Alexander, L. S. (1992). Love's Shadow: The Mystery of Compulsive Phallic Exhibitionsim (Doctoral dissertation, Pacifica Graduate Institute, 1992).
UMI no. 3002370.
The literature on compulsive exhibitionism is redundant with biases, half-truths, contradictions, and misunderstanding. Findings indicate there is no one etiological basis nor a single behavioral pattern: the personality of the exhibitionist remains a mystery.
The method of this study follows phenomenological and in depth imaginative analysis of compulsive phallic exhibitionism in the psychological literature, its context in Western culture, its root in mythology, and its expression through an individual case study. It is phenomenological in that it looks to events themselves to speak to us, and takes into account the central importance of language in expressing a meaning which designates the immutable content of things.
Exploring a shamanic prototype in which a "call" compels one into embodying the spiritually phallic generative power of nature, the compulsive exhibitionist - caught in the dualism of Western Culture which negates soul, nature, desire, and body - must create his own trance and ritual to discover and respond to this ancient calling. He is driven by the "sexual instinct" flooded with spiritual meaning, seeking erotic union of the lost part, the lost relation, the abandoned body.
This work hopes to assist those with such pathos to find meaning, value, and connectedness through the suffering which appears to be its inscrutable path.
