image: "Desire on the Couch," an Exhibition Examining Psychology and Sexuality from CIIS and the Kinsey Institute
Credit: CIIS and the Kinsey Institute
Desire on the Couch is a thought-provoking exhibition coming to San Francisco January 28th. Co-organized by the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) and the Kinsey Institute, the exhibition traces a century-long struggle over how sexuality is measured, medicalized, and experienced. Visitors are invited to explore rarely-seen letters, photographs, and archival materials that reveal how ideas about sexuality and desire have long been argued over, resisted, and reimagined.
“Sexuality is an important topic because the way in which we study and discuss identity can either aid in healing or worsen trauma,” said CIIS Chair of Research Psychology Dr. Christopher Walling. “This exhibition is inviting not only the psychoanalytic community, but also the broader public to explore where our core questions began.”
Bridging psychology and culture, Desire on the Couch documents the journey toward modern understandings of sexuality across milestone periods such as the removal of homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders to the gay liberation movement and Stonewall Riots. In doing so, it offers both historical perspectives and contemporary insights.
"This exhibition encourages people to think outside of our own disciplines, to be creative with how we consider knowledge production, and to be in service of bettering the whole rather than a select few," says Kinsey Institute curator Rebecca Fasman. "The preservation of material culture is so important. Culture is often the measure of how free we truly are in a society and shows us the undeniable complexity of human existence."
Specifically, the exhibition shares unheard stories from the practitioners, researchers, artists, and communities shaping how people viewed, understood, and classified sexual identity. Freud’s private correspondence to a concerned mother, artwork from George Platt Lynes and Andrey Avinoff, personal letters from Bay Area transgender activist Louise Lawrence, vintage news clippings, and historical statements from medical institutions and academics are among the works on display from the Kinsey Institute Library & Special Collections.
Viewings of Desire on the Couch begin during the American Psychoanalytic Association’s annual meeting in San Francisco (January 28-30) with guided tours led by exhibition curators and conversations with scholars. The exhibition opens to the public with self-guided viewing from February 6 through March 14.
On March 12, CIIS will also host a conversation between Dr. Walling and Dr. Justin Garcia, Executive Director of the Kinsey Institute, on Dr. Garica’s book "The Intimate Animal," a scientific exploration of modern love, sex, and relationships.