ABSTRACT
Sex is a psychosomatic activity. For it to work, both the body and the mind have to be in good-enough working condition, analogous perhaps with Winnicott's 'good-enough mothering'. The Institute of Psychosexual Medicine trains doctors in a body-mind approach. In discussing the work of psychosexual medicine, sexual words may be used in place of the more general concept of emotional contact. The content of many medical consultations is not sexual, and patients can opt in and out of engaging with emotionally charged subjects. The word 'containment', like 'transference' and 'countertransference', is used in different ways, ranging from the physical containment of a psychotic patient in a mental hospital, to specific psychoanalytic definitions proposed by Winnicott (supportive holding) and Bion (processing by the mother or analyst of unbearable elements projected into them by the baby or patient). The licence given to doctors to intrude onto and into the body has been developed over many generations.
