Eros & Psyche: Existential Perspectives on Sexuality (Volume 2: Clinical & Spiritual Perspectives) (original) (raw)
Related papers
2023
Human beings are sexual beings. While this is an existential reality, the way individuals relate to sexuality—their own and the sexuality of others—varies significantly. In our contemporary world, understanding what it means to be sexual beings is ever-evolving. Eros and Psyche is an in-depth encounter with sexuality through diverse existential perspectives. In this 2-volume series, many leaders in the existential field explore topics including how Heidegger and Foucault could reinvigorate your sex life, sexuality and the arts, finding God in the bedroom, and working with sexual attraction in psychotherapy. Eros and Psyche is essential reading for existential scholars, researchers, and therapists. Volume 1 of Eros and Psyche focuses on philosophical and theoretical perspectives with chapters by Heidi Levitt, Zenobia Morrill, Brent Dean Robbins, Stanley Krippner, Sara K. Bridges, Digby Tantum, and more.
Modern Psychology, Eros, and the Sexual Revolution
Transcendent Philosophy: An International Journal for Comparative Philosophy and Mysticism
The immense confusion surrounding sexuality is a powerful indication of the spiritual crisis of the modern world. What are the causes and underlying factors of this state of confusion? The effects of the sexual revolution of the 1960s—a movement rooted in much earlier ideologies—have not diminished but, rather, expanded. The gradual emergence of the Enlightenment project has led to the desacralization of human existence, reducing higher realities to the plane of the material. Modern psychology has played a decisive role in this problem by limiting its account of sexuality to the purely horizontal level of the psycho-physical, when a true comprehension requires the vertical dimension of the Spirit. Modern mental health treatments initially identified the lack of sexual fulfillment as the etiology of psychopathology itself and, while many novel treatment modalities have since been created, to a great extent they only add to the confusion. By contrast, sacred psychology and its metaphysical foundations provide a framework that integrates the horizontal and vertical dimensions of sexuality.
Eros as Myster Y: Toward a Transpersonal Sexology and Procreativity
1985
Historically, the scientific study of human sexuality has involved questionnaires, questionnaire-structured interviews, laboratory and electronic observation and recording techniques, and the ethological study of other species. Although such methods provide normative data on sexuality, the more subtle aspect-eros, the lived experience-is often beyond their reach. Phenomenology, as a science of hermeneutics, taps into this subtle domain and can provide descriptive depth in contrast to statistical breadth. Scientific research pays little attention to the theoretical contexts or paradigms surrounding erotic phenomena but focuses upon "sex" per se; i.e., assumes that orgasm is the essential goal of eros. The present study includes this paradigm and involves two others, orgasm-transcending tieo-tantra and celibate brahmacharya. This kind of research is the specialty of phenomenology: the study of the "situated ness" of a phenomena and its existentially created meanings. Phenomenology, in its own historical unfolding has become the science of the situated person, the study of the situated events by which we build our culture and actualize our way of life (von Eckhartsberg, 1981, p, 25). METHOD Preliminary Assumptions This study assumes, as does clinical sexology, that eros can emerge in disparate forms, viz. the numerous philias and Copyright @ 1985Tra~spersonal Institute three paradigms of sexuality
The Act of Freedom: Eros, Cognitive Dissonance and Sex
2022
Although most people are probably fairly comfortable with the word ‘cognitive’ by itself, the word ‘dissonance’ is not one that gets used a lot in everyday conversation. In a basic sense, cognitive dissonance just refers to a situation where someone’s behaviour conflicts with their beliefs or attitudes. A psychologist by the name of Leon Festinger came up with the idea of cognitive dissonance way back in the late 1950s and did a heap of pioneering work in the field. We can essentially achieve the reduction of dissonance in one of three ways: either we change our attitude /belief /behaviour, acquire new information , or reduce the importance of cognitions. The philosophical discussion of sex in the West began with the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. His dialogues Symposium and Phaedrus, which are about Eros, are provocative, astute, and an indispensable foundation for anyone interested in pursuing the philosophy of sex. Although Plato's student Aristotle had little to say about Eros, he meditates at length in his Nicomachean Ethics about philia, arguing that genuine friends improve each other's virtue and want the good for each other for each other's sake. Those who engage in research in the philosophy of sex commonly also study the related phenomena of love and friendship. The philosophy of sex generates its most instructive results when approached interdisciplinarity, when it pays attention not only to the psychology of sex and love but also to the sociology and history of mating practices and marriage forms, the anthropology of sexual and fertility rites and rituals, and the anatomical, physiological, and genetic findings of biomedical science. This is where we begin with our journey. This book analyses philosophical and psychological components of modern sexuality and sex, with dissonance in mind and a few critical stands along the way. The writing of Lacan, Bataille, de Sade, Foucault and many more are thoroughly depicted and discussed becoming less ignorant. The main purpose of this book is to shed some light towards the structure and nature of sexuality, sexual desire and gender identity, but also to talk about the taboos and stigmatized topics.
Eros in body psychotherapy – a crucible of awakening, destruction and reparation
Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy, 2018
Eros and Sexuality have been central to the development and the philosophy of body psychotherapy but have since been pushed towards the margins of the field. The author reviews historic paradigm shifts alongside contemporary perspectives and conceptions that recognise the continued significance of Eros and erotic dynamics for body psychotherapy practice. Relational and psychobiological perspectives on working with Eros and erotic dynamics are illustrated with the help of clinical vignettes.
This article explores a holistic vision of human sexuality by contrasting it to the prevailing trend of “cognicentrism” in sexological studies. To this end the authors propose that a novel understanding of sexuality as a creative force of life energy can greatly enhance such cognicentric approaches. Such a proposal rests on a holistic approach to human nature that has been developed over many years of educational and clinical application. Within this holistic vision, the role of a human multidimensional cognition that is somatically rooted in bodily nature assists the articulation of sexuality as a transformational life path of embodied spirituality, healing, and growth.
Bearing Witness to Epiphany: Persons, Things, and the Nature of Erotic Life.
“Bearing Witness to Epiphany is another beautifully written book by John Russon, a companion to his excellent Human Experience. While continental philosophy has relentlessly deconstructed the classical form of the philosophy book, Russon has revived this form in a most compelling way. Russon’s writing is so lucid, that the book seems to read itself. More importantly, like Human Experience, Bearing Witness to Epiphany is the expression of profound thinking. This book should make it clear to everyone that John Russon is one of the few original voices working in continental philosophy today.” — Leonard Lawlor, coeditor of The Merleau-Ponty Reader In this probing sequel to the popular and award-winning Human Experience, John Russon asks, “What is it to be a person?” The answer: the key to our humanity lies in our sexuality, where we experience the freedom to shape identities creatively in cooperation with another. With grace and philosophical rigor, Russon shows that an exploration of sexuality not only illuminates the psychological dimensions of our interpersonal lives but also provides the basis for a new approach to ethics and politics. Responsibilities toward others, he contends, develop alongside our personal growth. Bearing Witness to Epiphany brings to light the essential relationship between ethical and political bonds and the development of our powers of expression, leading to a substantial study of the nature and role of art in human life.
Sexuality and Embodiment in Relationships
Existential Perspectives on Relationship Therapy., 2013
In general what sets 'a relationship' (of the kind this book, and relationship therapy more broadly, focuses on) apart from other kinds of relationships (friendships, collegiate relationships, family relationships and so forth) is often taken to be the fact that it is 'sexual'. The phrases 'romantic relationship', 'intimate relationship' and 'sexual relationship' tend to be used interchangeably. Indeed, in popular magazines, television programmes and self-help books, the quantity and quality of sex within such a relationship is often taken to be a barometer of its success, or of the connection or love between the people involved (e.g. Gray, 2003; Star, 2004). This focus on sex in relationships has increased in recent years as part of what has been termed the 'sexualisation' of culture (Attwood, 2004), and with it levels of anxiety around sex: The 2000 UK national survey of sexual attitudes and lifestyles (NATSAL) found that 35% of men and 54% of women reported some kind of sexual ‘dysfunction’ (Mercer et al., 2005). Clearly, therefore, it is important that an existential form of relationship therapy considers issues of sex and sexuality within an existential framework. It is also important to begin to detail what an existential sex therapy would look like in practice, and how this might be similar to – and different from – current forms of psychosexual therapy. To date, there has been relatively little written on sexuality within existential therapy (see Smith-Pickard & Swynnerton, 2005; Pearce, 2011), and even less on existential forms of sex therapy (papers which touch on this include Barker, 2011a; Kleinplatz, 1998, 2004; Adams, Harper, Johnson & Cobia, 2006). Historically, relationship therapy has been intertwined with sex therapy within organisational contexts. In the UK, for example, the main organisation accrediting therapists in this area is the College of Sexual and Relationship Therapists (COSRT, 2011). In the National Health Service, the secondary care available to those with relationship difficulties takes the form of 'sexual and relationship therapy' clinics. The key international journals in this area are the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy and Sexual and Relationship Therapy. This chapter begins by presenting the dominant, medicalised, understandings of ‘sexual problems’ within psychosexual therapy. This is then contrasted with an existential understanding of sexuality and embodiment, drawing primarily on the work of Merleau-Ponty but also incorporating more recent feminist and queer scholars such as Elizabeth Grosz, who have built on and also challenged this foundation. The chapter then goes on to examine the multiple potential meanings of sexual experiences and practices, and the potential within existential therapy for sexual issues to reveal clients’ wider world views as well as relational dynamics. Specific examples are given of the multiple meanings of erectile difficulties, and of the relationship between vaginismus and the existential challenge of being-for-oneself versus being-for-others.