IPT Book Reviews

Title: Stepchildren of Nature Positive Review
Author: Harry Oosterhuis
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press, ©2000

The University of Chicago Press
1427 East 60th Street
Chicago, IL 60637-2954
(773) 702-7897
Hardcover: $30.00

There are many who want to understand what our current perceptions and awareness of human sexuality means.  This book, which chronicles the conceptualization and the development of Krafft-Ebing’s Psychopathia sexualis, will help.  Using Krafft-Ebing’s archives, patient autobiographies, and case studies the author builds a case for Krafft-Ebing doing far more than simply creating a medicalized, controlling dogma about human sexuality.  In fact, by describing and cataloging personal sexual perversions, Krafft-Ebing opened the way to understanding them sympathetically and with greater acceptance than had been the case before him.  It is likely that without this early opening to a more restrained and descriptive discussion the contemporary cultural understanding of sexuality would not have developed as it has.

While some have harshly criticized Krafft-Ebing for forcing human sexuality into a psychiatric, medical prison, that is not the stance in this book.  It allows for a detailed and richly textured perception of human sexuality including Krafft-Ebing’s seminal work.  It is to be read with benefit by any serious student of human sexuality.

Reviewed by Ralph Underwager, Institute for Psychological Therapies.

Order this book: Hardcover

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