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Seduction and Desire: The Psychoanalytic Theory of Sexuality Since Freud

Author(s) : Ilka Quindeau

Reviews and Endorsements

‘Quindeau’s book is path-breaking and luminously beautiful. Strewn with judicious insights, it is at once the very best critical account of the evolution of Freud’s and post-Freudian analysts’ thoughts on sex, and a breathtakingly brilliant, innovative reformulation of psychoanalytic theories of desire, fantasy, arousal, pleasure, and attachment. A must-read for psychoanalysts and other therapists, gender theorists, and historians alike.’
- Dagmar Herzog, Graduate Center, City University of New York, author of Sexuality in Europe: A Twentieth-Century History

‘Seduction and Desire is an outstanding, ground-breaking contribution to the scientific literature on sexuality. It presents an up to date review and critique of the psychoanalytic studies and formulations regarding the psychological origins, development and clinical manifestations of normal and pathological sexual experience and behavior. Dr Quindeau proposes a fundamental review of our understanding of the Freudian concept of drive, and, inspired by Laplanche’s theoretical formulations, points to the crucial consequences of the earliest, conscious and unconscious interactions of infant and mother in the activation of the psychological functions of sexual desire. The vicissitudes of unconscious desire lead to a world of bisexual dispositions, fantasies and identifications that structure the manifest character of masculinity and femininity, heterosexual and homosexual orientations, and reveal a remarkable combination of basic unity and yet differentiated multiplicity of sexual identities.
While progress in the study of the neurobiological predisposition to sexual behavior has advanced rapidly in recent times, with efforts to link various findings in an integrative model, recent psychoanalytic and psychosocial studies of human sexuality, in contrast, have lacked an overall, integrative conceptualization. This volume is a major effort in that latter direction, an original integrative psychoanalytic model that bridges American and European contributions, and should be of great interest to all clinicians and researchers interested in the complex world of human sexuality.'
- Otto F. Kernberg, MD, past president of the International Psychoanalytical Association, and author of The Inseparable Nature of Love and Aggression: Clinical and Theoretical Perspectives

'This book is a unique contribution to our psychoanalytic studies of gender and sexuality. Its value can be seen in not only giving an overview of historic and contemporary contributions to the issue and discussing and integrating numerous aspects widely, but also in giving a frame to new conceptualizations. It will fascinate professionals and students alike and help us further develop thinking about 'dark continents'.'
- Ingrid Moeslein-Teising, Committee on Women and Psychoanalysis (COWAP), Germany