Dear Colleagues, Sexuality is often perceived as something separate—related to desire, behavior, or difficulties in relationships.

But what if it reflects something much broader?

It concerns how a person is able to be with another: to desire, to trust, to tolerate intimacy without losing oneself.

Within the program “Love and Aggression,” this dimension is explored as a developmental process in which early experience, aggression, tenderness, and fantasy become integrated into the capacity to love.

Through personal engagement with the material, this understanding becomes more grounded and meaningful.

Yana Kulish, psychologist and accredited Gestalt therapist, shares her reflection on how the instructor, Dr. Otto Kernberg, unfolds key themes over the course of the program “Love and Aggression: From Normality to Pathology.”

What is mature sexual love?

Following Dr. Kernberg’s seminar, one complex idea becomes clearer:

Sexuality is not a separate “domain.” It is a developmental process that begins at birth and unfolds across the lifespan, shaping the capacity to love.

From this perspective, love cannot exist without the integration of aggression.

Several points further clarify this view:

- Sexuality begins in early development.
It originates not in the genitals, but in bodily experience, touch, and attachment.
The ways in which early needs are satisfied or frustrated directly influence how a person later loves, desires, and forms intimate relationships.

- Aggression is not the opposite of love, but part of it.
As described by Sigmund Freud, libido and aggression are inherently intertwined.
Frustration in love gives rise to aggression.
When excessive, this aggression distorts sexuality rather than simply accompanying it.

- Early sexuality is polymorphous.
It includes a wide range of impulses:
desires for fusion, 

sadistic and masochistic tendencies,
voyeurism and exhibitionism,
both homo- and heterosexual orientations.

This is a normal part of development.
Difficulties arise when these aspects become fixed and are not integrated, when certain impulses or modes of excitation replace genuine relational contact.

- Perversion is not an excess of sexuality, but a defensive formation.
It protects against the anxiety associated with genital love.
When direct contact with the desired object evokes excessive fear, guilt, or aggression, defensive patterns emerge.

- Sexual identity is a complex system rather than a single dimension.
Dr. Kernberg describes four components:
• core gender identity
• gender role
• object choice
• intensity of desire

These develop through the interaction of biological factors and relational experience.

- Normality is defined not by form, but by integration.
The key question is not how a person identifies or whom they choose, but whether they are capable of forming deep, stable, and reciprocal relationships.

- Mature sexual love is a complex structure.
It includes:

• intense desire
• emotional intimacy
• idealization without loss of reality
• the capacity to tolerate ambivalence
• shared values
• responsibility and commitment

A central marker is the integration of tenderness and sexuality.
When there is love without desire, or desire without love, a split is present.
It is important to differentiate:
• neurotic inhibitions
• masochistic relational patterns
• narcissistic structures

- The absence of sexuality may be the most concerning sign.
It can indicate not only a symptom but a deeper disturbance—when desire, fantasy, and bodily experience are diminished or absent.

- Pornography and promiscuity may function as substitutes for intimacy.
They may represent attempts to preserve sexuality while avoiding dependency and relational involvement.

Perhaps most importantly:

The capacity for passionate love is not given—it is an achievement of development.

It requires the integration of:

• body and psyche
• aggression and tenderness
• fantasy and reality
• freedom and responsibility

This leads to a question that remains open:

Do you have an experience of love in which you can simultaneously desire, trust, and remain yourself?

Author: Yana Kulish

This question, posed by the author, rarely concludes with the act of reading—it continues in reflection, in clinical practice, and in ongoing efforts to better understand oneself and others.

We are grateful to Yana Kulish for this thoughtful reflection, which not only conveys the experience of participating in the program but also highlights the complexity of sexuality as a clinical and theoretical domain.

(c) Yuliia Holopiorova,

Ukrainian Association of Transference-Focused Psychotherapy

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