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Drawing on a broad range of psychoanalytic, cultural and social influences, the author examines the concept of toxic masculinity for how it brings into focus a widespread anxiety about toxicity throughout daily life: In nature, society and personal relationships. Aggressive, misogynistic masculinity has become a major topic in recent years, spreading throughout popular culture, the media and research. Often called 'phallic,' it simmers in everyday life and hits the headlines for turning florid and violent in maintaining its dominance, especially towards women. But at the extreme, phallic masculinity has recently crystallized in a very different form, as toxic masculinity, and 'toxic' has become the near-universal epithet for all forms of extreme destructiveness in a 'toxic culture.' It has brought into focus, and named as masculine, an anxiety over toxicity in every corner of everyday life. Exploring toxic masculinity in depth brings out a misogynistic current that pervades individual and social realms, but also throws a sharp light on normal masculinity. By elaborating on the roots of this toxicity, Figlio is able to draw out a different, more positive alternative for masculinity, with particular reference to the underlying fears around fertility and the seminal. With a strong research and clinical base, this book is essential reading for all psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists and cultural and social theorists interested in exploring concepts of masculinity.

This landmark book is the first and only historical, cultural, and theoretical account of how male homosexuality has been viewed - and sometimes misconstrued - by the psychoanalytic tradition, from Freud through the 1980s. In this groundbreaking survey, Kenneth Lewes reveals how the original psychoanalytic ideals of understanding and compassion have been betrayed by clinicians and theorists. Viewing Freud and his early followers in a new light, Dr. Lewes shows how they posited a surprisingly wide variety of "normal" outcomes of psychosexual development, including homosexuality. But in its attitudes toward homosexuality, psychoanalysis soon changed from an open-minded and humane discipline into an insular and calcified orthodoxy. Exposing the basis of the acrimony and alienation that have characterized the relationship between homosexuals and psychoanalysis, Psychoanalysis and Male Homosexuality is a sometimes shocking account of intolerance and hostility. But it is also the story of unexpected sensitivity as it explores the possibilities - as well as the limits - of psychoanalysis as a humane science.

'There are more questions than answers in this book - questions that are important and will continue to intrigue us. This book will be needed to remind us of the different opinions and to help us create tomorrow's theories. Human experience cannot be reduced to sexuality, but there is sexuality in everything human.'- From the Introduction A challenging exploration of contemporary theories on femininity with cutting-edge papers from leading analysts, this volume presents a thought-provoking dialogue on femininity, sexuality, gender and masculinity. These key issues are analysed and discussed in new and stimulating ways, whilst familiar concepts are dissected and dismantled to bring forward fresh ideas. The diversity and developments currently advancing studies on femininity towards new understandings are shown clearly throughout. This rich and inspiring collection of papers grew from the "Sexuality and Gender" conference held in Sweden in 2002, organised by the Committee on Women and Psychoanalysis. The conference was created with the conscious intent of bringing different ideas to bear upon each other in order to promote further research into this vital area.

Transcending the sex and gender dichotomy, rethinking sexual difference, transgenerational trauma, the decolonization of gender, non-Western identity politics, trans*/feminist debates, embodiment, and queer trans* psychoanalysis, these specially commissioned essays renew our understanding of conventionally held notions of sexual difference. Looking at the intersections between psychoanalysis, feminism, and transgender discourses, these essays think beyond the normative, bi-gender, Oedipal, and phallic premises of classical psychoanalysis while offering new perspectives on gender, sexuality, and sexual difference. From Freud to Lacan, Kristeva, and Laplanche, from misogyny to the #MeToo movement, this collection brings a timely corrective that historicizes our moment and opens up creative debate. Written for professionals, scholars, and students alike, this book will also appeal to psychoanalysts, psychologists, and anyone in the fields of literature, film and media studies, gender studies, cultural studies, and social work who wishes to grapple with the theoretical challenges posed by gender, identity, sexual embodiment, and gender politics.

This important book examines the ways in which same sex desire, or "homosexuality" has been theorised by psychoanalysis during its history to date and the impact of that on clinical practice. The authors explore a brief history of the developing social attitudes which influenced the evolution of psychoanalysis, from Freud’s radical questioning of psychosexuality, to the later developments that assumed a moral high ground for heteronormativity and led to the diagnosis of other forms of sexual expression as perversions requiring treatment. The book elucidates contemporary developments in psychoanalytic thinking about sexuality from a post-heteronormative standpoint, including an examination of how heteronormative bias has relegated lived sexual experience to the sidelines. The book challenges this bias and introduces new ways of using psychoanalytic ideas as well as illustrating their relevance to clinical practice. Drawing on vignettes, the authors describe current challenges that clinicians face and discuss the dilemmas that these challenges present, both for qualified clinicians as well as those in training. By approaching "homosexuality" from a contemporary post-heteronormative position, the authors advocate a more flexible encounter in the consulting room in a way that can illuminate an understanding of all sexualities, including heterosexuality.

Do the conventional insights of depth psychology have anything to offer the gay patient? Can contemporary psychoanalytic theory be used to make sense of gay identities in ways that are helpful rather than hurtful, respectful rather than retraumatizing? In Psychoanalytic Therapy and the Gay Man Jack Drescher addresses these very questions as he outlines a therapeutic approach to issues of sexual identity that is informed by traditional therapeutic goals (such as psychological integration and more authentic living) while still respecting, even honoring, variations in sexual orientation. Drescher's exploration of the subjectivities of gay men in psychoanalytic psychotherapy is more than a long-overdue corrective to the inadequate and often pathologizing tomes of traditional psychoanalytic writers. It is a vitally human testament to the richly varied inner experiences of gay men. Drescher does not assume that sexual orientation is the entire or even major focus of intensive psychotherapy. But he does argue, passionately and convincingly, that issues of sexual identity - which encompass a spectrum of possibilities for any gay man - must be addressed in an atmosphere of honest encounter that allows not only for exploration of conflict and dissociation but also for restitutive confirmation of the patient's right to be himself. Through its abundance of first-person testimony from both clinical and literary sources, Psychoanalytic Therapy and the Gay Man provides the reader with an unforgettable grasp of what it is like to discover that one is gay in our society and then to find the courage and humanity to live with that knowledge. Any mental health professional - regardless of his or her sexual orientation - who wishes to deal therapeutically with gay men will find Drescher's work indispensable. But it will also be compelling reading for anyone seeking psychological insight into gay men's lives and concerns.

"The goal of my teaching has always been, and remains, to train analysts." --Jacques Lacan, Seminar XI, 209 Arguably the most profound psychoanalytic thinker since Freud, and deeply influential in many fields, Jacques Lacan often seems opaque to those he most wanted to reach. These are the readers Bruce Fink addresses in this clear and practical account of Lacan's highly original approach to therapy. Written by a clinician for clinicians, Fink's Introduction is an invaluable guide to Lacanian psychoanalysis, how it's done, and how it differs from other forms of therapy. While elucidating many of Lacan's theoretical notions, the book does so from the perspective of the practitioner faced with the pressing questions of diagnosis, what therapeutic stance to adopt, how to involve the patient, and how to bring about change. Fink provides a comprehensive overview of Lacanian analysis, explaining the analyst's aims and interventions at each point in the treatment. He uses four case studies to elucidate Lacan's unique structural approach to diagnosis. These cases, taking up both theoretical and clinical issues in Lacan's views of psychosis, perversion, and neurosis, highlight the very different approaches to treatment that different situations demand.

Asexuality and Freudian-Lacanian Psychoanalysis: Towards a Theory of an Enigma proposes that asexuality is a libidinally founded desire for no sexual desire, a concept not included in psychoanalytic theory up to now. "Asexuality" is defined as the experience of having no sexual attraction for another person; as an emerging self-defined sexual orientation, it has received practically no attention from psychoanalytic research. This book is the first sustained piece of exploratory and theoretical research from a Freudian-Lacanian perspective. Using Freudian concepts to understand the intricacies of human sexual desire, this volume will also employ Lacanian conceptual tools to understand how asexuality might sustain itself despite the absence of Other-directed sexual desire. This book argues that asexuality holds a mirror to contemporary sexualized society which assumes sexual attraction and eroticism as the benchmarks for experiencing sexual desire. It also argues that asexuality may be a previously unrecognized form of human sexuality which can contribute new understandings to the range and breadth of what it means to be a sexual being. This book will be of interest to anyone in the area of asexuality or sexuality – psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, university lecturers, researchers, students or those simply curious about the possibilities of the human sex drive.