COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

CENTER FOR PSYCHOANALYTIC TRAINING AND RESEARCH

Sexuality and the Clinical Situation

Syllabus

This course presents psychoanalytic concepts of gender from early conceptions of Freud, through feminist and relational revisions, to current theoretical and clinical concepts. Individual experience of gender is explored, including the overlapping contributions of bodily experience, mental life, and the interpersonal and social surround.The fluctuation between certainty and diffusion of certainty about the gender binary – within the literature and within individual experience – is a central theme. At the conclusion of the course, students will have an overview of the history of ideas, major contributions, and controversies within the psychoanalytic gender literature. Students will increase their understanding of how the gendered nexus of mind and body arises in psychoanalytic clinical work (e.g., recruited for resolving conflict, dealing with loss, organizing identifications, regulating self esteem, or establishing an individual’s relation to the interpersonal environment).

This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the Essential Areas and Policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint sponsorship of the American Psychoanalytic Association and the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research. The American Psychoanalytic Association is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

The American Psychoanalytic Association designates this Live Activity for a maximum of 1 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit per hour of instruction. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

IMPORTANT DISCLUSURE INFORMATION FOR ALL LEARNERS: None of the planners and presenters of this CME program have any relevant financial information to disclose.

Session 1

From Drive to Desire: Sexuality in Psychoanalysis

Required Readings:

 Fonagy, P. (2006) Psychosexuality and psychoanalysis: an overview. In Identity, Gender and Sexuality: 150 Years after Freud, ed. P Fonagy and M. Leuzinger-Bohleber. London: Karnac, 1-19.

Session 2

The Childhood Origins of Sexual Experience: Developmental Models

Required Readings:

 Fonagy, P. (2008). A Genuinely Developmental Theory of Sexual Enjoyment and its Implications for Psychoanalytic Technique. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., 56:11-36

 Stein, R. (1998). The enigmatic dimension of sexual experience: the "otherness" of sexuality and primal seduction. Psychoanal. Q., 67:594-625.

Session 3

Oedipus and Beyond: Post-Oedipal Development and Other Myths that Inform our Thinking about Sexuality

Required Readings:

 Holtzman, D., Kulish, N. (2000). The Femininization of the Female Oedipal Complex, Part I: A Reconsideration of the Significance of Separation Issues. JAPA, 48:1413-1437. :

 Holtzman, D., Kulish, N. (2003). The Femininization of the Female Oedipal Complex, Part II: Aggression Reconsidered. JAPA, 51:1127-1151.

Session 4

Sexuality, Overstimulation and Shame: In Development and In Treatment

Required Readings:

 Phillips, S.H. (2001). The Overstimulation of Everyday Life I. New Aspects of Male Homosexuality. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., 49:1235-1267 and Phillips, S.H. (2002). The Overstimulation of Everyday Life: II. Male Homosexuality, Countertransferenc :

 Davies, J.M. (2001). Erotic Overstimulation and the Co-Construction of Sexual Meanings in Transference-Countertransference Experience. Psychoanal Q., 70:757-788.

Session 5

Safety v. Passion and other views of the love-sex split

Required Readings:

Mitchell, S.A. (1997) Psychoanalysis and the Degradation of Romance. Psychoanal. Dial., 7:23-41. :

Stein, R. (1998). Passion's Friends, Passion's Enemies: Commentary on Paper by Steph... Mitchell. Psychoanal. Dial., 8:547-560. :

Session 6

Sex With Someone I Love: Masturbation, Conscious Fantasy and Pornography

Required Readings:

Shapiro, T. (2008). Masturbation, Sexuality, and Adaptation: Normalization in Adolescence. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., 56:123-146 :

Balsam, R.H. (2008). Women Showing off: Notes on Female Exhibitionism. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., 56:99-121.

Session 7

Sexuality and Psychoanalytic Theory: Current perspectives from Self Psychology, Modern Ego Psychology, Contemporary Kleinian Theory and American Object Relations

Required Reading:

Shelby, RD (2002) About Cruising and Being Cruised. Ann. Psychoanal., 30:191-208.

Session 8

Fulfilling Sexuality: Sexuality Vitality and the Role of Psychoanalytic Treatment

Required Readings:

Slavin, J.H. (2002). The Innocence of Sexuality. Psychoanal Q., 71:51-79. :

Lichtenberg, JD (2008) Ch 7: Attachment love, romantic love, lustful love, lust without love and transference love. In Sensuality and Sexuality Across the Divide of Shame, Analytic Press, Psychoanalytic Inquiry Book Series, Vol 25., 115-141. :

Stein, R.A. (2006). Unforgetting and Excess, the Re-creation and Re-finding of Suppressed Sexuality. Psychoanal. Dial., 16:763-778. :