Interpreting sex

Manifest references to sex issue from varied levels of psychic function, and they serve many functions in the patient's construction of the here-and-now analytic relationship. Once explored psychoanalytically, with special reference to transference and countertransference, that manifest material often leads into the unconscious fantasies characteristic of the paranoid-schizoid position, as described by Kleinian analysts. Resolution of sexual problems then requires working through the primitive narcissistic trends on that level. Clinical examples are included.