Karol Marshall, PhD, ABPP

 

Conclusions Excerpted from "The Embodied Self: Thinking Psychoanalytically in a Time of Science," Journal of Analytical Psychology, 2009, 54:677-696

 

• The underpinnings of gender identity are to some degree laid down by prenatal hormonal action which may be genetic or otherwise activated. Overtime aspects of socialization and culture interact with this biological substrate to shape the manifestation of gendered identity (Purves, 2008).
• The gender of sexual object preference may be related to prenatal factors, particularly in males. (Prenatal effects may account for 1/3 of the variance in male sexual object choice (Savic, 2008, Swaab, 2009).  Although sexual object preference is relatively fixed (particularly in males) in early life, there are many factors in play: including genetic, hormonal, social, and cultural. People construct an understanding of their sexual object responsiveness that feels coherent to them.
• Objects of sexual desire correlate with gendered style. People who prefer male sex objects tend to be more feminine;  those preferring female sex objects tend to be more masculine. (LeVay, 2008, p. 455). This is likely the result of interacting factors, prenatal as well as postnatal, biological as well as cultural.
• Gender identity and preferred objects of sexual desire are culturally influenced. We see this particularly dramatically in the data showing that patterns of transsexuality are strongly correlated with individualistic or collectivistic cultural values (Lawrence, 2009).
• When defining categories of sexual phenomena, it is important to make room for multiple categories of object(s) of sexual desire, as well as of self-perception of gender. To collapse these categories into dualisms can obscure important distinctions.
• When deciding upon meaningful topologies for sexual patterns, categories may be statistically or socially based or they may be drawn from the biological values of reproduction and child rearing. The categories may be dichotomous or defined as points on relevant continua, depending on the context under consideration. There is no best way of sorting sexual patterns. It is important to be clear which dimensions of experience are relevant for which purposes. It is also important to be aware that category making can itself create “pathologies” (See Hacking, 1986).
• The structure of the brain is influenced by behavioral and emotional experience; development is an interlocking chain of factors rather than being a one-way process (Fausto-Sterling, 2000).
• Psychoanalysis works in the territory of sense-making so individuals can more flexibly make increasingly accurate and coherent meaning of their complex urges, conflicts, sexual and social relationships. It is clear that the psychoanalytic work of patient, nuanced sense-making can lead to different perspectives and experiences. This in turn may lead to beneficial outlook and behavioral changes as well as structural modifications in how the individual nervous system functions in the areas of sexual desire and gender identity.