The queer relationship between psychoanalysts and their gay and lesbian patients

Abstract

Throughout most of the twentieth century psychoanalysis regarded same-sex desire as a pathological or arrested condition. As people became less hostile to homosexuality in the late twentieth century, so did the psychoanalysts, only more slowly. In this paper the author briefly traces the evolution of psychoanalytic ideas on homosexuality, before examining how today's psychoanalytical practitioners and their patients regard treatment of same-sex desire, focusing mainly on research conducted over the past 15 years.

Keywords:

• homosexuality
• psychotherapy
• psychoanalysis
• therapist sexual orientation

Notes

1. see for example http://www. psych.org/Departments/EDU/Library/APAOfficialDocumentsandRelated/PositionStatements/200001.aspx