In Your Absence: Desire and the Impossibility of Intimacy

Abstract

In this article, the author argues that an analytically useful way of viewing sexuality is as a theory of desire in which the many shapes and forms of sexuality represent an attempt to answer the enigma of desire and loss. The concept of sexuality is first grounded in Berne's remarks concerning the enjoyment of games and the impossibility of intimacy and then related to Freud's understanding of primary and secondary gains and the vicissitudes of human development and civilization. The author offers an outline of ego state development in line with this account of human development and introduces what he refers to as “the thing,” purpose hunger, and the enjoyment economy. He also illustrates the potential of these concepts for analytic practice using the issues of contracting, therapeutic intervention, and the nature of analytic relating.