In this book, Dr Stoller describes patients with marked abberrations in their masculinity and feminity--primarily transsexuals, transvestites and patients with marked biological abnormalities of their sex - in order to find clues to gender development in more normal people.

Exploring the connections between cognitive science and psychoanalysis, the authors indicate that a potentially fruitful relationship can exist between the two fields. The book examines this relationship, concluding that psychoanalysis can contribute to a science of the mind when it flows into a more effective science and technology such as cognitive science.
As viewed by the authors, cognitive science is "a new, lively field, full of novel concepts and methods about the mind." This is sharply contrasted with their opinion of psychoanalysis as a discipline which must change and consider such important problems in the study of the mind such as fantasies and feelings.
Colby and Stoller do not specify how psychoanalysis must evolve, but they do make suggestions for future research. They believe that they are "exercising the prerogative of tribal elders, pass(ing) the task along to the next generation."

This book focuses on the subject of the development of masculinity and femininity. It shows that the perverse scene aims not only at denying castration, but also at securing a more solid basis for a jeopardized sexual identity.

This book aims to show that the function of day-dreams is to state a problem that has been disguised and then to solve it, the problem and the solution being the poles between which excitement flows.

A previously unpublished work by the author. 'It was like discovering a previously unknown recording by the Beatles. On a 2007 visit to the author's widow, Sybil, she handed me a manuscript. The author's last book had been placed in a publishing queue by his retiring editor. After the author''s death Sybil was told that the publisher had discontinued psychoanalytic books. It languished on a home shelf in Los Angeles for sixteen years. I was holding the final work by psychoanalysis's most eloquent writer on sex.' - From the Foreword by Dr Richard Green

Exploring the connections between cognitive science and psychoanalysis, the authors indicate that a potentially fruitful relationship can exist between the two fields. The book examines this relationship, concluding that psychoanalysis can contribute to a science of the mind when it flows into a more effective science and technology such as cognitive science. As viewed by the authors, cognitive science is "a new, lively field, full of novel concepts and methods about the mind." This is sharply contrasted with their opinion of psychoanalysis as a discipline which must change and consider such important problems in the study of the mind such as fantasies and feelings. Colby and Stoller do not specify how psychoanalysis must evolve, but they do make suggestions for future research. They believe that they are "exercising the prerogative of tribal elders, pass(ing) the task along to the next generation."

This book aims to show that the function of day-dreams is to state a problem that has been disguised and then to solve it, the problem and the solution being the poles between which excitement flows.

This previously unpublished work by Robert Stoller, his final work, was discovered in 2007. I think of the term erotics as having sexual meanings: a subject for study (such as economics ); a set of behaviors, including fantasies such as daydreams; dynamics of an aspect of mental life (with underlying biologic dynamics); and people who are erotics the way we say lunatics seen from the perspective of their erotic desire, people such as Sade or my informants, such as Bill, a professional pornographer whom you will soon meet, or Fay, who lives for love, who first arrives at my office with Bill.Getting more involved in studying erotic excitement, I saw that erotic daydreams, including pornography, not only offered a way to understand someone s erotic life but could give a wider view of personality. As, over the years, that awareness grew, I have had to confront my failure to jump in and mine the raw material. What I now know to be my resistance avoidance I used to think of as simply boredom, disbelief, conviction that these scripted fantasies had no value for theory or its confirmation; unwillingness to get into disreputable stuff that could harm my reputation, and uneasiness about descending into certain dark areas of human behavior and fantasy. And there was no path in that jungle. But the subject was being pushed at me from above by patients and informants and pulled toward me from below by my curiosity. The latter is strong; so the more I understand the dynamics of erotic excitement, the more the fun in exploring people s erotic lives. The clues accumulate. From the Introduction"

The main contention is that in perversion the main clinical factor is hostility. It combines with sexual desire to produce the various forms that perversion can take on. Stoller shows that the perverse scene aims not only at denying castration, but also at securing a more solid basis for a jeopardized sexual identity. Risk, vengeance and trauma are some of the ideas that the author discusses while building up his argument

A preeminent psychoanalyst explores the world of consensual S&M. An expert on the dynamics of perversion and erotic excitement, Dr. Stoller sets out on an expedition to the S&M community of West Hollywood. We meet the highly articulate Ron, who serves as a guide to the fetishes and bizarre practices of both casual and devoted proponents of sadomasochism. We are introduced to Marilyn and Claudelle, two warmly opinionated entrepreneurs of a B&D (bondage and discipline) establishment. The arcane business of S&M videos is documented by Merlin, and enthusiastic producer of pornography. Most interesting are Dr. Stoller's provocative questions to these denizens of the S&M world and his engaging musings on their answers.Like an anthropologist in New Guinea, Dr. Stoller observes the customs of these natives. He studies them in his quest for insight into the perplexing question of why some people associate pain and humiliation with intense erotic desire. Thus, his journey is not only external, but internal--into the meaning and boundaries of the term "perversion" and its place within the psyche. He investigates how the theater of the imagination is moved into the real world's reverberating complexity. In the course of this journey, Dr. Stoller changes his views, first referring to these S&M practitioners as specimens and then perceiving them, in their ambiguities and contradictions, as human beings. By joining Dr. Stoller, we find not only nuances in the meanings of consensual sadomasochism but larger implications of what being human means.

This classic book is a detailed case study of a woman, otherwise intelligent and apparently sane, who was convinced that she had internally a full set of functioning male sex organs. Dr. Robert Stoller's account of this woman's diagnosis and treatment is illustrated by excerpts from the patient-analyst dialogue during her therapy, providing enough detail to be useful to clinicians in training. Originally published in hardcover in 1973, the book is now available in paperback for the first time. "One of the longest, most minutely detailed, and most fascinating case reports in the psychiatric literature. . . . An extremely original contribution to the study of perversion."-Ethel Spector Person, M.D., from the Foreword "One of the great clinical case studies. Splitting demonstrates the power of psychoanalytic reasoning in the twentieth century."-Gilbert Herdt, University of Chicago

What do porn films tell us about our own erotic impulses? What can we learn about our culture's sexual attitudes, fears, and fantasies from the ways that porn films are designed and produced? In this book, Dr. Robert J. Stoller, one of the world's leading experts on human sexual behavior, joins with I. S. Levine, a professional writer with long experience in X-rated video making, to examine the ideas and psychological makeup of the participants in an adult heterosexual X-rated video, Stairway to Paradise. Their interviews with performers, writers, directors, producers, and technicians provide extraordinary insights into the technical aspects of this type of video, the motivations and backgrounds of the people involved, and the porn industry's view of the video's intended audience. Stoller, Levine, and the porn filmmakers have wide ranging discussions about the aesthetics, ethics, and etiquette of the porn industry; the hostility that Dr. Stoller claimed underlies all erotic excitement; the liberating - and educational - function of porn in a puritanical culture; the misconceptions of antiporn crusaders; the impact of AIDS on the participants; and the future of the porn film industry. The authors hope that if we understand how and why a pornographic work is created, we will be better able to understand the implications of the legal and moral issues it raises.

Bill, Merlin, Happy, and Kay are among the porn-film performers and producers who tell their stories to Dr. Robert J. Stoller in this pschyodynamic ethnography of adult heterosexual pornography. Their engrossing accounts reveal in rich detail not only the inner workings of "the Industry" and the fantasies and motivations of its participants but also the relation between this most denigrated of occupations and "normal" human erotic behavior and attitudes. Consistently nonjudgmental about the material he presents, Dr. Stoller nevertheless draws provocative conclusions about porn, its practitioners, and its effects on society. Everyone at work on a porn production, he says, uses it as a vehicle for unloading his or her rage against something-mores, institutions, laws, parents, females, or males. According to Dr. Stoller, pornography does not exist only to degrade women, there is no reliable evidence that it increases the frequency of rape, and (with the exception of child porn) it does little harm. Pornography, says Dr. Stoller, seems more the result of our changing society than a cause of change; it reflects, more than influences, our values and mores.

"Stoller is not just a scientist but a lover of words and language. In this book, his text is as playful, charming, and serious as his topic. The mix, a scientific and aesthetic exploration of the erotic imagination, is almost as irresistible as one's own erotic daydreams. Observing the Erotic Imagination is for all professional and private students of the erotic."-Dr. Ethel Person "This book is a delight....He offers a model clinical illustration, brilliant and full of presence. Indeed, Stoller's entire book is a model of clear, elegant conversational prose."-Jerome B. Katz, M.D., Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic "Stoller presents new thoughts on his most provocative theory of the relationship between erotic excitement and fantasy of revenge and hostility."-Anke A. Ehrhardt, Ph.D. and Evan J. Elkin, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent "Stoller's account is comprehensive and levelheaded."-Psychological Reports