Z Sex Forsch 2015; 28(03): 309-310
DOI: 10.1055/s-0035-1553705
Abstracts
© Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York

Abstracts

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Publikationsdatum:
07. Oktober 2015 (online)

Thomas Stark. Does Psychoanalysis Flounder Because of Sexuality? („Scheitert die Psychoanalyse an der Sexualität?“). Zeitschrift für Sexualforschung 2015; 3: 212–226

Three arguments against psychoanalysis and their counter arguments are related to the clinic of borderline cases. The author then gives an account of his psychoanalytic theory of the masturbatory position. In it, sexuality is excluded from the analytic process and free association is avoided. With reference to the theory of mind, Stark differentiates between a concrete and a representational pattern of mental processes. People, who as adults, become borderline cases, suffered in adolescence from a breakdown of their mental development. This means that the representational mentalization of sexuality into psychosexuality, as the author understands it, fails. Instead, sexual tension is excluded and discharged with masturbatory acts, which correspond with the development of concrete antisexual inner dyads. Because of pansexualism, discovered by psychoanalysis, this structure means a general impediment of the representational way of mental functioning which leads to the borderline symptoms. The solution to this problem will be critical for the future of clinical psychoanalysis. Several hints are given.

Key words: adolescence; borderline case; free association; masturbatory position; pansexualism; psychoanalysis; psychosexuality; theory of mind