832 Sex Pioneers
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David Schnarch A Systemic Approach to Desire
§ Books:
ü “Passionate Marriage”
ü “Sexual Crucible”
§ Quotes:
ü "Marriage in the institution in which the art of the lousy blowjob has been perfected!"
ü “True Love” = Desire out of fullness rather than the neediness and grasping of desire out of emptiness
ü The problem is not that no one person can meet all of our needs, the problem is the narcissistic notion that all of our needs are supposed to be met!
ü “Given the mediocre sex that lies behind common complaints of sexual boredom, low sexual desire often actually reflects good judgment.”
· Rather than focus on low desire, clinicians should ask ‘why’ high desire person wants more ‘bad’ sex???
§ Differentiation
ü Attachment vs. tyranny
· Distinguish and balance 2 life forces: desire for communion and desire to direct our own destiny.
ü “It is having feelings without the feelings having you.”
ü Opposite of differentiation is NOT a lack of connection, ….BUT fusion…connection w/o seperatedness
· Promotes “borrowed functioning” i.e. ‘I feel attractive when my partner has desire for me’
· Low desire person will begin to feel “used” b/c its not based on mutuality
· Enhances recipient at expense of donor
ü Four Elements of Differentiation:
- Maintain a clear sense of self while close (physically and emotionally to significant others
v A solid sense of self is a “permeable self”
J Able to be more considerate
J Able to accept influence
- Regulate ones own anxieties
v Self soothing vs. demanding partner reduce anxiety
- Non –reactivity to other’s anxieties
- Willingness to tolerate discomfort for growth
ü Proposes that sexual desire issues are a lack of or loss of differentiation
ü “Central Drive Wheel” in relationships
ü Studies have suggested that organic or medical factors account for small case of desire problems… rather a psycho-relationship issue
§ Goal 1: Intimacy through self differentiation
§ Goal 2: Anxiety Tolerance vs elimination or reduction
ü Differing from M&J looks at client’s ‘emotional resilience’
ü Approach asks the ‘Best’ of client to stand up
ü Operationalized by speaking to client’s integrity rather than focusing on their fears, anxieties, ‘wounds’ and childhood deprivations
§ “First Generation” Desire approaches
1. Sex and desire are natural functions
2. Sex is a biological function
· Freud’s Limbio theory
· Kaplan’s “Sexual Anorexia” theory
3. Desire = desire for sexual behavior vs. for partner
· Criticizing …Kaplan’s “friction plus fantasy”
· Criticizing ….Kaplan’s “bypassing” model which is an intimacy incongruent model!
4. Focus on desire as ‘initiatory receptiveness” measured by “copulatory frequency”
· …vs looking at desire DURING sex
· and common couple’s complaint of boring, meaningless sex devoid of eroticism and intimacy
5. Desire phase disorders…desire is seen as initial stage (i.e. Kaplan’s triphasic model)
6. Inhibited sexual desire…presumes a standard of ‘noninhibited” desire
· …vs. a model of sexual potential where most have inhibited desire
7. DSM predisposes clinicians to look “inside the individual” ie. Job stress, unconscious processes, phobic reactions, family of origin issues
8. Inherently pathological emphasis make client ‘broken’, ‘illogical’, ‘unnatural’
9. “Blockage” model: Tx = remove the pathology
§ “Second Generation” Desire approach
1. Desire during sex
2. Desire for one’s partner not merely a sexual act
3. Consciously chosen, freely undertaken vs a biological drive
§ Principle 1: High and Low desire are positions on a system
ü Low desire protects from assumed frustration or disappointment
ü Causation does NOT stem from one; both partner co-create issue
ü High desire may be low desire in a diff relationship
ü High/Low model can be used in other relationship areas (i.e. intimacy)
ü “Reflected Sense of Self”:
· Defining sexual adequacy by ability to please partner
· Low differentiation
· Example….His desire for her to be more passionate is about his needing her to validate his sexuality (reflected sense of self). I.e., if she
is not desiring him, that means that he is not desirable
§ Principle 2: Person with low desire controls sex (frequency, content, style)
ü High desire pursues to rescue battered sense of self
ü Low desire has already abdicated sexual competency
ü Improvements often attributed to high desire reinforcing low desire ‘defective’ stance.
ü High desire attempts to control by becoming more active/ low desire gains control by doing progressively less.
§ Principle 3: Foreplay is a negotiation for level of intimacy
ü “Intimacy is much harder to tolerate than create”
ü Poorly differentiated people get feelings hurt easier
§ Principle 4: Emotional Gridlock is natural and inevitable
ü Conflict rise frequently
ü Issues seen as monumental/ Positions polarized
ü Seemingly no room for negotiation
ü Not caused by lack of communication and more communication will not fix it
§ Principle 5: Dependence on empathy, understanding, acceptance, and/or accommodation from one’s partner creates gridlock, which in turn creates sexual desire problems.
ü Self confrontation, self validation, self soothing are more important to long-term sexual desire
ü Than… empathy, ‘communication’ and reciprocal validation
ü Lack of respect is among the most common and least talked about causes of low desire.
§ Principle 6: Anxiety tolerance precedes anxiety reduction in the natural system
ü Sexual interactions are the ‘leftovers’ …what each partner rules out what is uncomfortable and does what is left over
§ Principle 7: Monogamy in poorly differentiated relationships creates low sexual desire
ü Reinforces emotional fusion
ü Feelings of ‘trapped’, ‘controlled’, ‘pressured’
ü Other partner responds with heighted ‘neediness’.
ü Creates a self-perpetuating negative feedback loop
§ Principle 8: Low sexual desire, leads to gridlock in monogamous couples
§ Principle 9: Emotional gridlock and desire problems prompt ‘leaps of faith’ to self validation
The leap of faith involves:
1. No longer taking the others sexual (dis)interest or complaints personally
2. Takes the others discomfort seriously
3. Dares to see him or herself as desirable and adequate just a he or she is
4. Refuses to accept or change the sexual status quo.
§ Principle 10: Desire problems surface when partner’s importance to each other exceeds their level of differentiation.
ü Antithesis of conventional wisdom, which states low desire = indifference, emotional disinvestment or lack of caring
ü As one’s partner becomes more important with passage of time, more difficult to self validate…which potentiates low sexual desire
§ Principle 11: Maintaining sexual desire as relationship duration increases require continued personal development (differentiation), which is why desire often fades in long term relationships.
§ “Devils Pact”
ü High desire partner stops initiating sex in hopes low desire will fill vacuum
ü Low desire actually enjoys lack of pressure
ü However, feels increasing pressure
ü High desire partners frustration escalates and explodes in frustration
§ Treatment: Window of Elicitation –
ü Detailed review of a recent sexual encounter, frame by frame, eliciting what each of them were thinking and feeling in each "frame".
§ Concepts:
ü Other validate Intimacy vs. Self Validated Intimacy