Psychiatric News August 5, 2005
Volume 40 Number 15
© 2005 American Psychiatric Association
p. 18
Freud's Theories About Sex As Relevant as Ever
Leon Hoffman, M.D.
Leon Hoffman, M.D., is director of the Pacella Parent-Child Center of the
New York Psychoanalytic Institute and Society and former vice chair of the
Committee on Child and Adolescent Analysis of the American Psychoanalytic
Association.
In our current oversexualized culture, sex has become a commodity,
immaturity is often idealized, and sexual conquests have been valorized as
sport. These pervasive exhibitionistic displays undermine the psychological
value of intimate long-term personal attachments. While aspects of Sigmund
Freud's theories have undergone revision, the central place the founder of
psychoanalysis gives to sexuality and intimate personal connections remains
valid. Freud's ideas teach us the value of intimate personal attachment and
its key place in mature sexual fulfillment.
One hundred years ago, Sigmund Freud published a small volume titled
Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. It provides a lens to
understand and address the problems in our own oversexualized society, in
which we are barraged as a result of instant and ubiquitous communication
media, in which the boundaries between public and private continue to
blur.
With his revolutionary method of listening, Freud heard patient after
patient talk about childhood experiences and childhood sexual feelings and
fantasies. He noted the similarity between the sexual fantasies of children
and the fantasies involved in what were then called perversions and between
the desires, perverse and otherwise, that persist in the unconscious lives of
all adults. In everyday life, Freud understood, adults expressed the range of
their sexual fantasies as symptoms of emotional disorders, as elements of
dreams, in the making of art, and in overtly sexual acts. The sexuality of the
adult originates in childhood but, like thinking and other human capacities,
sexuality is not static—it matures and develops.
Most importantly, Freud recognized that enfolded within each developmental
stage are feelings and experiences of the past. He saw the pleasure an infant
experiences as both a prototype and an early version of the sexual pleasure
experienced by a mature adult. In Three Essays he described this
continuity: "No one who has seen a baby sinking back satiated from the
breast and falling asleep with flushed cheeks and a blissful smile can escape
the reflection that this picture persists as a prototype of the expression of
sexual satisfaction in later life."
These ideas help us to understand that the desire for pleasure is an
important motivating force in our lives. But this revolutionary insight has
often been misinterpreted. As Freudian ideas filtered into our society, many
thought that Freud promoted uninhibited sexual expression. To the contrary,
psychoanalytic ideas help us appreciate the arc of sexual development and the
pitfalls that can befall those who do not successfully mature. Psychoanalysis
describes the conflicts that we experience between intimate personal fantasies
and the norms of social life and individual development. Psychoanalysis
recognizes the necessity of developing normal controls over the uninhibited
expression of these fantasies. Psychoanalysis encourages the idea that parents
need to promote children's development so that they can eventually integrate
sexuality in their lives in a balanced way, so that sexual and intimate
personal bonds can be integrated as much as possible.
Throughout Three Essays, Freud wrote about the importance of
interpersonal relationships to a person's sexual and emotional development.
From the earliest days of life, the mother's connection and her ministrations
to the infant have an effect on the infant's later capacity for pleasure and
attachment. Freud described two currents of emotional life in all of us: an
affectionate current, including our bonds with the important people in our
lives, and a sensual current, including our wish to gratify sexual
impulses.
During adolescence, a young person attempts to integrate these two
emotional currents. This is a very difficult task, and the risks are many.
There are innumerable inner conflicts and subsequent failures of development
that may trap a person in immature sexual patterns—evident in much that
we see on the news. The real challenge is to bring about a convergence of the
two currents—the affectionate and the sensual. The polymorphous sexual
overexuberance often characteristic of adolescent experimentation is not
adaptive in an adult.
The recent movie "Kinsey" depicts the inherent dangers that
arise when one focuses exclusively on sexual activities, forgetting the
emotional aspects of intimate interactions. Toward the end of the movie,
Kinsey's main assistant (who had a sexual relationship with both Kinsey and
Kinsey's wife) points out to Kinsey that the famed sexologist has spoken about
sexual acts without "a single mention of love."
Kinsey responds that he has experienced love, but that love is impossible
to measure. This powerful moment between mentor and student points to an
important insight. Kinsey believed that he could liberate young people by
approaching human sexuality just as he had approached his wasp specimens in
his early scientific research. As a result, Kinsey seems to have overlooked
that, unlike wasps, the tasks for human beings include the development of
sexuality along with the development of intimate social and emotional
connections. 
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