Psychological Perspectives on Sexual Problems: New Directions in Theory and Practice

by Jane M. Ussher (Editor)

Sexuality can be seen as a `problem' by many people being faced with media images and popular ideas of `normal' sexuality. Yet, despite critiques of sexology from authorities in psychoanalysis and feminism, sexuality is felt to be a problem for which help is sought.
In Psychological Perspectives on Sexual Problems the authors critically examine theories of sexuality, but also link them with current clinical practice. Far from just addressing the sexuality of heterosexual, able-bodied individuals they also widen the horizons of psychology to look at positive, empowering practices with groups whose sexuality has often been marginalised, such as those with learning difficulties, gay men with AIDS and women with eating disorders.
This book radically integrates theory and practice and will be invaluable for its positive and enabling perspectives on all sexualities.

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 7, 1993

About the author

Jane M. Ussher is Professor of Women's Health Psychology, and leader of the Gender Culture and Health Research Unit: PsyHealth, at the University of Western Sydney, Australia. She has published widely on the construction and lived experience of health, in particular women's mental health, the reproductive body and sexuality. She is editor of the Routledge Women and Psychology book series and is author of a number of books, including The Psychology of the Female Body, Women's Madness: Misogyny or Mental Illness?, Fantasies of Femininity: Reframing the Boundaries of Sex, Managing the Monstrous Feminine: Regulating the Reproductive Body, and The Madness of Women: Myths and Experience . She has also edited a number of books: Gender Issues in Clinical Psychology; The Psychology of Women's Health and Health Care (with Paula Nicolson); Psychological Perspectives on Sexual Problems ; Bodytalk