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What role for psychoanalysis in treating traumatic sexuality?

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Bibliographic Details
Title: What role for psychoanalysis in treating traumatic sexuality?
Authors: Soligo, Chiara (AUTHOR)
Source: International Forum of Psychoanalysis. Dec2025, Vol. 34 Issue 4, p249-260. 12p.
Subjects: Child sexual abuse, Sexual dysfunction, Therapeutics, Psychoanalysis, Sexology, Traumatism, Neurosciences, Implicit memory
Abstract: Childhood sexual abuse is a significant risk factor for the development of several types of health-related conditions. Early psychoanalytic debate has focused on mechanisms underlying hysterical symptoms, guessing its etiology in the return of memory of a traumatic experience during childhood. Through a literature review, this paper will examine the impact of trauma due to childhood sexual abuse on subsequent sexual functioning in a dialogue between psychoanalysis, neuroscience, and sexology. Traumatic experiences embed themselves in the body as implicit memories, due to several neurophysiological, neuroendocrine, and central sensitization mechanisms described, leading to compromising sexual function in the long term. Therefore, post-abuse sexual dysfunctions must be considered as a specific group. An overview on the recommended therapeutic approaches aims to integrate then psychoanalytic psychotherapeutic treatment, considering its focus not on the symptoms but rather on a broader individual functioning. Prioritizing patient's safety also in relation to timing, psychoanalysis helps the subject break the silence of the abuse, reconnecting past and present and body and mind. A right hemisphere-based therapy, where the mirroring processes between the patient and the analyst becomes a vehicle to re-inscribe into their own self and body the intolerable split elements once lived, so that they become integrable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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Database: Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection
Description
Abstract:Childhood sexual abuse is a significant risk factor for the development of several types of health-related conditions. Early psychoanalytic debate has focused on mechanisms underlying hysterical symptoms, guessing its etiology in the return of memory of a traumatic experience during childhood. Through a literature review, this paper will examine the impact of trauma due to childhood sexual abuse on subsequent sexual functioning in a dialogue between psychoanalysis, neuroscience, and sexology. Traumatic experiences embed themselves in the body as implicit memories, due to several neurophysiological, neuroendocrine, and central sensitization mechanisms described, leading to compromising sexual function in the long term. Therefore, post-abuse sexual dysfunctions must be considered as a specific group. An overview on the recommended therapeutic approaches aims to integrate then psychoanalytic psychotherapeutic treatment, considering its focus not on the symptoms but rather on a broader individual functioning. Prioritizing patient's safety also in relation to timing, psychoanalysis helps the subject break the silence of the abuse, reconnecting past and present and body and mind. A right hemisphere-based therapy, where the mirroring processes between the patient and the analyst becomes a vehicle to re-inscribe into their own self and body the intolerable split elements once lived, so that they become integrable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
ISSN:0803706X
DOI:10.1080/0803706X.2025.2572766