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Gender and Sexuality
November 15, 2019 @ 1:45 pm - 3:15 pm
Adult Psychoanalytic Training (APT)
2019-20, 1st Trimester — Fridays, 1:45-3:15pm
John Cardinali, PsyD
Karen Weisbard, PsyD
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November 15, 2019 — Psychosexual Development and Gender Identity
[86 pages]
The development of sexual and gender identities have played a prominent role in psychoanalytic theory.  In this class, we will consider revisions in psychoanalytic conceptualizations of how these core components of identity develop. Chodorow suggests that because heterosexuality is taken for granted as the outcome of normal psychosexual development that it has been insufficiently theorized. She makes her case by contrasting this approach to sexual identity development with that of homosexuality which has largely been viewed a symptom and considers the symptomatic aspects of heterosexuality. Target builds on earlier work with Fonagy which suggested that sexuality is no longer the primary basis and driver of character development and psychopathology. Target asserts that conscious and unconscious attachment needs are not only central in personality development, but also set the stage for psychosexual identity, erotic fantasy, and pleasure.
Chodorow, N.J. (1992). Heterosexuality as a Compromise Formation: Reflections on the Psychoanalytic Theory of Sexual Development. Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought, 15:267-304.
Target, M. (2015). Chapter 2, “A developmental model of sexual excitement, desire and alienation” in Sexualities: Contemporary Psychoanalytic Perspectives, eds A. Lemma and P.E. Lynch, pp43-62.
Harris, A. (2000). Gender as a Soft Assembly: Tomboys’ Stories. Studies in Gender and Sexuality, 1(3):223-250.