Transactional
Analysis Journal
April 2009 Abstract
Volume 39, Number 2
Coeditors: William F. Cornell and Carole Shadbolt
Theme Issue on “Sexuality”
(sold out)
Sex Therapy Is Relational:
Keep the Baby, Change the Bathwater: Dilemmas Created for
Transactional Analysts by Berne's Shift Away from the Language of
Unconscious Experience
Fran Parkin
pp. 84-94 |
| Sex therapy has often been characterized as
a set of specialized skills revolving around an understanding of
dysfunction and specific techniques that hold the key to change. While
not discounting the importance of specific knowledge and understanding,
this article contends that those factors need to be integrated with new
understandings of relational patterns and unconscious processes. The
author highlights the usefulness of an integrative approach that
employs appropriate permissions and information but posits these in a
wider relational context. The predisposing factors for the development
of sexual patterns are seen as both biology and constructs from our
early relational needs. A relational paradigm is used to examine their
maintenance within a couple or interpersonal setting as well as
implications for the therapeutic relationship. These ideas are
developed with several case studies. |
Sex
in Couples Therapy: Before and After Divorce
Moniek Thunnissen
pp. 95-102 |
| Although a couple's sexual relationship
evolves over time and is sometimes replaced by other forms of intimacy,
it is not true that long-term relationships lack sex altogether.
However, it may take more energy and creativity for long-time partners
to stimulate themselves and each other and to keep their sexual
relationship satisfactory. This article suggests that, although it
seems contradictory, development of a more individual, autonomous
stance in each partner often fosters the relationship, including sex.
Falling in love or extramarital sex can be the catalyst that makes it
clear that some fundamental elements are lacking in a long-term
relationship. Sometimes couples therapy-or reconsidering the reasons to
stay in a marriage in another way-helps to bring a couple together
again. In other cases, this is not effective, and divorce can be a
necessary next developmental step for one or both partners. For
children, divorce is never easy, especially when they are adolescents
and in their second separation-individuation stage of development. For
adolescents, seeing one or both of their parents fall in love again and
start a sexual relationship with someone new can be a confusing and
upsetting experience. A case example is offered to illustrate these
dynamics. |
Sex
Games People Play: Intimacy Blocks, Games, and Scripts
Stephen B. Karpman
pp. 103-116 |
| This paper draws from the presentation
"Sex Games People Play" before an audience of 80 at the World TA 2005
Summer Conference in Edinburgh, Scotland. Included in this paper are
new, unpublished TA theories on sex and intimacy including: the Sexual
Winner's and Loser's Loops, the new field of Intimacy Analysis, the
Intimacy Winner's and Loser's Loops, and five new versions of the Drama
Triangle at the psychological and script levels. |
In
Your Absence: Desire and the Impossibility of Intimacy
Paul Kellett van Leer
pp. 117-128 |
| In this article, the author argues that an
analytically useful way of viewing sexuality is as a theory of desire
in which the many shapes and forms of sexuality represent an attempt to
answer the enigma of desire and loss. The concept of sexuality is first
grounded in Berne's remarks concerning the enjoyment of games and the
impossibility of intimacy and then related to Freud's understanding of
primary and secondary gains and the vicissitudes of human development
and civilization. The author offers an outline of ego state development
in line with this account of human development and introduces what he
refers to as "the thing," purpose hunger, and the enjoyment economy. He
also illustrates the potential of these concepts for analytic practice
using the issues of contracting, therapeutic intervention, and the
nature of analytic relating. |
Siblings,
Aggression, and Sexuality: Adding the Lateral
Servaas van Beekum
pp. 129-135 |
| This article focuses on the importance of
sibling relations in the development of script and in the evolution of
erotic and sexual sensibilities. Freud's original view on the early
development of sexuality and aggression was focused on the vertical, in
particular, on the dynamics of the father-son relationship as
highlighted by the Oedipus complex. It took almost a century to raise
awareness about the importance of the lateral, that is, sibling
dynamics. In family therapy and in psychoanalysis, this is increasingly
discussed. Script theory can adapt the sibling dimension conceptually,
but a change in attitude is needed to view sibling dynamics as an
important force for differentiation in developing identity. This
differentiation is not from parents, but from siblings, although
dynamics with parents continue to play a central role. |
Why
Have Sex?: A Case Study in Character, Perversion, and Free Choice
William F. Cornell
pp. 136-148 |
| This article presents a detailed case study
as a way to examine the tensions between self-perceived conflicts about
"perverse" and "normal" modes of sexual expression. The author
describes how being aware of his own countertransference reactions to
the client's struggles contributed to creating the psychological space
in which the client could come to his own conclusions. The article is
also a contribution to the efforts to establish sexuality as a central
focus of attention to psychotherapy in general and transactional
analysis in particular. |
Shutting
Out the Dog: The Value of Nightmares in Recovery from Sexual Abuse
Margaret M. Bowater
pp. 149-152 |
| In working with survivors of childhood
sexual abuse, the author has been struck by the power of dreams and
nightmares to convey comprehensive "feeling images" of the client's
experience, which can not only express without words the emotional
impact of early events but also indicate steps in the process of
recovery. Such dreams and nightmares seem to be examples of the
"world-image" dreams that Eric Berne (1972) referred to as
encapsulating the client's script in a striking scene. Some theory from
trauma studies and an example from the author's practice have been
selected to illustrate the value of dreams in assisting the recovery of
sexual autonomy. While this article refers mainly to women survivors of
sexual abuse, the same principles apply to male survivors, some of whom
have also shared striking dreams of healing during their therapy. |
Sexual
Addiction
Brenda Schaeffer
pp. 153-162 |
| The power of sexual love is unequaled in
human experience. Sex is not addiction; addiction is not sex. But these
two experiences can come together and result in sexual addiction or
compulsivity. This article defines sex addiction, summarizes the
history and research that supports the idea of sex addiction,
identifies 20 characteristics of sex addiction, discusses patterns and
treatment issues, and summarizes how transactional analysis has been
used in therapy with individuals with sexual addiction. The article
includes case examples to clarify how sex addiction affects individuals
and their partners. |
Sexuality
and Shame
Carole Shadbolt
pp. 163-172 |
| This article discusses the development of
childhood and adult sexuality from a relational and cultural
perspective. The roots of shame are identified and the affect of shame
is described. The strong links between sexuality and shame are
explored. The author suggests that sexual shame is a Type III impasse,
and its resolution within the context of therapeutic relatedness is
addressed. The article's central point is the unique, individual, and
shifting character of each person's sexuality. |
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