Working with Sexuality: Bodies, Desires and Imagination

Sexual Fantasy, Unconscious Fantasy and the Dynamics of Attachment

This talk explores sexual fantasy as an articulation of unconscious phantasy in couple relationships. Drawing on patterns of attachment and attending to “pretend” and “psychic equivalence” states of mind, it considers the potential of partners to combine in enacting shared unconscious phantasy through fantasy-driven sexual encounters. Observations about different forms of narcissistic object relating are made in this context, as are some implications for couple therapists.

The full version of this talk was published in the journal Couple and Family psychoanalyzis under the title ‘Sexual fantasy, unconscious phantasy, and the dynamics of attachment’. 2019: 9(1) pp 1-14.