Sex, Attachment and Couple Psychotherapy: Psychoanalytic Perspectives

Editor : Christopher Clulow

Sex, Attachment and Couple Psychotherapy: Psychoanalytic Perspectives

Book Details

Reviews and Endorsements

'What, from a psychoanalytic point of view, constitute the 'facts of life'? What are the stories that our professional mentors tell us about the psychological equivalents of the 'birds and the bees'? How useful are these stories, and in what ways do they help those of us who work with couples understand and change the sexual difficulties that they present us with? Do these stories, indeed, have anything to say about sex, or might they, like the inventions of embarrassed parents, deflect our attention away from what we really need to know in relating to the sexual lives of our patients?

Threading through the chapters of this book is a strong sense of the interconnection between sexual behaviour and patterns of attachment in couple relationships. Each provides a window on the other, and, like a double helix, they snake an intertwined pathway together over the life course. Different psychoanalytic conceptual narratives may give one spiral prominence over the other, and they may differ in the images they use in telling this central story of life, but there is an emerging relatedness and coherence between the perspectives that they offer.'
- Christopher Clulow, from the Introduction

The Contents
Foreword - Peter Fonagy
The Facts Of Life: An Introduction - Christopher Clulow
Does Psychoanalysis Need Sexology? - Brett Kahr
What Do We Mean By 'Sex'? - Warren Colman
Lively And Deathly Intercourse - Francis Grier
Separated Attachments And Sexual Aliveness - Susie Orbach
Dynamics And Disorders Of Sexual Desire - Christopher Clulow & Maureen Boerma
Sexual Dread And Therapist Desire - Susanna Abse
Loss Of Desire And Therapist Dread - Sandy Rix & Avi Shmueli
Loss Of Desire: A Psychosexual Case Study - Laura Green & Jane Seymour
Power Versus Love In Sadomasochistic Couple Relationships - David Hewison
From Fear Of Intimacy To Perversion - Mary Morgan & Judith Freedman
Perversion As Protection - Joanna Rosenthall
Intimacy And Sexuality In Later Life - Andrew Balfour

Sign up for our new titles email   Sign up to our postal mailing list   Sign up for postal updates