Chapter 6 - Sex

Sex - The second center

Sexual energy is spiritual energy. When spiritual energy begins working in the psychophysical center called sex (the second center), it takes the form of sensual feelings, sexual sensations, evocative thoughts, deep emotions, and bodily expression. Spirit is moving in the body and the body has sensations. When this energy moves from another center into the second center, the human/spiritual energy does not change its essential nature, but its form does change.

Countertransference - Spiritual longings and fears related to sex

Therapists may long for their own experience of spiritual sexuality. Clients whose energy is in the second center may express their life energy in what appears to be a sexual (physical) way, but the spiritual part of it is foremost. They radiate life force and the mystery of that life force. A therapist watching such a process in a client may long to feel it in herself also. She may be tempted to try to acquire it by having sex with the client who is in touch with this energy.

Countertransference - Personal desires and fears related to sex

When the energy begins moving in this second center, clients often become very sexual. They become spontaneously seductive, but not in the usual game-playing way. Therapists may feel irresistibly attracted because of their own spiritual longings, as I have written above, or because of physical desires. When the client is being openly provocative or simply sexually magnetic, the therapist is often attracted and responsive. Sex is certainly the most prominent area of ethical violation. Most legal and ethical actions brought against therapists are for infractions of laws and codes which prohibit sex between client and therapist. (See Chapter 14.)

A therapist may also encounter counter-transference in the sex center from her own fear. She may see the client's sexuality spontaneously and powerfully unfolding and respond with a kind of psychic tightening of the therapeutic reins. The therapist may fear the emergence of such uncontrolled, spontaneous sexual feeling in her own life.

Sexuality is often linked to anger and hostility. Stanislav Grof (Beyond the Brain) discusses this connection in his description of the third stage of birth when the fetus experiences both aggression and sexual arousal. If a client's process involves this combination it may be particularly difficult for the therapist who has been harmed by abusive sexuality to remain objective.

Touch is an area which impacts both transference and countertransference. Opponents of therapist touch point out that therapists do not always know their own deepest motivations in responding to or initiating touch with a client. In touching the client unconsciously, they may be unwittingly taking the first step down the road to unethical behavior. (See also Chapter 3). On the other hand, the therapist himself may fear physical touch. If he does, he may not be willing to touch the client when the client really needs a therapeutic, corrective touch. Conversely, if therapists have incorporated new age values of hugging and touching, they may feel as if they should always hug and touch a client, at least in response to a client's overture. They may neglect to follow their own intuition when it tells them hugging is not appropriate with certain clients or in certain situations.

Transference related to sex

The client in a second center process may feel devotional. As I mentioned above, her spiritual longing is expressed as a longing for bodily union. She may idealize her therapist as the divine lover. More accurately, she realistically sees the divine nature of certain people but tends not to see their human nature. There may be archetypal imagery involved in her fantasies. This powerful transference can cause havoc in a therapeutic relationship. It is difficult enough sometimes for a therapist to accept the transference role of mother, father, or other biographical character in the client's life. It can be quite a strain to a therapist's equanimity to accept and work with the transference of a client's own divine nature or of the image of god or goddess especially when the client's fantasy involves sexual devotion.

Using the energy of sex appropriately

If the therapist acts on his own attraction or the client's in an external way, it can divert the client's focus from the internal movement of the client's energy. The process, which is really an internal psychospiritual process, is subverted when the therapist encourages sexual contact to fulfill his personal needs. The reasons for not having sex with a client are not essentially different in this case from those in any ordinary therapy. Clients who trust a healer or a spiritual teacher feel injured when that person puts his own needs ahead of his client's best interests.