Psychosexual Counselling

Psychosexual dysfunctions in Italy

June 28, 2016 by Albert

The story of Italian society reconciling its history and values with psychosexual dysfunctions that are antithetical to its honorable reputation is most fascinating. In 1970, Academy Award winning director Bernardo Bertolucci directed The Conformist. The film deals with Marcello Clerici, an Italian whose homosexuality creates a pathological obsession to be vindicated by overzealously supporting the supposed tradition and order represented by the fascist movement of Mussolini. Many Italians flatter themselves by considering their land as the cradle of not just European culture, but of the rest of the world. Ancient Italian civilizations, such as the Romans, and its contribution to architecture, philosophy, warfare, politics, and art remain the basis of civilizations. Much like the protagonist in The Conformist, Italy has long been trying to reconcile the imperfection that psychosexual dysfunctions are viewed to represent with its perception as being an infallible nation cultivated on tradition, order, and culture. As a result of this discrepancy between imagery and reality, the acceptance and diagnosis of psychosexual dysfunctions in Italy has been slow because it conflicts with the Italian ideal.

In a 2006 survey conducted by the Italian daily newspaper Corriere della Sera (Evening Courier), 87.8% of Italians identified themselves as Roman Catholic. It is impossible to discuss psychosexual dysfunctions on a societal level in Italy without discussing the institutional importance of the Catholic Church. Though the processes of globalization, demographic shifts, and state-level secularization have all contributed to the weakened political influence of the Church, the role of religious values on Italian societies understanding of psychosexuality cannot be disputed. For centuries, the Church’s moral righteousness and condemnations were more influential than (more…)

Psychosexual dysfunctions in Iran

June 28, 2016 by Albert

When the Islamic Revolution in 1979 overthrew Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and established an Islamic republic led by Ayatollah Khomeini, it represented a profound political and social transformation in Iranian society, particularly towards sexuality. The Revolution sought to counter the influences of secularization that became institutionalized under the Shah’s government. After all, most Iranians are Muslims; 90% belong to the Shi’a branch of Islam, which became the official state religion, and about 8% belong to the Sunni branch of Islam. Under the Islamic Republic, all laws in the new republic would be based on Islamic Shari’a law. Yet, the implementation of Islamic law is surrounded by controversy, particularly as it pertains to its attitudes towards sexuality. While much of the world was undergoing a sexual revolution that espoused the virtues of “free love” during the 1970s, the Islamic Revolution arose from distrust over this sexual liberalization. This offers clues to Iranian secrecy concerning sexuality and their attitudes towards psychosexual dysfunctions.

Sexuality in Islam is largely based on the Muslim holy book known as the Qur’an and the sayings of Mohammed within it. But, wide-scale policies regarding sexuality deduced from the Holy book have always been based on interpretation and perspective. How much of these laws are merely projections of the cleric’s views on sex, rather than the actual beliefs of Mohammed? Because of Islam’s ambivalence towards sexuality, the Islamic Republic has created an environment that lacks openness when it comes to discussing psychosexual dysfunctions suffered by Iranians.

When discussing sexuality in Islam, it becomes difficult to separate the truth from interpretation. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, an individual’s psychosexual health has to meet several criteria. For beginners, sexual relationship needs to be between a man and a woman. “In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals like in your country,” told Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to an American audience in Setpember 2007. “In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon.” Homosexuality is a crime punishable by (more…)

Psychosexual dysfunctions in France

June 28, 2016 by Albert

“Sex is as important as eating or drinking,” wrote French novelist Marquis de Sade, “and we ought to allow the one appetite to be satisfied with as little restraint or false modesty as the other.” In comparing American women to French, Thomas Jefferson observed that while Americans had “the good sense to value domestic happiness above all other”, in France it was a comparison of “Angels to Amazons.” Jefferson was not only speaking of female aloofness in terms of politics and the work force, but regarding sexuality too. Echoing the sentiments of Sade, French society has long developed a reputation for its laissez-faire attitude about sexuality – one that views even sexology as giving too much thought into sexuality. The May 1968 protests in France may have changed little politically for France, but its social impact was massive. Traditional morality melted into more liberal ideals of morality, which included the emphasis on feminist equality and sexual liberation. Today, in many corners of Paris, sex clubs are abundant. In France, sexology is not categorized as a specific method of psychotherapy. What this signifies is that French society has a vastly different understanding of what constitutes psychosexual health and dysfunctions in relation to the more puritanistic views seen in the more sexually conservative countries

Long before 1968 shook gender identity and sexual liberation, the French Revolution brought about political and social upheavals that still resonate today. Removing itself from the traditional order of society that was based on feudalism and privileges for the aristocracy and the Catholic clergy, the French Revolution carried the battle cry: “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité” (Liberty, Equality, Fraternity). What the Revolution did was turn French values on its head, assaulting conventions with a sledgehammer. The French Revolution was unprecedented in that it attempted to convert the ideals conceived by the minds of Enlightenment thinkers into practical implementation. Principles such as (more…)

The Psychosexual Effects of Rape

June 28, 2016 by Albert

Whether it occurs as a strategy of military or in an isolated incident, rape is an effective weapon not only physically, but psychologically. During the 1994 Rwandan genocide that cost between 800,000 to 1 million lives over the course of 100 days, rape became a widespread and systematic modus operandi. Indeed, a 1996 report published by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Rwanda estimated that between 250,000 to 500,000 Rwandese women and girls were raped during this brief period. There are no shortages of tales from women who survived the brutalization, sexual slavery, and forced mutilation. But, mass rape as a weapon was not isolated to the borders of Rwanda: in the 20th century alone, systematic rapes occurred in places such as China, Pakistan, Chad, Serbia, Germany, Sudan, among other regions that experienced large-scale violence. Rape is an assertion of dominance and the psychosexual scars it leaves are more permanent than its physical ones. However, a difficulty in prosecuting perpetrators of rape or sexual assault in any form – such as enforced pregnancy, prostitution, sterilization, or slavery – is that its victims often remain silent. The helplessness felt from being sexually assaulted against their will forces many victims of rape to suffer quietly in the psychosexual effects of rape.

Sexual assault in any form is an act of violence. In most cases, victims of rape believe that their survival depends on obedience and absolute submission to the perpetrators of the act. Once it occurs, however, women internalize it and cope with it in different ways. In 1974, Ann Wolbert Burgess and Lynda Lytle Holmstrom studied 146 patients admitted during a one-year period to the Boston City Hospital with a presenting complaint of having suffered rape. They sought to document the process of “rape trauma syndrome.” This involved recording the women’s state of mind when they were brought to the hospital and three months afterwards. What they recorded were (more…)