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Add Rhinehart (1999)
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Male [[circumcision]] is a surgical amputation of the [[foreskin]],which contains more than one-half of the erogenous epithelium of the [[penis]]. The amputation most frequently carried out on infants and small boys who cannot and do not give consent for the loss of so much of their penis. There are many '''psychological issues of male circumcision''' that arise from the painful, involuntary loss of the part of the penis with the erogenous tissue that provides much sexual sensation.
==History==
Famed trauma expert [https://besselvanderkolk.net/index.html Bessell van der Kolk, M. D.] (1989) reports that traumatized persons tend to repeat the trauma on themselves or others, resulting in harm to others, harm to self, or being re-victimized. He writes:
<blockquote>
Some traumatized people remain preoccupied with the trauma at the expense of other life experiences and continue to re-create it in some form for themselves or for others.<refname="vanderkolk1989">{{REFjournal
|last=van der Kolk
|first=Bessell
|issue=2
|pages=389-411
|url=http://www.traumacenter.org/products/pdf_files/Compulsion_to_Repeat.pdf
|quote=
|pubmedID=2664732
</blockquote>
Rhinehart (1999) was a practicing psychiatrist who had patients with later life problems stemming from their neonatal circumcision. He listed some possibilities:
* a sense of personal powerlessness
* fears of being overpowered and victimized by others
* lack of trust in others and life
* a sense of vulnerability to violent attack by others
* guardedness in relationships
* reluctance to be in relationships with women
* defensiveness
* diminished sense of maleness
* feeling damaged, especially in the presence of surgical complications such as skin tags, penile curvature due to uneven foreskin removal, partial ablation of edges of the glans and so on
* sense of reduced penile size, a part cut off or amputated
* low self-esteem
* shame about not "measuring up"
* anger and violence toward women
* irrational rage reactions
* addictions and dependencies
* difficulties in establishing intimate relationships
* emotional numbing
* need for more intensity in sexual experience.
* sexual callousness
* decreased tenderness in intimacy
* decreased ability to communicate
* feelings of not being understood
Rhinehart concluded:
<blockquote>
In my client population of adult men, serious and sometimes disabling lifelong consequences appear to have resulted from this procedure, and long-term psychotherapy focusing on early trauma resolution appears to be effective in dealing with these consequences. Early prevention by eliminating the practice of routine circumcision is seen as desirable.<ref name="rhinehart1999">{{REFjournal
|last=Rhinehart
|first=John W.
|author-link=
|etal=no
|title=Neonatal Circumcision Reconsidered
|trans-title=
|language=
|journal=Transactional Analysis Journal
|location=
|date=1999-07
|volume=29
|issue=3
|pages=215-21
|url=http://www.cirp.org/library/psych/rhinehart1/
|quote=
|pubmedID=
|pubmedCID=
|DOI=
|accessdate=2019-12-08
}}</ref>
</blockquote>
{{REF}}