Patterns of Desire

This new and important book reformulates the importance of sexuality in psychoanalysis through an integrated theory reflecting contemporary multiculturalism. The disappearance of sex as a drive has been a function of the focus on sex as a relationship. This focus has been a useful antidote to the lack of intersubjectivity that seemed to dominate drive theory, but relational theory has unduly diminished the role of sexual desire. Self-theory has made an attempt to retain a "drive-like" character for sexuality, and in the process made a case for psychic energy, personal agency, and libidinal motivation, but appears to stumble in an excessive emphasis on the power of agency as well as the need to eliminate instinctive causality. This book challenges the prevailing paradigm in psychology in general and psychoanalysis, in particular. That is, the over-reliance on specific theoretical formulations that do not provide adequate opportunities to understand and truly appreciate the dilemma that patients normally bring to a practice.