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This collection of essays is an excellent addition to the Tavistock Clinic Series, and will be appreciated by those who wish to learn more about contemporary clinical thinking on sexuality and gender. The contributions, gathered from Britain and America, are mainly but not exclusively from an adult psychoanalytic perspective.
The editors set out to draw attention to the assumptions that have influenced the development of psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice. Their aim is to deconstruct and extend much-valued but conventional psychoanalytic concepts. The introductory chapter is a good example of this, as it sets out to trace some of the developments of the Oedipal complex in different traditions.
The collection of papers is divided into three sections. The first section, entitled ‘Sex and the consulting room’, includes chapters that draw attention to the impact of the clinician’s unexplored psychosexuality, which can potentially lead to a judgemental approach to non-normative sexual desire. Consideration is given, in particular, to how shame can influence the development of gay male identity. A further chapter in this section looks at the supervisory relationship and the helpful role that the clinician and supervisor’s sexuality may play in thinking together, when available and not silenced.
The second section is made up of three papers devoted to the exploration of ‘desire’. The first paper explores the link between the loss of sexual desire in a couple relationship, considering this in parallel to the loss of the unconscious Oedipal mother. This is followed by a close look at the female Oedipal complex and an examination of the role of eroticism in the early mother-daughter relationship, and how this impacts on later female desire. The last chapter in this section is focussed on the lack of symbolic representations for gay male desire, and the effect this can have on establishing a sense of wholeness within the individual.
In the final section, gender takes cent