Treating the Sexual Concerns of Adult Incest Survivors and Their Partners

SUMMARY

Negative attitudes about sex and sexuality and many types of sexual dysfunction are common aftereffects of sexual child abuse and incest. The traumatic sexualization and the aversive sexual conditioning resulting from childhood abuse have long gone unrecognized, however. This article presents research findings regarding the impact of incest on sexual attitudes and functioning along with treatment recommendations.     

Cognitions supportive of child molestation

The examination of child molesters' thoughts about themselves and other people, particularly their young victims, has been pursued irregularly over the past four decades. A summary of theory and empirical research from a number of fields (e.g., clinical psychology, social psychology, sociology of deviance) is reported in this critical review. Theoretical attempts to account for cognitions of adults who have sex with children have been sparse. Empirical efforts, on the other hand, have been more numerous and, with some exceptions, there is convergence in number of research findings. Clinical implications for professionals who work with sexual abusers of children are presented.     

A Research Inquiry into Some American Women's Sexual Concerns and Problems

Abstract

The New View of Women's Sexual Problems is supported by findings of the 1993-94 Ellison/Zilbergeld sexuality survey of 2,632 mostly white, college-educated women born 1905-1977 (Ellison, 2000; see questionnaire at www.womenssexualities.com). Sexual experiences of women with previous year sexual partners are reported. The most important sexual concerns or problems in the previous year of 1,637 women are categorized: 34% desire/frequency (low sexual desire, desire discrepancy); 28.5% physical responsiveness (female arousal, orgasm; male partners' erectile difficulties, ejaculatory control); 16% lovemaking (sexual technique); 7.5% finding a partner; < 5% sexual relationship, fertility, pregnancy, STDs/safe sex, the woman's body/health, non-monogamy, orientation; 547 others reported none. Exemplary quotes from respondents are included. Sex therapy for low sexual desire is addressed. Recommended solutions emphasize individual differences and the multidimensionality of sexuality.     

青春期性心理健康的初步研究

在文献综述、开放式问卷调查和个别访谈的基础上,提出了青春期性心理健康的理论构想,自编了“青春期性心理健康量表”。约1,600名青少年学生接受了测试。研究表明,该量表具有良好的信度和效度,青春期性心理健康体现在性认知(生理知识、性知识)、性价值观(性观念、性态度)和性适应(社会适应、性控制力、自身适应)等三个方面。     

The screen function of unconscious fantasy

Although being a fundamental concept in psychoanalysis, fantasy is an ambiguous term. It covers a vast field of conscious and unconscious phenomena, from daydreaming, the manifest narration of the patient’s world of imagination to unconscious fantasy and primal fantasy. Further, it introduces the delicate alternatives of imaginary versus real, subject versus object and internal versus external. Following Freud’s reflections on the ambiguity of fantasy, we arrive at an idea introduced by Freud himself, but elaborated years later by Lacan. Fantasy, accordingly, is seen as a screen which both reveals and conceals. Our aim is to demonstrate, theoretical as well as clinical, how unconscious fantasy serves as a window into not only repressed wishes and conflicts, but also the most primary scenes where the subject may not even have a specific place. Simultaneously, it is the site of protection and defence, including projection and denial, but also repetition of what we will call the identical. A clinical case will be presented to illustrate our theoretical ideas and their clinical implications.     

The Tao of Creating Sacred Relationships

SUMMARY

This article articulates the major premises of Sheldon Z. Kramer's book, Transforming the Inner and Outer Family: Humanistic and Spiritual Approaches to the Mind-Body Systems Therapy(The Haworth Press, Inc., 1995). This overview briefly introduces and explains the power of meditation in psychotherapy, meditation and the use of the body, creating congruent communication, working with incongruence in couples and bridging the inner and outer couple.     

A Comparative Study of the Intelligence of Jewish Preschool Boys and Girls of Orthodox Parentage

Children aged 2-51/2 to 5-1/2 were pretrained on two three-choice simple discrimination problems presented consecutively, which were followed by training on 10 unique oddity sets. Transfer data were obtained from those Ss who learned the oddity problems by presenting five new oddity sets.

All three Groups learned the second pretraining problem more quickly than the first, although on both problems the two older Groups learned faster than the youngest Group. Nearly all the Ss learned to select the correct stimuli on the 10 three-choice oddity sets. Sixty-four percent of the children between 2-1/2 and 4-1/2 evidenced transfer to the five new oddity sets, indicating comprehension of the oddity relationship and the ability to respond on the basis of this higher-order solution. This finding is contrary to that predicted by contemporary theories of cognitive development (e.g., 3, 8).

The remaining Ss had either learned to choose the odd stimulus, but were unable to maintain a relational choice when presented with new sets, or solved the original discrimination by applying specific solutions to a 10-problem simultaneous three-choice discrimination problem.     

儿童区分幻想和现实的发展特点及作用机制

幻想(Fantasy)是指向未来, 与个人愿望相联系的想象, 且不一定以客观规律为依据。现实(Reality)是存在于日常生活中, 或者与我们生活法则相一致的事物或现象。准确地区分幻想和现实有利于在保护儿童想象力的同时, 确保他们的人身安全。国内外研究发现, 儿童区分幻想和现实的能力随着年龄的增长而提高; 受外部(实验材料的情感色彩、人物和主题类型)和内部(个体情绪感知强度、经验)因素的影响; 语言、元认知、心理理论和认知神经等可能是儿童区分幻想和现实的作用机制。未来研究需探索各种作用机制在儿童年龄与区分幻想和现实能力之间可能的调节效应, 以及儿童混淆幻想和现实的认知神经。在此基础上, 进一步明确既保护儿童想象力又确保其人身安全的有效措施。     

The dual aspect of fantasy: Flight from reality or imaginative realm? Considerations and hypotheses from clinical psychoanalysis1

This paper discusses the view that fantasizing, understood as a flight into fantasy, belongs to a type of mental functioning distinct from imaginative fantasy. From this the idea emerges, proposed by Winnicott, that withdrawal into fantasy assumes a dissociative quality, which is formed early on as a defensive solution following the loss of hope in object relations. Such a defence becomes the foundation for a dangerous enclave in which the individual ends up enclosing himself, experiencing an illusory self-sufficiency. In this perspective, the author maintains that the flight into fantasy must be understood as a risk factor for the draining of the self or for a crystallization into psychopathological structures, becoming an automatic activity of 'non-thought' that substitutes for the working-through processes necessary for the development of the mind. The paper investigates this psychopathological dynamic, which was already present in Breuer and Freud's writings, examining subsequent contributions of various authors. Clinical material (of both children and adults) illustrates how the flight into fantasy may take the form of an anti-relational realm of the mind, compromising the operations necessary to the integration of psychic life. There is also a discussion of which therapeutic tools may help the patient to gradually abandon the withdrawal in favour of an authentically nourishing relational nature.