Sensuality and Sexuality Across the Divide of Shame

178 Pages·2007·5.42 MB·English

by  Joseph D. Lichtenberg

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Psychoanalytic Inquiry
Book Series
Vol. 1: Reflections on Self Psychology— Vol. 16: The Clinical Exchange: Techniques
Joseph D. Lichtenberg & Derived from Self and Motivational
Samuel Kaplan (eds.) Systems—Joseph D. Lichtenberg,
Frank M. Lachmann, & James L. Fosshage
Vol. 2: Psychoanalysis and Infant
Research—Joseph D. Lichtenberg
Vol. 17: Working Intersubjectively:
Vol. 4: Structures of Subjectivity: Contextualism in Psychoanalytic Practice—
Explorations in Donna M. Orange,
Psychoanalytic Phenomenology— George E. Atwood, & Robert D. Stolorow
George E. Atwood & Robert D. Stolorow
Vol. 18: Kohut, Loewald, and the
Vol. 7: The Borderline Patient: Emerging
Postmoderns: A Comparative Study
Concepts in Diagnosis, Psychodynamics,
of Self and Relationship—
and Treatment, Vol. 2—James S. Grotstein,
Judith Guss Teicholz
Marion F. Solomon, & Joan A. Lang (eds.)
Vol. 8: Psychoanalytic Treatment: An Vol. 19: A Spirit of Inquiry: Communication
Intersubjective Approach— in Psychoanalysis—Joseph D. Lichtenberg,
Robert D. Stolorow, Bernard Brandchaft, Frank M. Lachmann, & James L. Fosshage
& George E. Atwood
Vol. 20: Craft and Spirit: A Guide
Vol. 9: Female Homosexuality: Choice to Exploratory Psychotherapies—
Without Volition—Elaine V. Siegel Joseph D. Lichtenberg
Vol. 10: Psychoanalysis and Motivation—
Joseph D. Lichtenberg Vol. 21: Attachment and Sexuality—
Diana Diamond, Sidney J. Blatt,
Vol. 11: Cancer Stories: Creativity and
& Joseph D. Lichtenberg
Self-Repair—Esther Dreifuss Kattan
Vol. 12: Contexts of Being: Vol. 22: Psychotherapy and Medication:
The Intersubjective Foundations The Challenge of Integration—
of Psychological Life— Fredric N. Busch & Larry S. Sandberg
Robert D. Stolorow & George E. Atwood
Vol. 23: Trauma and Human Existence:
Vol. 13: Self and Motivational Systems:
Autobiographical, Psychoanalytic, and
Toward a Theory of Psychoanalytic
Philosophical Reflections—
Technique—Joseph D. Lichtenberg, Frank
Robert D. Stolorow
M. Lachmann, & James L. Fosshage
Vol. 14: Affects as Process: An
Vol. 24: Jealousy and Envy: New Views
Inquiry into the Centrality of Affect in
about Two Powerful Emotions—
Psychological Life—Joseph M. Jones
Léon Wurmser & Heidrun Jarass
Vol. 15: Understanding Therapeutic Action:
Psychodynamic Concepts of Cure— Vol. 25: Sensuality and Sexuality Across the
Lawrence E. Lifson (ed.) Divide of Shame—Joseph D. Lichtenberg
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Acknowledgments
My idea to reconsider in depth my original presentation of the sensual–
sexual motivational system began at the 2006 meeting of the Eastern
Division of the International Association for Psychoanalytic Self Psy-
chology (IAPSP) in Boston. I was stimulated by a presentation of Mal-
colm Slavin and discussions by all the members but particularly Shelley
Doctors and my prior coauthors Frank Lachmann and James Fosshage.
My already-formed central conception about the role of culture-derived
shame separating sensuality and sexuality crystallized as I heard Peter
Fonagy present a similar proposal using a different frame to develop it.
As I wrote different chapters, I was aided and stimulated by discussions
by numerous colleagues at presentations, such as at the 2006 IAPSP
meeting in Chicago. I am especially indebted to Adrienne Harris, Estelle
Shane, Sandra Hershberg, Heidi Block, and Andrew Morrison, who
have led me to make specific additions and reformulations. Alan Kindler
introduced me to the research of Katherine Frank and provided me with
the opportunity to present chapters 1 and 2 to the Toronto Association
for Self Psychology. My colleagues in an Institute of Contemporary Psy-
chotherapy and Psychoanalysis study group chaired by Curtis Bristol
have been generous and dedicated in their chapter-by-chapter discussion.
I have borrowed (maybe shamelessly) from other sources to which I have
had unique access: the Psychoanalytic Inquiry issues on Mothers and
Daughters edited by Rosemary Balsam and Ruth Fischer, the Issue on
Fathers and Daughters edited by Christine Kiefer, and the book Attach-
ment and Sexuality edited by Diana Diamond, Sidney Blatt, and me.
Elisabeth Fivaz-Depeursinge kindly invited me to view research tapes
of her studies of family triangles in Lausanne, Switzerland, findings to
which I have referred frequently. Paul Stepansky, the former head of The
Analytic Press, has consistently encouraged my efforts. Many of the per-
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spectives to which I refer in the text derive from friends and colleagues,
like that of Robert Stolorow on intersubjectivity, Jessica Benjamin on
subjectivity in female development, Steven Mitchell and Lewis Aron
on the relational perspective, and Ernest Wolf on selfobject experience.
These approaches have become a core way of my thinking. My daughter,
Amy Lichtenberg Saloukha, was instrumental in the preparation of the
manuscript. My wife, Charlotte, patiently read and listened to portions
of the manuscript, especially those for which I had uncertainties, and
offered her sage advice. Finally, for me as a psychoanalyst, the most
meaningful testing ground for proposals like those I advance is in the
clinical setting of my patients and me struggling to come as close to get-
ting it “right” about their and my sensual and sexual experiences as it
affects their happiness and ability to relate, love, and lust lovingly. My
final debt is to the many men and women who have trustingly revealed
their inner and usually private worlds to me.
x Acknowledgments
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IntroductIon
Sex, according to an anonymous wit, is the joker in the deck. Looking
at most recent mainstream psychoanalytic literature, a reader could eas-
ily conclude sex, rather than any longer a wild card, has been tamed
into established formulas such as psychosexual stages and an Oedipus
complex. New Yorker cartoons attest to the public familiarity with and
acceptance of these abstractions. Fonagy (2006), in his plenary address
on a genuinely developmental theory of sexual enjoyment, noted: “A
frightening survey of the use of sexual and relational language in the
electronically searchable journals of psychoanalysis showed a dramatic
decline in words in psychoanalytic articles directly concerning sexual-
ity.” In 1996 (pp. 871–883), Green asked sardonically, “Has sexuality
anything to do with psychoanalysis?” Of course, there are exceptions.
A considerable body of literature has been developed by feminists and
by analysts reconsidering formulations about homosexuality. In 2000, a
journal, Studies in Gender and Sexuality, began publication. Mitchell in
2002 wrote Can Love Last? The Fate of Romance Over Time. Another
exception that I draw on extensively is the contribution made by analytic
researchers steeped in attachment theory to sexuality (Diamond, Blatt,
& Lichtenberg, 2007).
My hope is to draw the reader back to a consideration of sex as a wild
card through a reformulation of the distinction between sensuality and
sexuality. In each reformulation, I start with phenomena such as general
observations and clinical vignettes. Obviously, all psychoanalytic for-
mulations started with phenomena, such as symptoms, but the criticism
of phenomenology has been that observables do not reveal unconscious
processes—only psychoanalytically obtained information does. I agree
with this critique, but I am not deterred by it. After over half a century as
a psychoanalytic clinician, I believe that I can combine the two sources.
Put more strongly, I believe I cannot not combine a phenomenological
and analytic approach because that is how I think. Here, I reach back to
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