Self-sexual stage
Continuing the previous Post on sexual identity blocks, Self-stage is known for great fears, anxieties and awkwardness that come from sexual energy emergence (eroticism) in pubers’ bodies. The relevance of this stage lies in exploitation of desire in their own bodies. If, as children, pre-adolescents[1] could explore their bodies in a freer way and now they already know masturbation as an anxiety or compensation discharging channel, they will, then, have better chances of using them again to explore erotic sensations in their bodies. And they can also be in touch with it for the first time in puberty in a creative way, as well. If, however, they have been raised in a morally rigid environment and have been exposed to highly inhibitory atmospheres, whose consequences were introjecting this way of being and behaving, they might have difficulties in exploring eroticism in their bodies. In these cases, structural blocks may be a result of:
- Rejection – self-rejection/rejection of their bodies
Self-rejection is a very regressed psychological dynamics (unconscious one) that surpasses sexuality. “Agent eroticism”, in turn, starts with the emergence of sexual energy in puberty and, in such cases, will tend to expose pubers’ difficulties in getting in touch with their own desire with occasional consequences for the development of their active sexual life.
- Internalized moral censorship
These are cases in which religious and moral prohibitions, that usually come from childhood, turn into traits of children’s personalities, and may appear more explicitly from puberty on. In these cases, feelings of shame or embarassment may repress children’s spontaneity. As a result, they don’t feel “allowed” to explore in a ludic and tranquil way the contact with erogenous zones/genitalia. Or else, it is possible that this sort of behavior starts in puberty and prevents them from becoming familiar with “preliminary stages of sexual interaction”, which is becoming familiar with erotic desire in their own bodies. Therefore, at this stage, blocks are associated with difficulties in accepting their bodies and in having, coming from the outside or the inside, permission to explore it as a source of pleasure[2]. Hence, at this stage, blocks are associated with acceptance of their own bodies and with external or “internal permission” to explore it as a source of pleasure. The pre-adolescent that is stuck at this stage doesn’t start or doesn’t complete the process of projecting idols’ traits into an Idealized friend and, this way, doesn’t trigger the necessary process of idealized projections, jeopardizing the following stages of experimenting desire with other bodies and sexual interaction.
To be continued in the next Post
[1] I’m using pre-adolescents and pubers as synonyms.
[2] PA distinguishes between structural traits, coming from inhibitory atmospheres during cenesthetical (pre-verbal) phase, traits introjected from identity references during childhood, and moral censorship, that may come form family, but also comes from the environment in which children are raised. Masculine and feminine parental models have a great deal of influence on children in all these levels. PA’s understanding is slightly different from Psychoanalysis in what concerns identity development. For Dias, Undifferentiated and Chaotic Psychic – concept borrowed from Bermudez, which is equivalent to Freudian Id-, is the core of subjective structuration. Facilitating and inhibitory atmospheres, however, aren’t synonyms of superegoic censorship and, hence, also differ in diagnosis and maybe in psychotherapic strategy. In other words, inhibitory atmospheres introjected by children are sprayed in some types of internalized models amongst which there are superegoic ones. Psychotherapy is supposed to “dismantle” such features (who becomes part of peoples’ identity), with the use of especific strategies - techniques. Anyway, what is crucial to be understood is that internalized moral censorship becomes (a) trait(s) of moral rigidity that might cause structural blocks during S.I development, whereas moral rigidity, coming from the outside world, may also be deeply anguishing althought it is more easily accessible to consciousness, because people are aware of them. When they happen, may generate functional blocks.
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