Sexuality and Psychoanalytic Perspectives, edited by Celia Harding,  Taylor and Francis, Inc., 2001  201 pp.

This book is edited by Celia Harding who, we are told, is a psychodynamic counselor and psychoanalytic psychotherapist in private practice in East London. She trained with Westminster Pastoral Foundation. We are told this book began as a series of lectures and seminars on sexuality for professional members of the Foundation

for Psychotherapy and Counseling. This book seems to be geared to beginners in the field of psychology and would probably be of interest to the intelligent layperson also. It consists of nine essays putatively on the topic, and an introduction and final essay by Celia Harding.

To give an idea of the scope of these essays I will list their titles. These are: “Locating and relocating psychoanalytic ideas of sexuality”; “Sexuality and objects relations”; ‘“No sex, please we're British': sexuality in English and French psychoanalysis”; “The madness of love: A Jungian perspective on sexuality”; “Of bodies and babies: sexuality and sexual theories in childhood and adolescence”; “Women's sexuality in the new millennium”; “Celebrating the phallus”; “The internal couple and the Oedipus complex in the development of sexual identity and sexual perversion”; “Genital and phallic homosexuality”; and “The power of sex” (Harding's final essay).

The authors of these essays are various British psychotherapists, and judging from the qualifications listed, some are more carefully trained and knowledgeable than others. It is up to the reader to decide about the validity of each essay. A number of the essays contain references to personal experiences of the author. In general, it may be said that a variety of viewpoints are presented in the text. On the whole the essays are readable and the book can certainly be recommended for beginning psychotherapists or as part of a basic course in psychology, because most of the unanswered questions regarding the topic of sexuality are raised and discussed. It should be pointed out, however, that these essays involve many controve