From: Critical Sexology [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Corinne Squire [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, October 01, 2012 5:19 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [CRITSEX] NOVELLA-CNR postgraduate research seminar, October 9: Women's narratives of love

                                       All welcome!

                                      Graduate Seminars in Narrative

The Centre for Narrative Research, University of East London and

the NOVELLA ESRC Research Node, Institute of Education and UEL



Women's narratives of love

Elis Chasan, University of East London

Tuesday October 9th, 5.00-6.30

The Library, Thomas Coram Research Unit, Institute of Education, University
of London,  27-8 Woburn Square, London WC1H OAA

Over the last fifteen years, an increasing number of women have been looking
for help to control their sex and love lives when diagnosing themselves sex
and or love addicts.  One of the places these women turn to for help is the
organisation Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, an off-shoot of Alcoholics
Anonymous (SLAA).  Since I started researching sex and love addiction
anonymous in 2010, I can count a 57 per cent increase in the number of Sex
and Love Addiction recovery groups in London in 2010.

What is leading this increase? Are we experiencing a new psychosocial
phenomenon?  What forces are driving women to associate with a label that
implies such a lack of agency as addiction suggests?  Is the increase of sex
and love addiction one of the consequences of the transformation of intimacy
(Giddens, 2008), that is, is the moving from the patriarchal era of fixed
identities to a more fluid era of sexual equality being somehow resisted by
an acting out of old stereotypes (women and love, men and sex) ? Is the
increase of the groups of SLAA related to the fact that we live in a
therapeutic culture (Richards, 2007) in which there is a emotionalisation of
culture and a search for self-fulfilment?  What ideals of love are present in
our historical moment? What sense are women making of their failure of their
love?  Is there anybody being blamed?

These are some of the question that I intend to explore using a psychosocial
approach informed by psychoanalysis.  The investigation will consist of
theoretical analysis followed by the analysis of narrative interviews with
women who diagnose themselves as 'sex and love addicts'.  The interviews have
no fixed format. Instead each interviewee is invited to narrate their
difficulties in intimate relations, an attempt is made to understand which
forces may be behind their discourse and what is the meaning each interviewee
ascribes to their difficulty.

Elis Chasan is a Brazilian psychologist and holds a master's degree on
Psychoanalytical Studies from the Tavistock Institute.  She is currently
training in psychoanalysis at CFAR (Centre for Freudian Analysis and
Research) and studying for a PhD at University of East London on the subject
of 'Sex and Love Addiction and Femininity'.



All welcome, especially graduate students.  For further details contact
Corinne Squire ([log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> ) or Rowena
Lamb ([log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>  ). Details are also on the
CNR website: http://www.uel.ac.uk/cnr/home.htm
<http://www.uel.ac.uk/cnr/home.htm>