Rosenthal-Psychoanalytic Theories PDF

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Human Sexuality From Cells to Society

Martha S. Rosenthal Florida GulfCoastUniversity

WADSWORTH cENGAGE Learning Australia. Brazil. Japan - Korea. Mexico. Singapore. Spain. United Kingdom . United States

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Psychology Sexuality is much more than just a physical response Emotions, thoughts, and beliefs have a major influence on our sexual behaviors and feelings. In some ways, psychology is the " marriage" of nature and nurture, the interaction of biologicaland societal influences. There are various psychological then new of sexuality which we will now explore briefly-additional coverage of psychological theories is integrated throughout the rest of the book.

Psychoanalytic Theories Sigrmund Freud was one of the earliest and most influential of sexuality theorists. Freud thought

Psychology The science of mind, emotions, and behavior.

that two forces largely drove human behavior: the death or aggressiveness drive and the more

Libido(li-BEE-doh) Sexual desire or drive.

powerful sex d rive or libido. According to Freud, a person's libido, or sexual energy, is channeled into particular areas of the body at different ages. These erogenous zones are the mouth, the anus, and the genitals. For the first year and a half of a baby’s life, he or she isin the oral stage, focused on oral pleasures such as breastfeeding. From 18 months to 3 years, the child becomes concerned with toilet training and enters phallic phase, the latency period lasts from age 6 until puberty; during this period the sex drive lies relatively dormant With puberty, the adolescent enters (and remains in) the genital phase, as genitally focused sexual urges again awaken. Freud also believed that personality was comprised of three different components:the id, the ego, and the superego. The id (from the Latin for "it" )

represents

primitive drives

such as those related tosex, food, and aggression; it is the part of the unconscious mind that essentially says, "If itfeels good, I want it now!" The superego, on the other hand, is our conscience or sense of morality. It originates in childhood when we acquire our views of right and wrong, Balancing the id and the superego, our primitive desires and our conscience, is the ego (from the Latin for " I" ). The ego allows us to weigh our physical wants with society’s rules so that we can exist in theworld.

Erogenous zones Areas of the body that are particularly sensitive to touch, and that may lead to sexual arousal when stimulated. Oedipal complex The idea that men unconsciously want to eliminate or replace their fathers and have sex with their mothers. Electra complex The psychoanalytic term used to describe s girl's romantic or sexual feelings toward her father. Id The part of the unconscious mind that controls primitive drives such as those related to sex, food, and aggression. Ego The part of the psyche that mediates the drives of the id and superego. Superego Our sense of morality, or conscience.

Many of Freud’s theories are based on case studies of his psychiatric patients. Freudian

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psychoanalysts today might deal with a person's sexual problems by investigating the events of the individual's childhood

Behavioral Theories Behavioral psychologists believe that only behaviors can be measured and evaluated, not emotions or feelings. Behaviorists study how people's surroundings influence the way they act and bow environmental reinforcements and punishments determine om behaviors. B. F. Skinner was a well-known researcher in this area. His experiments about learning found that reinforcements, or rewards, encourage repetition of an activity because the activity becomes associated with a pleasant stimulus(the reinforcement). Skinner also found that punishment, a negative stimulus, lessens the likelihood of a behavior being repeated. This type of learning is called operant conditioning. For instance, if a woman tries a new sexual technique with her husband and it is met with enthusiasm and results in multiple orgasms, the positive results of her behavior make it more likely that she will again be sexually adventurous with her husband. If, however, her efforts are met with derision . and indifference, the punishment will make it less likely that she will try new activities with him. Some therapists use behavior modification- the use of positive reinforcement and/or punishment- to change a patient's behavior.

Cognitive Learning Theories Cognitive learning theory asserts that our behaviors are driven by psychological factors- such as the way we perceive and process world around us-and by the way we cognitively categorize the world. Consequences become rewarding or punishing based on the categories to which they’re assigned(Bancroft, 2009) For instance, one man may have an extramarital affair and feel attractive, and happy-so he terrific-young, continues meeting his lover. Operant conditioning The use Another man having an affair of reinforcement and punishmight be overcome by guilt and ment to increase or decrease remorse and end the extramarithe likelihood of certain behaviors. tal relationship. In each case, it is not the affair per so that Behavior modification The psychotherapeutic treatment caused the mood, it is how the that uses the theory of operant man processed and perceived conditioning to change the situation that affected his maladaptive behaviors. behavior.

10 | CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION TO SEXUALITY

Social Learning Theories According to social learning theory, behaviors are influenced by a combination of environmental factors (e.g., rewards and punishments) and psychological factors (e.g., feelings, thoughts, and beliefs). Social learning theorists feel that people learn to behave by observing the environment and by modeling the behaviors and attitudes of others by observing outcomes. If someone observes a positive outcome to an action, he or she is more likely to imitate the behavior. If someone observes a behavior being punished, he or she is less likely to repeat that behavior. Our thoughts and feelings also have an important effect on our actions, and factors such as imitation and identification are also important i n the development of sexuality. Social lear ning theorists say that children learn socially appropriate behaviors through peer pressure, parental models, and the media. As an example, a small boy may en joy dressing up i n bis mother's clothing, but he eventually learns from peers, parents, or the media that this behavior is not well accepted by society. Although the empirical evidence for the role of learning in human sexual arousal is meager (Hoffmann, Janssen, & Turner, 2004; O'Donohue & Plaud,1994), the learning theories discussed above all have some relevance when it comes to sexuality: our sexuality develops in part from behaviors learned in childhood, from rewards and punishments, from imitation and identification, and from our thoughts and perceptions....