Sexual Revolutions: Psychoanalysis, History and the Father

The ideas of psychoanalyst Otto Gross (1877-1920) have had a seminal influence on the development of psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice and yet his work has been largely overlooked. For Freud, he was one of only two analysts ‘capable of making an original contribution' (Jung was the other), and Jung called Gross 'my twin brother' in the course of their mutual analysis.
This is a major interdisciplinary enquiry into the history, nature and plausibility of the idea of a 'sexual revolution', drawing also on the related fields of history, law, criminology, literature, sociology and philosophy. Divided into four parts and offering an interdisciplinary and international range of contributors, areas of discussion include:


a contemporary perspective on sexual revolutions
the broad influence of Otto Gross
the father/son conflict
a Jungian perspective on history.

Sexual Revolutions introduces Gross’ work to the academic and clinical fields of psychoanalysis and Jungian analysis. Although most people associate the term with the 1960s, its foundations lie in the long-neglected but sensational work of the early psychoanalyst Otto Gross. This book will be essential reading for all psychoanalysts and Jungian analysts with an interest in learning more about his work.

Gottfried Heuer is a Jungian Training Analyst and Supervisor, and a Body psychotherapist, with over 35 years' private practice in West London. He is an independent scholar with over 60 published papers on the links between analysis, radical politics, body psychotherapy and spirituality, and on the history of analysis. He is co-founder and Chair of the International Otto Gross Society, for which he (co-)edited seven volumes of Congress proceedings, and editor of Sacral Revolutions: Reflecting on the Work of Andrew Samuels -- Cutting Edges in Psychoanalysis and Jungian Analysis, Routledge.

Heuer, ‘The Angel of History’: ‘The Past and the Present are Entwined like Lovers in an Embrace.’ Part I: History. Lu, Jung and History: Adumbrations of a Post-Jungian Approach to Psychohistory. Bennett, Sexual Revolutions – Towards a Brief History. Part II: Fathers and Sons. Muhlbacher, Elementary my dear Holmes – Hans Gross, the father of Criminology and Arthur Conan Doyle. Gilman, Kafka, Sex and the Jews. Dienes, Gross vs. Gross. Olenhusen, Sigmund Freud, Max Weber and the Sexual Revolution. Part III: Psychoanalysis, Literature and Sociology. Springer, Freud, Gross, Sexual Revolution. Heuer, The Birth of Intersubjectivity: Otto Gross and the Development of Psychoanalytic Theory and Clinical Practice. Totton, Wilhelm Reich’s Theory of Sexuality. Michaels, Otto Gross’ Influence on German-language Writers. Turner, ‘Making History’: D.H.Lawrence, Frieda Weekley and Otto Gross. Whimster, No Place for a Sexual Revolutionary. Heidelberg and Otto Gross. Part IV: Sexual Revolutions. Orbach,Kahr, Sexual Liberation: Where Have We Got To? Psychoanalysis and the engagement with Sexual Liberation. Samuels, Carnal Critiques: Promiscuity, Politics, Imagination, Spirituality and Hypocrisy. Hon, Rethinking Virginity: A Post-Jungian Reframing. Heuer, The Colour of Rainbows: The Advent of Post-Postmodernity and the Notion of Forgiveness. Heuer, ‘The Sacredness of Love’ or: ‘Relationship as Third, as Religion.’ – Otto Gross' Concepts of Relationship Today.