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Diplomas / Degrees

Doctorate in Clinical Psychology, University of Tennessee (1981)
B.A., Rutgers College (1976)

Recent Courses

Advanced Topics In Social Psychology
Assessment Of Personality
Continuing Doctoral Thesis Supervision I
Continuing Doctoral Thesis Supervision III
Continuing Doctoral Thesis Supervision IV
Doctoral Thesis Supervision II
Motivation And Emotion
Ongoing Dissertation Supervision
Ongoing Doctoral Thesis Supervision
Psychoanalysis
Psychological Research 1
Psychological Research II
Psychological Research III
Psychological Research IV
S/T: Evolutionary Psychology
Self Psychology
Techniques Of Psychotherapy
Techniques Psychotherapy
Theories Of Personality

Personal Statement

My scholarly and research interests have always evolved from the challenges of daily clinical practice. For over two decades of clinical practice I started to notice how many of my patients either engage in acts of sexual infidelity or have become victims of sexual betrayal. That got me more interested in the psychology of love triangles and the conflicts people have about making monogamous sexually exclusive relationships work. I started noticing how frequently men live dual track sex lives while their partners live in a fools paradise and how many women fall in love with married men hoping to run away with them and live happily ever after. I started noticing how many men in committed relationships turn into "grouchy guys" because they feel sexually frustrated remaining in sexually exclusive relationships and begin to take out their frustrations on their partners. I have developed clinical approaches to help women manage their "grouchy guys" and better understand the true nature of male sexuality. I have helped women learn to distinguish the "daddy" types from the "womanizers." I help men learn to better deal with the ways that long-term relationships put stress on their "fragile male egos."

My research and scholarship draws on Freud' seminal insights into human sexuality made current by new developments in contemporary evolutionary psychology. I look at romantic competition developmentally in terms of issues of early attachment and the oedipal confict as well as in terms of adult personality variables like narcissism and attachment style that predict many aspects of adult romantic relationships. I use the experimental technique of mindset priming to see how activating conflicts around sexual betrayal effect attitudes towards infidelity, pornography, revenge, and jealousy.

Teaching Specializations / Interests

Adult romantic relationships
Human sexuality
Love triangles and infidelity

Research Interests

How personality variables interact with experimental activation of unconscious conflicts around adult romantic relationships.

Books

Josephs, L. (1995). Balancing Empathy and Interpretation.

Josephs, L. (1992). Character Structure and the Organization of the Self.

Recent Articles

Showing first 5 of 8. View All

Hunyady, Josephs, & Jost. (2008, 12). Priming the Primal Scene: Betrayal Trauma, Narcissism, and Attitudes Towards Infidelity. Self and Identity

Miller, A. & Josephs, L. (2008, 1). Whiteness as Pathological Narcissism. Contemporary Psychoanalysis

Josephs, Lawrence. (2006, 4). The impulse to infidelity and oedipal splitting. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 82:2

Josephs, L. (2004, 1). Seduced by Affluence: How material envy strains the analytic relationship. Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 40

Josephs, L. et al. (2004, 1). Assessing Progress in Analysis Interminable. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 52

Conference Presentations and Papers

Showing first 5 of 7. View All

Josephs, L. (21 February 2009). The Adaptive Function of Sexual Greed. Greed, Sex, Money, Power, and Politics, Mount Sinai Hospital

Josephs, L. (16 May 2008). Neurotic Self-deception as a Reproductgive Strategy. Karen Horney Institute

Josephs, Lawrence (21 April 2007). Narcissistic Scars: The Dynamics of Cheating, Mate Poaching, and Mate Guarding. Postgraduate Psychoanalytic Society, NYC

Josephs, L. (15 March 2007). Seduction and Betrayal: An Ovverlooked Relational Dynamic. On-Line Seminar: International Association of Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy

Josephs, Lawrence (05 October 2006). The Analyst's Badness. Online Colloquiuum, International Association of Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy

Professional Activities

North American Editorial Board of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis: 2/07 - 2/10.

Licenses & Certifications

New York State Licensed Psychologist, 1983.
Certificate in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy: Postgraduate Center for Mental Health, 1985.
Certificate in Supervision: Postgraduate Center for Mental Health, 1989.
Diplomate in Psychoanalysis from the American Board of Professional Psychology, 1998.