ABSTRACT
Sexuality has been at the centre of interest of psychoanalysis. It was new that Sigmund Freud came to conceive of human sexuality as situated in a continuum that starts at the very beginning of life, implying that adult sexuality, in its mature form, was to be seen as an accomplishment in a developmental process. Sexuality, which lies behind fantasies loaded with desire, is at the centre of psychoanalytic work. Anthropological is the word Freud uses, in spite of his reserves against philosophy: in fact, a new anthropology was born, of human beings seen as profoundly rooted in nature and, among other things, in their instinctual heritage. The setting-up of an analytic bond, and thus of the process of analysis, takes place by setting in motion a movement of mutual seduction. In the history of psychoanalysis this concept has been overshadowed by the problems of a gross sexual seduction in childhood and its pathogenetic role.
