Table Of ContentSexualities
Sexualities: Contemporary Psychoanalytic Perspectives presents a broad selection
of contemporary psychoanalytic thinking on sexuality from a wide range of psycho-
analytic traditions. Sexuality remains at the heart of much psychoanalytic theory and
practice but it is a complex and controversial subject. Edited by Alessandra Lemma
and Paul E. Lynch, this volume includes a range of international contributions that
examine contemporary issues and trace common themes needed to understand any sex-
uality, including the basics of sexuality and the myriad ways in which sexuality is lived.
The clinical examples provided here demonstrate contemporary psychoanalytic
techniques to uncover meanings that are both fresh and enlightening, and address
heterosexuality, homosexuality, gender and perversion from a psychoanalytic
perspective. Divided into four parts, the book includes the following:
• Historical context
• Foundational concepts: Contemporary elaborations
• Homosexuality
• Perversion revisited
Throughout Sexualities: Contemporary Psychoanalytic Perspectives the reader
will find psychoanalytic wisdom that is transferrable to work with patients of all
sexualities, and will see that the essentials of sexuality may be more similar than
they are different for homo- and heterosexuality. Psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic
psychotherapists, as well as academics interested in the subjects of psychoanalysis,
gender, sexuality or homosexuality, will find this book an invaluable resource.
Alessandra Lemma, PhD is Director of the Psychological Therapies Development
Unit at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. She is a Fellow of
the British Psychoanalytic Society and Visiting Professor in the Psychoanalysis
Unit, University College London. She is a Consultant Adult Psychotherapist at
the Portman Clinic where she specializes in working with transsexuals. She has
published extensively on psychoanalysis, the body and trauma.
Paul E. Lynch, MD is on the faculty of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and
Institute, the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis, and the China American
Psychoanalytic Alliance. He teaches about psychoanalysis, gender and sexuality,
and has been a popular speaker on issues of homosexuality and psychoanalysis. He
is also a Clinical Instructor of Psychiatry at the Tufts University School of Medicine.
Sexualities
Contemporary psychoanalytic
perspectives
First published 2015
by Routledge
27 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex, BN3 2FA
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2015 Alessandra Lemma and Paul E. Lynch
The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the
editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters,
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
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Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Sexualities : contemporary psychoanalytic perspectives / edited by
Alessandra Lemma and Paul E. Lynch.
pages cm
1. Sex (psychology) 2. psychoanalysis. I. Lemma, Alessandra. II. Lynch,
Paul E., 1959-
BF175.5.S48S487 2015
155.3–dc23
2014048378
ISBN: 978-0-415-71865-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-71866-0 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-71460-8 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK
For Andy and John
Contents
List of contributors ix
Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction: let’s talk about sex or . . . maybe not . . . 1
ALESSANDRA LEMMA AND PAUL E. LYNCH
PART I
Historical context 17
1 What happened to psychoanalysis in the wake of the
sexual revolution? A story about the durability of
homophobia and the dream of love, 1950s–2010s 19
DAGMAR HERZOG
PART II
Foundational concepts: contemporary
elaborations 41
2 A developmental model of sexual excitement, desire
and alienation 43
MARY TARGET
3 Desire and its discontents 63
MARILIA AISENSTEIN AND DONALD MOSS
4 Disrupting Oedipus: the legacy of the Sphinx 81
NICOLA BARDEN
viii Contents
5 No maps for uncharted lands: what does gender expression
have to do with sexual orientation? 101
VITTORIO LINGIARDI
PART III
Homosexuality 123
6 A scientific theory of homosexuality for psychoanalysis 125
PETER FONAGY AND ELIZABETH ALLISON
7 Intimacy, desire and shame in gay male sexuality 138
PAUL E. LYNCH
8 Objecting to the object: encountering the internal parental
couple relationship for lesbian and gay couples 156
LEEZAH HERTZMANN
PART IV
Perversion revisited 175
9 Sexual aberrations: do we still need the concept? If so,
when and why? If not, why not? 177
DONALD MOSS
10 The prostitute as mirror: distinguishing perverse and
non-perverse use of prostitutes 189
ALESSANDRA LEMMA
11 On sexual perversions’ capacity to act as portal to psychic
states that have evaded representation 205
AVGI SAKETOPOULOU
12 Working with problems of perversion 219
HEATHER WOOD
Index 235
Contributors
Marilia Aisenstein is a Training Analyst of the Hellenic Psychoanalytical Society
and the Paris Psychoanalytical Society. She has been president of the Paris
Society and of the Paris Psychosomatic Institute, member of the editorial board
of the Revue Française de Psychanalyse, co-founder and editor of the Revue
Française de Psychosomatique. She presently works in private practice and
gives seminars in both the Hellenic and the Paris Societies and is the Chair of
the Executive committee of the Paris Society’s Psychoanalytical Clinic. She
has written three books on psychosomatics and hypochondria and numerous
papers in French and international journals.
Elizabeth Allison PhD is a psychoanalyst and Deputy Director of the
Psychoanalysis Unit at University College London. She received her doctorate
from Oxford University and her current research interests include the applica-
tion of psychoanalytic ideas to the study of literature.
Nicola Barden is the Director of Student Services at the University of Winchester.
She has counselled students in higher education for over twenty years, which
has brought with it plenty of scope for thinking about the formation of gendered
and sexual identities. She is registered with the United Kingdom Council for
Psychotherapy and the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy,
and was Chair of the BACP from 2005 to 2008.
Peter Fonagy PhD, FMedSci, FBA, OBE is Freud Memorial Professor of
Psychoanalysis and Head of the Research Department of Clinical, Educational
and Health Psychology at University College London; Chief Executive of
the Anna Freud Centre, London; and Consultant to the Child and Family
Programme at the Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral
Sciences at Baylor College of Medicine. He is a Senior Investigator for the
National Institute of Health Research and holds professorships at both Harvard
and Yale. He is a clinical psychologist and a training and supervising analyst
in the British Psychoanalytical Society in child and adult analysis. He is also
National Clinical Lead of the NHS Children and Young People’s Improving
Access to Psychological Therapies and Director of the UCL Partners Integrated
