Wanting and not wanting to change: Conflict and ambivalence in the efforts of sexually compulsive men to modify dangerous, self-destructive sexual behaviors.
Item
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Title
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Wanting and not wanting to change: Conflict and ambivalence in the efforts of sexually compulsive men to modify dangerous, self-destructive sexual behaviors.
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Identifier
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AAI9807983
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identifier
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9807983
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Creator
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Pepper, Carol.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Paul L. Wachtel
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Date
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1997
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Clinical | Health Sciences, Mental Health | Psychology, Social | Health Sciences, Public Health
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Abstract
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This is a phenomenological investigation of the descriptive accounts of counter-intentional sexual "slips" narrated by 21 gay, straight, and bisexual men, who self-identified as sex addicts and as members of the 12-step fellowship, Sexual Compulsives Anonymous (SCA). As a participant observer, the author attended more than 150 SCA meetings in New York City. Impressed by the recurrent failure of many men to achieve their abstinence goals and by their evident distress, the author speculated that the phenomena subjects call (their) "sex addiction" may be too diverse and complex to justify group members' often exclusive reliance on an addictions explanatory and treatment model.;A case study design and theoretical sampling technique were used, and a questionnaire and semi-structured clinical interview were developed using a process of emergent design. Senior group members were enlisted to serve as key informants. They recruited all subjects, who were volunteers. Assessed were the concerns and behaviors subjects attributed to sex addiction, and their attitudes regarding gender identity and role, sexual orientation and preferences, sexual performance and attractiveness to others. Participants described in detail a recent slip and a recent time when a slip was avoided. Interviews were culled for dominant themes.;Provisionally supported was the inference that conflict and anxiety, especially with respect to sexual orientation and sexual preferences, may have contributed to the paradoxical regularity with which subjects "found themselves" acting in ways they were also trying to avoid. Subjects unable to resolve sexual and interpersonal difficulties through the use of 12-step methods described their addiction as "escalating" and themselves as increasingly anxious and depressed.;The study tentatively concluded that the subjective experience of compulsivity described by veteran SCA members who engage persistently in disclaimed, self-destructive, and often dangerous sexual behaviors may be generated not only by unresolved conflict, but also, paradoxically, by the futility of their efforts to apply 12-step methods to dilemmas perhaps more centrally related to issues of sexual conflict than to issues of sexual self-control.;Alternative perspectives noted were Schafer's formulations concerning action language, Cooperman's work on defeating processes, and the cyclical psychodynamic theory of Paul Wachtel.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
