ABSTRACT
Sexual intercourse is one of the human experiences that encapsulate the essential features of an individual’s psychic life: it represents in microcosm the major components of the total psychic experience. The sexual encounter, particularly where there is sexual dysfunction, is often the leading edge of chronic difficulties in all of the individual’s life problems. It is possible that the transference as symbolic sexual intercourse is most apparent where there are sexual dysfunctions. The transference was dominated by his active masturbation fantasy of going no further than partially stripping and never participating in intercourse, physical or psychical. The transference becomes an act of symbolic sexual intercourse. The sexual experience recalls the individual’s psychological and physical relationship with primary care-givers in infancy. The chapter emphasizes that the model for biological procreation—coitus, conception, gestation and birth—applies also to psychological growth and development.
