What role for psychoanalysis in treating traumatic sexuality
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20480731 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Chiara Soligo (0009-0008-1185-4024, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 34 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 249-260 |
| Publication date | 2025-10-02 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Forum of Psychoanalysis (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0803-706X • E-ISSN: 1651-2324 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/0803706x.2025.2572766 |
| OpenAlex | W7127311165 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 51 |
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
MEDLINE · Psychoanalytic theory · Psychoanalytic Therapy · Transference · Child Therapy and Development · Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications · Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy
A review of the long-term effects of child sexual abuse
Stress and the Individual
Childhood maltreatment predicts adult inflammation in a life-course study
The current prevalence of child sexual abuse worldwide
Rethinking the Emotional Brain
Sexual Dysfunction in the United States
Neuroscience, Molecular Biology, and the Childhood Roots of Health Disparities
Relationship of Childhood Abuse and Household Dysfunction to Many of the Leading Causes of Death in Adults
The Gendered Nature of Sexual Scripts
The Impact of Child Sexual Abuse on Men’s Sexual Function
Trauma, Healing and The Reconstruction Of Truth
Victims and Perpetrators of Child Sexual Abuse
The Effect of Childhood Sexual Abuse on Psychosexual Functioning During Adulthood
The traumatic impact of child sexual abuse
Implicit memory and early unrepressed unconscious
Sexual Self-Schemas, Sexual Dysfunction, and the Sexual Responses of Women with a History of Childhood Sexual Abuse
Sexual Abuse in Childhood and Sexual Dysfunction in Adulthood
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |