One of the major tenets of this study is that primitive modes of psychological functioning that operate unconsciously are constellated during addictive processes. Using a hermeneutic method, this dissertation investigates the ways in which sexually addictive processes arise during the course of development. Theoretical constructs from both object relations theory and self psychology articulate the dynamics involved when primitive modes of consciousness are the primary means of organizing psychological experience. Object relations theory conceptualizes these primitive modes as manifestations of unconscious phantasies which themselves are the psychological corollary to instinctual impulses of drive derivatives. Self psychology conceptualizes primitive states of cognitive apperception as archaic narcissistic fantasies that hold the individual captive to the behest of their dictates. To highlight insights these theoretical constructs intimate, psychological portraits of sexually-addicted gay men are profiled throughout the dissertation.

According to the object relations perspective utilized in this dissertation, the life of the individual's psyche, in part, is held in balance through a dialectic collaboration of the autistic-contiguous (Ogden, 1989), paranoid-schizoid (Klein, 1946), and depressive (Klein, 1935) positions working in tandem. In sexual addiction, this dialectical functioning of the psyche breaks down and experience is generated from the primitive modes (the autistic-contiguous and paranoid-schizoid) thereby denying the mature forms of organizing experience that comes from the sustained maintenance of the depressive position as this mode is accessed through contact with potential space (Winnicott, 1967/1971).

Theories of intersubjectivity elaborate the ways in which different forms of intersubjectivity pervade the dynamic interactions between self and other (Beebe, Knoblauch, Rustin, & Sorter, 2005). Theoretical contributions of self psychology articulate the specific ways in which sexually addictive processes arise due to empathic failures in the self-selfobject matrix. When met with an inhospitable environmental surround, the individual's self fragments and sexual fantasies become one means by which the individual experiences a feeling of cohesiveness (see Kohut, 1984, p. 24).