Years of psychotherapy practice at university, state, and military hospitals developed the author's interest in the presentation of love relationship problems. Mood and anxiety disorders, as the most prevalent pathologies, were often co-morbid with or secondary to partner relationship issues. Most vexing for clients was a situation of repeated dysfunctional partner selections in which similar problems arose each time. This incubated the idea of a process, probably outside of awareness, that functioned to perpetuate self-defeating partner selection patterns. The author was introduced to Money's `lovemap' concept during studies and identified readily with its principles and mechanisms. The lovemap is defined as a highly individualised, developed, mental template or cognitive blueprint of the ideal lover. It is assumed that every person has a lovemap, and would be able to describe it if asked the right questions. The concept promised to be a useful vehicle for studying self-defeating partner selection patterns, as `errors' might be coded into the lovemap that are expressed in such a presentation. The author identified the need to ground the lovemap concept in recognised psychological theory in order to motivate for its relevance. Kelly's theory of cognitive constructs provided robust links for lovemap as a sophisticated construction system, and the developmental theories of Freud and Erikson situated lovemap genesis within recognised periods of emerging human capacities to love and relate sexually; the stages of puberty to young adulthood. Lovemaps are assumed to function optimally when love and lust co-operate in pairbonding, or the capacity to couple. Extensive literature reviews cover the research fields of romantic love, human sexuality, and pairbonding, affording hypotheses as to lovemap pathology. A qualitative, Phenomenological research design of case studies with six adult persons, who had experienced radical contradictions of original lovemaps, identified when and how lovemap change took place. Thematic analysis of the attributions for change distilled a number of implications for therapy that would encourage certain indicated change processes. An integrative psychotherapy model recognises the cognitively- and socially constructed nature of lovemaps and proposes intervention components that blend cognitive-behavioural and narrative approaches. This model will be tested extensively with a suitable client population. / Psychology / D. Litt. ET Phil. (Psychology)

A epidemia do HIV/AIDS vem mobilizando nas últimas três décadas muitos pesquisadores de diversas áreas do conhecimento (medicina, psicologia, educação, sociologia, antropologia, dentre outras), visto ser um problema sério de saúde pública e a prevenção, a principal arma que a ciência lança mão para o seu combate. Nesse sentido, muita se produziu nos últimos anos visando contribuir para o aprimoramento das propostas de intervenção na área da saúde e educação, com o intuito de combater e prevenir a disseminação das doenças sexualmente transmissíveis em geral, e em especial, a AIDS, sobretudo junto à juventude. Vale observar que dentre as propostas de intervenção, algumas privilegiaram uma concepção biomédica de saúde, centrando suas preocupações na fisiologia do corpo humano e na prescrição e transmissão de conhecimentos e formas de comportamentos, cujos argumentos enfatizavam a utilização pura e simples do preservativo masculino, sem grande preocupação em trazer para o debate questões de ordem social e cultural que determinam e conduzem o desejo e as práticas afetivas e sexuais dos indivíduos. O presente trabalho tem por objetivo refletir, por meio de uma leitura psicossocial, a respeito das estratégias de intervenção que aponta o jovem como o promotor de ações de prevenção às DST/AIDS junto a seus pares da mesma faixa etária. Entender a subjetividade dessas jovens lideranças das camadas populares na sociedade contemporânea, frente a seu papel como agente de prevenção no combate às DST/AIDS e de como se percebem no exercício de sua própria sexualidade, foi uma de nossas preocupações centrais. Outra questão envolveu o questionamento sobre até que ponto o investimento na formação, preparação e instrumentalização desses jovens em relação a questões ligadas à sexualidade favorecem suas tomadas de decisões com maior segurança em suas relações afetivas e sexuais. As contribuições teóricas de Pichon-Rivière foram fundamentais para trazer aos grupos de discussão as representações individuais e coletivas acerca de temas que os agentes discutem e problematizam nas oficinas de sexualidade junto a outros jovens, possibilitando um processo de ressignificação das representações que fazem acerca de concepções fortemente enraizadas em nossa cultura envolvendo, desde as desigualdades de gênero, o amor romântico até os preconceitos e tabus em torno da sexualidade e de como têm essas concepções interiorizadas, a despeito de toda a crítica que tecem sobre as mesmas. / The HIV/AIDS epidemic has been mobilizing several researchers from several areas of knowledge (medicine, psychology, education, sociology, anthropology, among others), during the last three decades, as this is a serious public health problem and prevention the leading weapon that science can take hold of to struggle against it. In this aspect, a great deal of work has been produced in the last years aiming to contribute to the betterment of the proposals to intervene in the health and education areas, with the purpose of fighting and preventing dissemination of sexually transmitted diseases as a whole and AIDS specially, above all to the young.That is worth observing that among the intervening proposals, some have privileged a biomedical health conception, focusing the concerns on human body physiology and on the prescription and transmission of knowledge and types of behavior, which arguments have emphasized only the use of male condoms without a great concern to bring into the debate issues of social and cultural aspects that determine and conduct the desire and the affective and sexual practices of individuals. The present work has the purpose of pondering, by means of a psychosocial reading, over the intervention strategies that point out the young as the promoter of the prevention action for STD/AIDS next to his/her peers of the same age group. To understand the subjectivity of such young leadership in the popular groups of our contemporary society, in face of his/her role as an agent of prevention in the battle against STD/AIDS and how they perceive themselves in the practice of their own sexuality, was one of our central concerns. Another issue brought into question was in which extent the investment on education, preparation, and instrumentalization of this young group, in relation to the issues connected to sexuality, assist them to safely reach decisions in their affective and sexual relationships. The theoretical contributions of Pichon-Rivière were fundamental to bring into the discussion groups the individual and collective representations for the issues that the agents discuss and problematize in the study groups about sexuality next to other young people, making possible a re-signification of the representations they do about extremely rooted conceptions of our culture covering from gender disparities, the romantic love, to the prejudices and taboos around sexuality - and how these conceptions are internalized despite of all criticism they comment on them.

Paare und Paarbeziehungen sind – in westlichen, paarnormativen Gesellschaften – eine hegemoniale Lebensform. (Heterosexuelle) Paare (re-)produzieren in ihren Interaktionen und Aushandlungen – ihrem doing couple und doing inequality – nicht nur Geschlecht (im Sinne von Gender), sondern wesentlich auch gesellschaftliche Ungleichheiten. Paarbeziehungen sind daher ein wichtiges Untersuchungsfeld der Geschlechterforschung; die Paarbeziehung wird hierbei als eigenständige Analyseeinheit betrachtet. Paare werden in der (soziologischen) Geschlechterforschung aber auch auf die Frage hin untersucht, ob sich mit dem Brüchigwerden des männlichen Ernährermodells im globalen Norden ein Wandel der Paar- und Liebesleitbilder abzeichnet und sich u.a. auch dadurch Ungleichheiten im Geschlechterverhältnis verändern, verringern oder neue entstehen.