Sex in Psychotherapy: Sexuality, Passion, Love, and Desire in the Therapeutic Encounter

by Hedges; Lawrence E.

• ISBN13: 9780415873529
• ISBN10: 0415873525
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-10-12
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Sex in Psychotherapy takes a psychodynamic approach to understanding recent technological and theoretical shifts in the field of psychotherapy. Lawrence Hedges provides an expert overview and analysis of a wide variety of new perspectives on sex, sexuality, gender, and identity; new theories about sex's role in therapy; and new discoveries about the human brain and how it works. Therapists will value Hedges's unique insights into the role of sexuality in therapy, which are grounded in the author's studies of neurology, the history of sexuality, transference, resistance, and countertransference. Clinicians will also appreciate his provocative analyses of influential perspectives on sex, gender, and identity, and his lucid, concrete advice on the practice of therapeutic listening. 

Author Biography

Lawrence E. Hedges, PhD, PsyD, ABPP is a psychologist-psychoanalyst in private practice in Orange, California, specializing in the training of psychotherapists and psychoanalysts. He is director of the Listening Perspectives Study Center and the founding director of the Newport Psychoanalytic Institute where he is a supervising and training psychoanalyst. He holds faculty appointments at The University of California Irvine School of Medicine and the Newport Psychoanalytic Institute. Dr. Hedges is author of numerous papers and books on the practice of psychoanalytic psychotherapy, including Listening psychotherapy, Terrifying Transferences: Aftershocks of Childhood Trauma, and Facing the Challenge of Liability in Psychotherapy: Practicing Defensively.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. xi
Introduciton	p. xiii
Historical and Cross-Cultural Considerations	p. xv
Brain and Neurological Considerations	p. xx
Perspectives for Considering Sex, Sexuality, Gender, and Gender Identity
Sex, Sexuality, Gender, and Identity	p. 3
The Natural/Religious/Biological Perspective	p. 3
The Infant-Caregiver/Erotic Interaction Perspective	p. 6
The Personal Identity Perspective	p. 11
The Perspective of Dissociation, Otherness, and Multiple Selves	p. 14
The Postmodern Social-Constructionist Perspective	p. 17
The Race/Ethnicity/Sexuality Perspective	p. 19
The Perspective of Mimetics	p. 22
The Perspective of Trauma and Transgenerational Ghosts	p. 24
The Intersubjective Perspective	p. 31
The Relational/Thirdness Perspective	p. 35
My Relatedness Listening Perspectives Approach	p. 37
Published Accounts of Sex in Psychotherapy
Sexualized Therapeutic Encounters	p. 45
Some Relational Counter-transference Issues	p. 47
Developmental Listening	p. 52
The Personality in Organization: The Search for Relatedness	p. 55
Précis: Listening to the Search for Relatedness-The Organizing Experience	p. 56
Searles: Love in the Countertransference	p. 57
Ogden: Split-Off Homoerotic Brutalization	p. 61
Moss and Zeavin: Having a Man	p. 64
Buchanan: Ensnared by Eros	p. 66
Symbiosis and Separation: Mutually Dependent Relatedness	p. 81
Précis: Listening to Mutually Dependent (Symbiotic) Experience	p. 82
Rosiello: Disavowed Love as the Erotic Countertransference	p. 83
Rosiello: Performance of Affect and Gender	p. 87
Orbach: A Countertransference Rape Fantasy	p. 88
Mitchell: The Horror of Surrendering	p. 90
Gorkin: Magical Cure by Copulation	p. 92
Gorkin: Sadistic Sexual Countertransference Fantasies	p. 94
Gorkin: Erotic Countertransference as a Clue to Gender Identity Issues	p. 95
The Emergent Self: Unilaterally Dependent Relatedness	p. 97
Précis: Listening to Unilaterally Dependent (Self-Other) Experience	p. 98
Lewes: Working Through Displays of Male Bravado	p. 98
Corbett: Countertransference Fear of Passivity-"The Father Censure	p. 101
Corbett: Case of Luke-Expanding Sexual Identities	p. 103
Coverdale: A Countertransference Reaction to Budding Exhibitionism	p. 105
Mitchell: Maintaining an Open Clinical Position	p. 108
Wittkin-Sasso: The Analytic Use of Desire	p. 111
Hedges: Stephen, Sean, Pornography, and the Internet	p. 113
Self and Other Constancy: Independent Relatedness	p. 121
Précis: Listening to the Independent Relatedness Experience	p. 122
Kernberg: Love in the Analytic Setting	p. 123
McDougall: Homoerotic Stimulation in the Countertransference	p. 126
Précis: The Listening Perspective Approach	p. 130
Three Extended Case Studies Illustrating Sex and Sexuality in the Transference, Resistance, and Countertransference of Psychotherapy
Three Extended Case Studies	p. 133
Dora: Eros in the Transference	p. 133
Ted: Eros in the Resistance	p. 139
Charles: Eros in the Countertransference	p. 150
Conclusions	p. 167
References	p. 171
About the Author	p. 179
About Lawrence Hedges' Other Books	p. 181
Index	p. 185
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