Sexualities

Book excerpt: Sexualities: Contemporary Psychoanalytic Perspectives presents a broad selection of contemporary psychoanalytic thinking on sexuality from a wide range of psychoanalytic 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 sexuality, including the basics of sexuality, and the myriad ways in which sexuality is lived. The clinical examples provided here demonstrate contemporary psychoanalytic techniques that 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 hetero-sexuality. 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.