Homosexualities: Psychogenesis, Polymorphism, and Countertransference (Psychoanalysis and Women Series) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1782203133 ISBN 13: 9781782203131

Publisher: Routledge, 2015

Synopsis

This latest volume in the Psychoanalysis and Women Series for the Committee on Women and Psychoanalysis of the International Psychoanalytical Association presents and discusses theoretical and clinical work from a number of authors worldwide. It clearly demonstrates that there is no typical development of homosexuality and that each individual's object-choice can only be grasped by examining their psychic history. While the therapeutic work requires no special adaptation of technique, countertransferential difficulties which may arise and stem in part from cultural representations about gender differences are fully explored. The book includes a unique retrospective view by Ralph Roughton over three time points which charts changes in considering the analyst's response within the wider cultural context.

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Review:

Homosexualities challenges us right from its title, which brings together terms such as psychogenesis, a controversial notion, polymorphism, which speaks of diversity, and countertransference, a reference to our clinical practice. This successful interplay of ideas results in insightful and deep theoretical chapters that discuss varying conceptions of gender, the difference between sensuality and sexuality, and the interrelation of sameness and otherness, amongst others. The clinical chapters, in turn, show us the various ways in which present-day analysts work with patients who put into question our understanding of sexuality and gender more than a hundred years after the birth of psychoanalysis, when Victorian ideals were so influential. Homosexualities is a must-read for all those interested in the question of gender and sexuality today. --Virginia Ungar, MD, Training Analyst of the Buenos Aires Psychoanalytic Association


This book is brilliant, exciting, and very accessible; this is a rare combination of articles and discussions from well-known psychoanalysts from all over the world. They share their complex views on homosexuality, dealing in depth with psychoanalytic theory. Very interesting cases of male and female patients are presented in this volume, showing that there is no typical development of homosexuality. They demonstrate that in each of them, the object choice can only be grasped by examining its psychogenesis, that is the psychic history of the subject and its vicissitudes. --Christine Anzieu-Premmereur, MD, PhD, Director of the Columbia Psychoanalytic Center s Parent-Infant Program; Assistant Clinical Professor in Psychiatry at Columbia University; member of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute


This is an inspiring book. The authors, an international group of eminent psychoanalysts, examine the issue of the psychic construction of sexuality in a multiplicity of ways and offer new and profound contributions. All human societies are faced with the task of constructing two basic categories, the identical and the different. The psychic construction of sexuality by definition implies a complex relationship between both sexes. The word 'homos', which means 'the same' (sex), leaves an essential element out: the unconscious presence of the 'other' sex. With the sophisticated theoretical discussions and the clinical examples offered, this book will constitute required reading for psychoanalysts and students of psychoanalysis, as well as for academics in the area of gender studies. --Rosine Jozef Perelberg, Training Analyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society and Visiting Professor at University College London

About the Author:

Elda Abrevaya

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1782203133
• ISBN 13: 9781782203131
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224
• Editor: Abrevaya Elda