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As the title indicates, The Sexual Dimension provides the mental health practitioner with the skills necessary to recognize, assess, and treat sexual disorders throughout the entire life cycle. Drawing upon psychoanalysis, ego psychology, role theory as well as systems theory, Strean places human sexuality within the context of the individual's entire life. He contrasts his approach with that of behavioral sex therapy which understands sexuality and treats the individual in a superficial fashion with little appreciation of the unconcious—much like mechanics working on automobiles.
Strean underscores the richness of the psychoanalytic view and the themes laid down by Freud in his Three Essays on Sexuality . Thus, the book addresses the problem that, all too frequently, sexuality is viewed as essentially a conscious bodily experience without recognizing that it is also related to the patients' individual histories, their self-concept, their emotional life, and their unconscious fantasies which in turn are related to their ability to love themselves and others.
A second contribution is made by Strean in elaborating Freud's proposition of the sexual drive underlying seemingly nonsexual problems. Thus, the author reminds us that it is a failure among many therapists not to recognize that many of the so-called nonsexual problems encountered are essentially sexual in origin. Inhibited assertion, phobias, power struggles between couples, alcoholism, and drug abuse are in essence sexual problems.
It is a curious fact that such reminders are still necessary almost 80 years after the presentation of Freud's revolutionary theories on sexuality. Perhaps because the cornerstone of Freud's theories rested on the unconscious aspects of the sexual drive, he spent little time on the treatment of sexual disorders. The Sexual Dimension fills this gap through the application of psychoanalytic theory to the sexual problems that the analyst will most likely confront in his daily practice.
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