Sexuality as the Mainstay of Identity: Psychoanalytic Perspectives

Clinical and Theoretical Parallels Between Desire for Limb Amputation and Gender Identity Disorder

“…In modern Western culture, sexual orientation contributes significantly to the creation and maintenance of personal identity in most persons with normophilic sexual orientations (Katz, 1995;Levine, Risen, & Althof, 1990;Person, 1980). A similar process plausibly occurs in persons with atypical erotic-romantic orientations.…”

“…Person (1980) suggested that an individual's unique erotic-romantic orientation or sex print (similar to Money's lovemap) can be an especially important source of identity in the case of "deviant" sexual preferences or paraphilic eroticromantic orientations:…”

Living the Unspeakable

“…One of the strengths of Magee and Miller's work is their respect for, and attention to, specific individual experience. Person's (1980) useful concept of the individual "erotic signature" is reviewed. The "erotic signature," a personal script for that which elicits erotic desire, is the result of many complex factors, including but not limited to experiences in early relationships.…”

The influence of values in psychoanalysis: The case of female psychology

“…Such ambitions were believed to be misguided, and penis envy and its attendant anxieties were considered to lie at the heart of work problems. Today, howsver, the goal is to work through any inhibition of assertion or achievement motivation (Person, 1982).…”