The past half-century has seen an unprecedented proliferation of images, narratives and information about sex, accelerated by the accessibility of the internet. Ignorance has been countered by an abundance of knowledge about diverse sexual practices, yet couples today often find themselves more confused, disappointed or disillusioned in the aftermath of their sexual encounters. Surrounded by so many signposts to fulfilment, the road to satisfaction can appear more fragmented than ever.

Alongside this expansion of sexual exposure has been the growth of therapeutic services treating sexual problems. Here, too, fragmentation is evident. A defining feature of this growth has been a tendency to treat either the body-mind dimensions of sexual problems or their mind-relationship dimensions. A Cartesian division of this kind has sometimes resulted in practitioners being represented as plumbers or priests, focused on fixing either the body or the mind. Neither caricature, insofar as they contain an element of truth, allows for integrating the complex web of human sexuality.

Connecting body and mind are the relationships that cradle both sensual and sexual experience. They have a pivotal role in defining the psychosomatic phenomenon we know as sex. This seminar will focus on how relationships in infancy and childhood provide the bedrock upon which adult sexual encounters are based. It will consider relational dimensions of sexual desire, and how sexual fantasies not only feed desire but also provide a window through which problematic aspects of human development can be viewed. From these perspectives we shall draw indicators of good therapeutic practice.

Why This Training is Timely:

For therapists working with individuals and couples, sexuality can be one of the most avoided areas of exploration. Unconscious anxieties, cultural taboos, and professional uncertainties often combine to silence this dimension, leaving clients without a safe space in which to articulate their sexual lives. When sexuality is addressed, it is often treated in isolation from the unconscious dynamics and attachment histories that shape it. This intellectually rigorous and clinically grounded seminar aims to provide practitioners with the confidence and conceptual tools to explore sexual experience as an integral part of relational life.

Clinical Challenges Considered:

• Beyond the body/mind split: How therapeutic practice can move beyond treating sexual difficulties as either mechanical dysfunction or symbolic communication, integrating both perspectives
• Attachment and sexual desire: The role of developmental experiences of presence and absence in shaping adult sexual desire
• Fantasy and phantasy: How sexual fantasy can both support and undermine the sense of self, and what unconscious phantasy reveals about inner world conflicts
• The ‘core complex’ and oedipal dynamics: Understanding the developmental roots of sexual anxieties and their enactment in couple relationships
• “Pretend” and “psychic equivalence” modes of relating: How these modes influence the content of sexual fantasy and its impact on relationships
• Safe therapeutic practice: Creating a consulting room environment in which sexual themes can be spoken about without shame or reductionism

How Couple Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Approaches Sexuality:

In psychodynamic couple therapy, sexuality is understood as a psychosomatic, relational process, rather than a set of behaviours or symptoms. By attending to the interplay of biological drives, attachment-based needs, and unconscious phantasy, therapists can help couples uncover the deeper currents shaping their sexual relationship. This seminar will show how couple psychotherapy provides a reflective and emotionally safe space in which partners can explore the meanings and conflicts encoded in their sexual lives, allowing for greater integration of behaviour, affect and relationship.

Particular emphasis will be placed on how to put into words communications conveyed through behaviour and the unconscious transmission of affect, enabling couples to understand more fully the relational significance of their sexual lives.

Programme:

6:00 – 7:15pm: The Foundations of Sexual Desire

Drawing upon attachment and object relations perspectives, we shall consider the nature of sexual desire and how this is shaped by developmental experiences, considering:

• The biological roots of sexual desire
• Developmental theories linking infantile sensuality and adult sexuality
• The significance of presence and absence in the psychogenesis of sexual desire

7:30 – 9:00pm: Sexual Fantasy and Unconscious Phantasy

In this session we shall explore through a case illustration how sexual fantasy can both support and undermine the foundations of a person’s sense of self, considering what lessons can be drawn for therapeutic practice:

• The ‘core complex’
• ‘Pretend’ and ‘psychic equivalence’ modes of relating
• Oedipal conflicts

Learning Objectives:

We shall:

• Revisit psychoanalytic theories of sexual functioning
• Consider how sexual and attachment systems of behaviour can intertwine and be influenced by each other
• Focus on the potential of partners to combine in enacting shared unconscious phantasies through fantasy-driven sexual encounters
• Consider how to enable therapists to address sexuality in ways that make the consulting room a safe space for exploring
• Develop understanding about how a couple’s sexual relationship can provide a potent focus for psychoanalytic psychotherapy
• Learn what to take into account when putting into words communications conveyed through behaviour and the unconscious transmission of affective experience
• Invite therapists to consider decoding sexual fantasies as a link to understanding inner world assumptions that may impede a couple’s relationship

Who This Training Serves:

This seminar will enhance the practice of individual and couple therapists working with sexual problems, whether from a behavioural, psycho-sexual or psychoanalytic perspective.

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