A human being should not be looked at as an object. A person is not a commodity. Therefore physical intimacy should be an expression of love, not an end to itself.
Frankl’s assertions in this regard will be obvious to anyone who thinks about these things. Something less obvious is when we slip into an attitude of expectations of people and forget that any gifts or favors or responsibilities exchanged between them are an outflow of the connection between them. It is often too easy to slip into taking people for granted. To avoid this, it’s important to feel and demonstrate gratitude for the smallest trifles, even if the other is ‘only’ fulfilling his responsibilities.
Another topic that touches on the physical relationship is the anticipatory anxiety that comes from self-observation in the sexual act. Instead of being open to what comes naturally the person is anxiously fixated on how he’s doing something and expecting it to go wrong, so what the person fears will happen, happens.
In logotherapy there is a technique for learning to be spontaneous and get away from self-observation.
However, even before applying the technique, the person has to know that he’s been caught in a vicious cycle and thus his failing is a normal human reaction.
This awareness that what you’re going through is normal is important.
At the beginning of the age of psychotherapy, people were resistant to getting the help they needed because they thought it meant there was something wrong with them. If they didn’t get help they thought they could hide the fact that they were ‘mentally ill’ or ’emotionally unstable.’ Even today after psychotherapy has become commonplace, people tend to feel there is a stigma to having struggles.
But life itself challenges us to learn and to grow. There is something wrong with you if you don’t give any thought to what you can change and improve and how you can live up to the greatest version of you. (p. 152-160)