Paper Session B
6. About Cruising and Being Cruised
Presenter: |
R. Dennis Shelby, PhD |
Discussant: |
Joan Lang, MD |
Self Psychology Page | 23rd Conference Program
Overview
This paper explores the phenomenon of cruising for sexual encounters from the perspective of self psychology. Previous papers on the subject have viewed cruising as a homosexual act and offering elaborate libidinal dynamic formulations as evidence with little details as to the treatment as a whole or outcome. The author offers evidence that cruising is a human act that is quite common in our society. The central theme of the paper is that when cruising is approached in libidinal terms, the emphasis is on sexual acts not the needs of the self. By approaching cruising from the standpoint that the self is destabilized, and that cruising is an emergency measure, then the emphasis shifts to the need to search. Clinical examples are offered that illustrate how the need to cruise was viewed as a manifestation of distress and the destabilized self was brought into the transference. The result was a deepening of the transferences and a more complex and empathic understanding of the patient.