Sex And Therapy: Not Made For Each Other

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

How do you feel about sex?

Yes, I owe him my life!

(Joke)

Shot from the TV series "Treatment (In Treatment)"

T: The idea behind this article is quite banal. How to deal with sexual arousal during therapy. And, perhaps, arguing, it will become clearer what forms can be applied to him in life. The topic of sex between client and therapist is so razor-sharp that almost all therapy films deal with it in one way or another. This is especially true for clients who have experienced sexual exploitation. For those who do not know any form of intimacy other than sexual. In life, this turns into an incessant, even with age, promiscuity, while the need for intimacy remains hungry. There is also the other extreme - clients with conversion symptoms, behind which there is a forbidden excitement, which is a shame to talk about even in the course of therapy.

D: I think the important point is this: that intimacy, trust, which is formed in the relationship with the client with the therapist, is as if some kind of permissive. talk about sex and the process itself is equivalent for many.

That is, if the topic of sex appears in the work, it can be perceived as an invitation to sex. Namely: there is such a distance in the relationship, in which the excitement is very difficult to endure and then either run away from therapy, that is, sharply move away. Or come close sharply in order to defuse the arousal that has arisen. As if the average is not given.

T: Here we are dealing with parallels with parent-child relationships. If the parent (even if the child has one) freely deals with the topic of his own sexuality, seeks to satisfy his own sexual desires with another adult, then the relationship between him and the child is not sexualized. Sleeping in the same bed with a child, which is so shocking to many parents, can be completely devoid of sexual connotation, or it can be full of tension. It all depends on the parent's satisfaction. Likewise in the client-therapy relationship: the therapist's freedom in this theme creates the conditions for the client's freedom. The boundaries attacked by the client who can actively seduce are strong when the therapist has a sex life. From there, the tale went that the therapist should be dumb, lazy and sexually satisfied.

According to my observations, the topic of sex in therapy is taboo in two ways: through silence and through fixation. In the first case, tension at some point can accumulate and affect affectively, in the second, ostentatious shamelessness does not allow touching anything else, and human sexuality is closely related to intimacy. Without her, without a canvas of relationships, she is dead and mechanistic.

D: here, in my opinion, it is important that at least a hundred articles and many appeals have already been written about. The therapist needs to be worked out. And in the topic of sexuality as well. Personal therapy allows you to more freely handle your arousal, notice it, and not be in one of the extremes. Otherwise, we will observe the therapist or with a ban on arousal in the process of working with the client. Or I'll tear off the cheeky one. None of these extremes are beneficial to the client. And for the therapist in general too. Therefore, the presence of personal therapy and timely supervision, I consider a necessary and indispensable condition for a practicing therapist.

T: It is impossible to investigate the client's process if it is a shame to notice this process. Many times in the demonstration sessions, I have witnessed the therapist's inability to recognize the seduction process by the client. And, therefore, it is impossible to make it noticed by the client. “You seem to be seducing me. Why do you want this?"

The answers can be very different. About power in the session. About the impossibility of seducing in life, but here it is safer. About the projection of some figure, with which the contact was built just like that, but something else was missing.

Being able to talk about these topics allows you to turn the topic of sexuality into something else.

In my opinion, many clients come to therapy for substitution. There is no intimacy in life, you can get it in the space of therapy and be content with it. And then this is the path to addiction (the task of therapy is to learn to build intimacy in life, and not to receive it in the office in a metered dose), and then the sexual prohibition just supports the impossibility of something with the therapist and encourages the client to make efforts to build his life, being in his life. And encourages the therapist to look for forms for the placement of arousal. When Denis talks about something average, I hear him exactly like this: how to find a form that will not be ignored and will not be sexual contact. Where does sexual contact begin at all?

With sexual arousal in the body? Or with the choice of the object of attraction? Or approaching it? Or from skin contact?

D: I remembered one client at the beginning of my journey as a therapist. Something strange was happening in the session, but I still couldn't figure it out. We were marking time and did not advance at all. At some point, the supervisor asked, don't you think that the client is seducing you? The realization of this and the ability to place in the session allowed for quite a lot of progress. Seduction in this case was the only form of contact with a man for the client. And it was interesting to find that, in general, she did not even understand why she needed so many men and why they all want only one thing from her. So, the opportunity to notice this gives a reason and freedom to look for new forms of building relationships.

T: I had a similar experience, but its content was completely different. A male client, seducing women, did not allow them to notice the boy wounded by his mother in himself. A boy who was terrified of female sexuality and power. When it was possible to make this process explicit for the client, the topic of sexual impotence emerged as the only opportunity to face one's own impotence in life. Sexual contact and the powerlessness that he lived in, shifted his own view from the powerlessness in which he was in his own life, ruled by his wife, mother and even growing daughters.

Now I still think about the fact that heterosexual discussion is something that therapists feel, as a rule, quite free. Homosexual arousal is hidden by tons of shame. But it is excitement that creates sympathy, the desire to approach, to be close, in general to be in contact with this particular person.

A: In fact, sex is rarely a way to just have fun or continue the family. A wide variety of needs are met with its help. For example, sex as a satisfaction of the need for security: I give him sex, and he gives me a comfortable life. Or as a way to gain recognition. Or as the only possible form of intimacy and tactile contact. With the help of sex, you can rule, control, achieve what you want….

T: I agree with Denis that sexual behavior often hides in itself a completely different need, while the pleasure directly from sex begins to disappear. True pleasure is obtained when the desired is achieved, and not the declared one. It is very rare to enjoy food if the hunger was for sex. Or "get enough" sex, wanting power. By shifting the need to another object, to an inappropriate method, a person becomes dependent on this method, fixated on it. He does not understand what he really wants, but he acts in the usual way, which more and more eats up strength and does not give new ones.

Sexual activity is a good marker of overall satisfaction in life. All depression questionnaires contain questions about the pleasure of sex. A person who does not feel real hunger and a person who does not experience sexual attraction is often completely alienated from his own body, from its impulses. He does not seem to live life, but observes it, ticking the boxes of his victories, and trying to measure the satisfaction with the amount of what has been done.

Sexual behavior is also about transferring experience from parent to child. Not necessarily in a verbal form: “all men are goats and want only one thing,” but through their own prohibition to live life to the fullest. The unlived life of the parents becomes a heavy burden for the children. In this sense, the therapist's recognition of the value of this aspect of life for himself may be the first permission for the client to stop being afraid of the impulses of his body.

D: I think it remains only to summarize our reasoning. The therapist's freedom to deal with his arousal, the ability to notice both his own and the client, the ability to place him in the work in acceptable ways, allows the client to notice and deal with his arousal in a new way.