregulated in all of us. Adult sexual experience serves as a way of coming to organize the psychosexual. The model accounts for some aspects of the phenomenology of sexual arousal and suggests ways of understanding pathological distortions of sexual behavior. The nature of the psychosexual is explored in the analytic treatment of an adolescent boy.

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Citations

Sep 17, 2004·Attachment & Human Development·Susie Orbach
Sep 21, 2010·The Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry·Frans Stortelder, Marian Ploegmakers-Burg
Nov 28, 2015·American Journal of Psychoanalysis·Miguel Angel Gonzalez-Torres, Aranzazu Fernández-Rivas
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Aug 28, 2009·The International Journal of Psycho-analysis·Karen Gilmore
Apr 9, 2013·The International Journal of Psycho-analysis·Alessandra Lemma
Mar 11, 2011·The Psychoanalytic Quarterly·Nancy Kulish
Jan 4, 2012·The International Journal of Psycho-analysis·Otto F Kernberg
Jun 8, 2012·The International Journal of Psycho-analysis·Björn Salomonsson
Oct 22, 2011·The International Journal of Psycho-analysis·Lawrence Josephs
Feb 24, 2015·The International Journal of Psycho-analysis·Jessica Benjamin, Galit Atlas
Sep 7, 2016·Frontiers in Human Neuroscience·Martin DebbanéBenjamin K Brent
Mar 13, 2014·Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association·Rosemary H Balsam
Nov 3, 2012·Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association·Britt-Marie Schiller
Oct 20, 2009·Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association·Susan Jaffe
Jun 20, 2017·The International Journal of Psycho-analysis·Björn Salomonsson, Majlis Winberg Salomonsson
Jul 10, 2012·The Psychoanalytic Quarterly·Anna Ferruta
Mar 19, 2019·Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association·Avgi Saketopoulou
Apr 27, 2011·The International Journal of Psycho-analysis·Jon Meyer
May 1, 2018·Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association·Britt-Marie Schiller
Apr 27, 2019·Frontiers in Psychology·Claudia Scorolli
Apr 14, 2021·Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association·Tom Wooldridge
Dec 1, 2019·The International Journal of Psycho-analysis·Nancy Kulish
Feb 1, 2020·The International Journal of Psycho-analysis·Siri Erika Gullestad
Aug 18, 2021·The International Journal of Psycho-analysis·Britt-Marie Schiller

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