Description
Book SynopsisSexuality is a fascinating phenomenon. Familiar to us all, it pervades the personal, social and cultural areas of life; it also remains an elusive and confusing aspect of our existence. Within a range of disciplines, gender studies, psychology, psychoanalysis and sociology to name but a few, great strides have been made in enriching our understandings of sexuality and it's wide variations of practice, identity, orientation and relationship forms, across context and across culture. The understandings that existential philosophy and psychotherapy can contribute have often been overlooked as they frequently languish one by one, in hard to access journals. Sexuality: Existential perspectives changes all this. Leading voices in existential philosophy and psychotherapy provide clear insight into sexuality and its related manifestations, offering perspectives that warrant consideration both within and beyond the consulting room.
Table of ContentsForeword - Dr Elena Manafi Introduction - Sexuality: Debates and controversies - Dr Martin Milton Section 1: Existential perspectives on sexuality Chapter 1 Being sexual: Reconfiguring human sexuality. Prof. Ernesto Spinelli Chapter 2 Being-in-the-world sexually - Dr Hans W Cohn Section 2: Drawing on the philosophers: Merleau-Ponty and Sartre Chapter 3 Merleau-Ponty and existential sexuality - Dr Paul Smith-Pickard Chapter 4 Sexual expression, authenticity and Bad Faith - Richard Pearce Section 3: A gay essence? Chapter 5 The freedom to be fixed: Can I be a homosexual please? - Dr Marc Medina Section 4: Existential perspectives on affirmative therapy Chapter 6 Gay affirmative therapy: A critique and some reflections on the value of an existential-phenomenological theory of sexual identity - Prof. Simon du Plock Chapter 7 Gay affirmative therapy: Recognizing the power of the social world - Prof. Darren Langdridge Section 5: Contemporary concerns Chapter 8 Being sexual: Childhood and sexuality - Prof. Ernesto Spinelli Chapter 9 Open non-monogamies: Drawing on de Beauvoir and Sartre to inform existential work with romantic relationships - Dr Meg Barker Chapter 10 Trans and existential-phenomenological practice - Christina Richards Section 6: Sexuality and the consulting room Chapter 11 A dangerous methodlessness: Sexuality in the therapeutic relationship - Marcia Gamsu Chapter 12 Individual therapy and Foucault's dark shimmer of sex - Dr Paul Smith-Pickard Section 7: Existential contribution to specific modalities Chapter 13 Existential group therapy: Hell is other people? - Christina Richards Chapter 14 Existential sex therapy - Dr Meg Barker Chapter 15 'Three's company, two's a crowd': Existential couple therapy - Prof. Simon du Plock Chapter 16 Family therapy and sexuality: Liminal possibilities between systemic and existential approaches - Dr Alex Iantaffi Epilogue - Dr Martin Milton
