Seduction and Desire
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Modern society has introduced many new relationships and family forms and the pluralisation of sexual lifestyles in the hundred years since Freud. This book provides a systematic account of the current state of theory, developing a gender-wide model of human sexuality and outlining the implications of this for psychotherapy practice. The author argues that the development of human sexuality follows no innate biological programs, but takes place in an interpersonal relationship, often established in the early parent-child relationship. Whereas the current psychoanalytic discourse emanates from a rather rigid division of gender relations emphasizing the differences between men and women, Ilka Quindeau develops a gender-wide model of human sexuality in which the 'masculine' and 'feminine' are integrated and contribute to the full diversity of gender identities and sexual varieties. She points to structural similarities of hetero-and homosexuality and perversion and calls for a general human sexuality that is based less on differences between men and women than with each other. Freud's postulation of the the primacy of the genital is thereby called into question, as is the cultural primacy of heterosexuality. The author concludes by asking what the consequences are of this new perspective for the development of psychotherapy practice.
Ilka Quindeau is Professor for Clinical Psychology at the University of Applied Sciences, Frankfurt, and Adjunct Professor at the Goethe University Frankfurt. She is president of the Sigmund Freud Foundation in Germany and also runs her own practice. She is a clinical psychologist and sociologist, and training and supervising analyst in the German Psychoanalytical Society. She has published over 100 chapters and articles, and has authored and edited several books.