Modern Ego Psychology and Human Sexual Experience

This text examines human sexuality through psychoanalytic theory and modern ego psychology, which looks at emotional meaning and its organization in symbolic representations of affect as organized by the ego.
It starts with an exploration of how symbolic representations are applied to the sensory experience of the body in human sexuality, both in reality and in fantasy. Next, the author delves into the phenomenon of romance as an important self-state in human growth and development. The book concludes with an examination of fetishes and fetish enactments, followed by a discussion of relevant treatments.
With its original and fulsome insights into the workings of human sexuality, this book will prove vital for psychoanalysts and psychotherapists in training and in practice, as well as all those seeking to understand human sexual experiences in greater depth.

Eric R. Marcus is Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and Supervising and Training Psychoanalyst at Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research.

Introduction 1. Meaning 2. Symbolic Alterations of the Body 3. Fetish 4. Fetish Enactment 5. Attachment 6. Masturbation 7. Threesomes 8. BDSM 9. Treatment