Psychosexual therapy in sexualised culture: a systemic perspective

Abstract

This is an edited version of a presentation given at COSRT Conference on “Psychosexual Therapy in Sexualised Culture”, held in November 2011 in London. The Conference had a particular focus on the impact of sexualised media messages on young people. This paper addresses the issue of “sexualisation” in relation to its problematic definition: the effects of sexualisation and the difficulties with the proposed solutions, which are seen as perpetuating the issues they are trying to resolve. Clinical examples illustrate the effects of cultural imbalance in addressing sex on clients presenting themselves for psychosexual therapy.

Keywords:

• sexualisation
• young people's sexuality
• systemic therapy
• psychosexual therapy

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank all my clients who shared their sexual experiences with me so openly in our sessions. I am most grateful to Teresa Wilson for her helpful reading of the final draft.