No 2, 2008
Agnès Camincher
In our practice of sexologist we often see patients who are suffering
from lack of sexual desire following the birth of a child. What can be
considered as a physiological problem during the weeks following
childbirth very often becomes a real sufferance for the couple after
several months. For these frequently occurring situations, the
sexoanalysis can offer elements of original answers concerning the
hypothesis as well as therapeutics ways. It will explore in the
individuals concerned the three spheres of sexuality: erotic
functioning, the gender, the relationship with the other sex and with
the same sex.
We can see by a lot of young mothers lacking desire a
trouble of gender. We even could call that a gender depression, as a
massive split between Madonna and Anti-Madonna. The damaged subjective
perception about their own feminity leaves these women in a great
amount of confusion and a low self-esteem, accompanied with doubts
about their desirability. The principal hypothesis are: the emotional
intensity of the delivery experience as a point of rupture of identity,
an overvaluing of maternal identity, considerably above their gender
identity, and confusion between esthetic standards and desirability
when the body image has been disturbed by the delivery.
Erotic function as explored by the imagination is also often disturbed.
According
to sexoanalysis, integration of fusing and anti-fusing eroticism is an
indication of sexual maturity. First we can generally note in the new
parents a low level of sexual fantasy accompanied by a high level of
guilt concerning expression of anti-fusional fantasies, which are
understood as a threat against family cohesion.
We propose in this article different examples of clinical cases to
confirm this argument.
In
closing, sexoanalysis propose therapeutic tracks as a narrative to
grasp different representations to enrich the sexual experience, and in
depth, inconscious sexuality, by relying upon both physical and
emotional feeling.
Little by little, the work progresses
towards the re-integration of a more flexible and enlarged
eroticism and equally an improvement in self individuality which is
often lost with the onset of give motherhood and fatherhood.
If
the couple’s sexuality was deemed satisfactory in the past, we are
often surprised that improvements develop much quickly than allowed to
be imagined, especially if the problem was described as dramatic during
the first consultations.