Changing Sexualities and Parental Functions in the Twenty-First Century, by Cândida Sé Holovko and Frances Thomson-Salo,  Routledge, Abingdon and New York, 2018,  266pp.

Changing Sexualities and Parental Functions in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Cândida Sé Holovko and Frances Thomson-Salo, undertakes to introduce North American analysts to the work of a diverse group of Latin American thinkers and clinicians, all working in the interrelated arenas of gender, sexuality, and parenthood. From the patriarchal family of Freud's time to the post-modern arrangements we find today—blended families, single-parent families, single-sex couples, families that rely on assisted technology for pregnancy and childbirth—our notions of who is and what comprises a family have changed dramatically, while our theory has not necessarily kept up. Covering a wide range of concepts, including the oedipal complex, parental function, and male and female psychosexuality, the book aims to contribute to an international dialogue among analysts working with a range of clinical issues relating to gender, sexuality, childbirth and childrearing, and to changed and changing family configurations.

The book is divided into three sections. The first revisits psychoanalytic theory in the context of changes in current thinking within the discipline, as well as societal changes that call for reexamination of established concepts relating to sexuality and gender; paternal and maternal functions within a more traditional mother-father-child configurations are explored from a variety of new angles, as are changing family dynamics and the intergenerational transmission of trauma. The second section explores a range of more contemporary family configurations, with a focus on the effects of assisted fertilization technology and same-sex parenting on unconscious notions of maternity, paternity, parenthood, and gender identification. The third section, on sexual diversity, comprises essays on intersexuality, asexuality, gender dysphoria, and parental functions in same-sex parenting couples. Each section contains both theoretical material and clinical discussion, as well as a