Recent societal changes have challenged long-established concepts in psychoanalysis, including the Oedipus complex, parental functions, and male and female psychosexuality. ‘Postmodern families’, based on sexual and emotional exchanges independent of gender, now include homoerotic couples who adopt children, or who create them through assisted fertilisation, as well as single parent families and blended families. A number of highly-renowned Latin American psychoanalysts have drawn attention to the urgency of revising theoretical and clinical concepts in the light of these new scenarios. In this book, they open up ideas which cover familiar territory of current concerns in psychoanalytic work, as well as other little-explored areas, with the emphasis on evolving sexualities and new experiences of parenthood. The first section revisits psychoanalytic theories, particularly parental functions in the area of sexuality and gender. The following section discusses new family configurations, and vicissitudes of the desire to have a child in men and women, with the authors presenting some psychic consequences for parents in therapy who have turned to assisted fertilisation. The third section, on sexual diversity and the neosexualities, includes the topics of intersexuality, the fantasy of neuter gender, countertransference in psychotherapy with gender identity disorders patients, and same-sex parenting. The final section pays tribute to Mariam Alizade, overall chair of COWAP from 2001-2005. As our psychoanalytic thinking and practice becomes more complex and sophisticated, our understanding of the analytic process is correspondingly deepened. About the Editors: Cândida Sé Holovko is a full member of IPA and the Brazilian Psychoanalytical Society of São Paulo (SBPSP); co-chair of COWAP for Latin America; a liaison member of COWAP-IPA with SBPSP, 2005/2008; Regional Editor for the Latin American Journal Calibán (2012/2014); member in training with the Institute de Psychosomatique Pierre Marty de Paris; coordinator of a psychoanalytical psychosomatics group linked to the Institute of Paris; member of a psychosomatic study group at SBPSP; chief Editor of the Institute’s Journal (Jornal de Psicanálise), 2009-2010, in which two volumes were dedicated to COWAP themes of Masculinities/Femininities (June and December, 2009). She has published on masculine and feminine psychosexuality, mind-body relations and psychosomatics. Frances Thomson Salo trained with the British Society as a child and adult psychoanalyst, is a Training analyst and past President of the Australian Psychoanalytical Society, Chair of the International Psychoanalytical Association Committee of Women in Psychoanalysis, an editorial board member of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis, a consultant infant mental health clinician at the Royal Women's Hospital and child psychotherapist at the Royal Children's Hospital, an Honorary Fellow of the Murdoch Children's Research Institute, an Associate Professor on the faculty of the University of Melbourne Graduate Diploma for Infant and Parent Mental Health, and has published on child and infant-parent psychotherapy.
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