The Personal Valuation of Promiscuity

Abstract

In this article a method of self-investigation, devised for the study of personal meaning in the context of one's own history, is applied to promiscuous behavior. The method invites clients to invesitgate their own life in terms of valuations, a valuation being any unit of meaning that has a positive, negative, or ambivalent meaning in the eyes of the client. The valuation may, concern any events occurring in his or her past, present, and future (e.g., a dear memory, an insoluble problem, an attractive person, an unreachable goal). The personal meaning of promiscuous behavior can be understood as part of the client's organized valuation system. In the case studied here, promiscuity was found to be an effort to fill the void created by the early loss of a father.