Eros is Alive and Well, Still

Andrea Celenza freshly and directly addresses conflicts in sexuality that, especially in the life of women, used to be finessed and hidden. Sexual behaviors among all genders have become more and more public due to cyberspace and changing mores in the Western world. Yet paradoxically, after Freud—as she and others have pointed out post-1970—these adult behaviors and scenarios have become virtually ignored by most branches of psychoanalysis. The relational literature laudably has been most attentive, but these phenomena could invite far closer clinical and theoretical enquiry from all branches of theory.

Celenza opens a pluralistic theoretical lens for us to appreciate. She uses a classical base, many later well-known ego psychological and cultural contributors, (importantly, Stoller or, say, Chasseguet-Smirgel), and relationists (for example, Kaplan, Dimen, or Stein) to derive finally her own intersubjective emphases, involving different interacting senses of self. The experiential bases for all her clinical applications are strong. There are many references to her thinking about her previous

substantial work in the area of professional sexual boundary violations. In her 2018 online CV she states that, “The primary focus for my research, clinical activity and teaching involves delineating the vulnerabilities associated with therapist-patient sexual misconduct.”

She has been in private practice for many years and has taught extensively. The book is knowledgeable, well researched, curious, and alert to interactional, emotional, and bodily nuance, while opening up alternative ways of looking and creatively investigating a range of sexuality from common everyday living to more problematic behaviors and attitudes brought into the consulting room. Her style is lively and fluent. The text is intelligently structured, engaging, flowingly written, and everyone can learn from her approaches.

In the context of the present climate in our field, I want to comment (a bit tongue i