Human sexuality is not limited to genitality, and its ultimate purpose is the reduction of tension. It develops through libidinal stages, whose content is fixed in the unconscious through repression. This was Freud’s first major discovery, leading to a redefinition of the origin of neurotic symptoms and many psychic illnesses, previously considered of organic origin.
Although Freud’s discoveries attributed a pathogenic role to the repressive customs of the era, the essence of his findings concerns the polymorphic and perverse nature of childhood sexuality and the distinction between Eros and sexuality.

120 years after the first edition of Three Essays (1905), and despite the epochal changes in contemporary society regarding the new role of women and the increased understanding of traumatic consequences of sexual abuse, patients continue to report problems and dissatisfaction related to sexuality: impotence, frigidity, sexual orientation disorders, relationships marked by aggressiveness.

At the same time, the spread of new communication technologies has changed how encounters happen and how sexual relationships are built—not only among adolescents. There is a sharp decline in birth rates, delayed motherhood, with consequences on fertility and an increasing use of assisted reproductive techniques.

The narcissistic drift of human relationships we are witnessing makes the dynamics of “tangling/untangling” between sexuality and aggressiveness even more evident, as highlighted by micropsychoanalysis. Sexuality remains a fundamental focus of psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic work, centered on the relationship between drive, desire, body, and object. It is our task to question the phenomenology of the psychopathological conditions we observe to identify and, if necessary, update the tools to address them.