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Sexuality

In: Psychoanalytic Accounts of Consuming Desire

Author

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  • John Desmond

    (University of St Andrews)

Abstract

In her commentary to Freud’s Three Essays on Sexuality ([1905] 1977), Angela Richards says that he made the unconscious real.’ The path to this discovery was laid principally by his patients, most of whom were middle-class Viennese women. Listening to their stories, Freud was at first of the opinion that the source of their trauma lay in their molestation by adults when they were children. Later and controversially, he changed his mind to believe that the hysterical and neurotic symptoms they exhibited in adulthood could be traced to difficulties in dealing with their own infantile sexuality.2 In this view the unconscious is governed by primary instinctive processes, including the sexual drive, which have the sole function of gaining immediate satisfaction. Running up against social constraints, these unconscious currents of desire were repressed by these adults, who pushed them into the unconscious. It took Freud some time to reach the shocking conclusion that children are sexual beings, but when he did, he did not shirk from fully exploring its implications. In directly confronting human sexuality, Three Essays retains its power to strike readers even today with forceful clarity and directness.

Suggested Citation

  • John Desmond, 2013. "Sexuality," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Psychoanalytic Accounts of Consuming Desire, chapter 2, pages 29-55, Palgrave Macmillan.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-137-28908-7_2
    DOI: 10.1057/9781137289087_2
    as

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