Treating Sexual Shame

In therapy, as in the world at large, sexuality is different from other issues because of the culturally imposed secrecy and shame that inhibit open, nondefended talk about it. Anne Stirling Hastings, Ph.D., who specializes in treating the overlapping sexual problems of abuse, addition, and dysfunction, encourages clinicians to recognize and overcome their own shame as a precondition to eliciting and advancing their clients' awareness. Masturbation, homosexuality, the unconventional paraphilias here dubbed "cross-wirings," and the dynamics of flirtations, jealousy, and extramarital affairs, all get a new look through Dr. Hastings's lens of shame as concomitant cause and effect of sexual behaviors. Case histories animate her salutary and unusually accessible corrective.