Love,Sex, Romance,and Psychoanalytic Goals

There are many ways for people to have meaningful relationships and satisfying lives, which may differ from the implicit Freudian psychoanalytic ideal of the couple that sustains love, intimacy, romance, and genital sexual passion throughout life. An alternative is proposed, based on the work of Harry Stack Sullivan, which examines the ability of the person to find love, sexual satisfaction, security, and happiness in a combination and arrangement that feels satisfying and that allows for interpersonal intimacy without coercing or harming another person. Good clinical work also considers what John Money called the “lovemap,” a cluster of relational and sexual patterning for the individual that can be relatively enduring throughout the lifespan.