Abstract:The paradoxical thesis is presented that the extraordinary aspect of the analytic experience of a homosexual male analyst and his heterosexual male analysand is that it was ordinary, that the fundamental processes of transference, countertransference, and analysis of defense and resistance were determinative. The unique variations of these processes with this particular patient are explored. The patient entered treatment unaware of the analyst's homosexuality, which he discovered during the analysis. The cours… Show more
“…Writing on the fringes of mainstream psychoanalytic thinking throughout the 1980s and 90s, American psychoanalytic writers such as Isay (1985), Phillips (1998), Drescher (2002), and Lewes (2005) were pioneers in challenging psychoanalytic thinking on homosexuality. For example, Isay challenged the mainstream pathological language at the time and called for therapeutic neutrality towards gay patients that present for treatment:My experience suggests that the usual analytic attitude of positive regards and neutrality may be enormously, perhaps especially, helpful to any patient who has internalised the critical, deprecatory attitudes of a prejudiced society by helping him to acquire a more positive, accepting image of himself.…”
Section: Same‐sex Desirementioning
confidence: 99%
“…For example, Isay challenged the mainstream pathological language at the time and called for therapeutic neutrality towards gay patients that present for treatment:My experience suggests that the usual analytic attitude of positive regards and neutrality may be enormously, perhaps especially, helpful to any patient who has internalised the critical, deprecatory attitudes of a prejudiced society by helping him to acquire a more positive, accepting image of himself. (Isay, 1985, p. 251)Phillips’ (1998) illuminating paper explored the transferential implications of when patients learn of their analyst's homosexuality. He argued that the discovery was not an impediment to the analytic process, but rather a powerful vehicle for exploring the patient's fantasies and defences in the transference.…”
National research studies report elevated suicide rates amongst gay men, particularly those under the age of 26. Much of the current health and psychiatric literature on suicide tends to focus on the external world impacting on the suicidal individual. Although valuable, it is not enough to understand the specific circumstances that could contribute to gay men's suicidality. This paper focuses on the relationship between the external and internal dynamics at play in the suicidality of gay men, with particular emphasis on the development, influences, and nature of a cruel and punishing superego. The author provides some contemporary psychoanalytic theories on same‐sex desire as a useful framework to understand minority sexuality. Some influential classic and contemporary psychoanalytic theories regarding suicidality and the development and character of a cruel and punishing superego are presented. The concept of internalized homophobia and the impact of heteronormative masculinity on the gay man's psyche are explored as drivers for suicidality. A composite case study from clinical experience with suicidal gay men in an NHS setting is presented to illuminate the discussion. This paper could add new perspectives and important dialogue for psychoanalytic psychotherapists working with this patient population.
“…Writing on the fringes of mainstream psychoanalytic thinking throughout the 1980s and 90s, American psychoanalytic writers such as Isay (1985), Phillips (1998), Drescher (2002), and Lewes (2005) were pioneers in challenging psychoanalytic thinking on homosexuality. For example, Isay challenged the mainstream pathological language at the time and called for therapeutic neutrality towards gay patients that present for treatment:My experience suggests that the usual analytic attitude of positive regards and neutrality may be enormously, perhaps especially, helpful to any patient who has internalised the critical, deprecatory attitudes of a prejudiced society by helping him to acquire a more positive, accepting image of himself.…”
Section: Same‐sex Desirementioning
confidence: 99%
“…For example, Isay challenged the mainstream pathological language at the time and called for therapeutic neutrality towards gay patients that present for treatment:My experience suggests that the usual analytic attitude of positive regards and neutrality may be enormously, perhaps especially, helpful to any patient who has internalised the critical, deprecatory attitudes of a prejudiced society by helping him to acquire a more positive, accepting image of himself. (Isay, 1985, p. 251)Phillips’ (1998) illuminating paper explored the transferential implications of when patients learn of their analyst's homosexuality. He argued that the discovery was not an impediment to the analytic process, but rather a powerful vehicle for exploring the patient's fantasies and defences in the transference.…”
National research studies report elevated suicide rates amongst gay men, particularly those under the age of 26. Much of the current health and psychiatric literature on suicide tends to focus on the external world impacting on the suicidal individual. Although valuable, it is not enough to understand the specific circumstances that could contribute to gay men's suicidality. This paper focuses on the relationship between the external and internal dynamics at play in the suicidality of gay men, with particular emphasis on the development, influences, and nature of a cruel and punishing superego. The author provides some contemporary psychoanalytic theories on same‐sex desire as a useful framework to understand minority sexuality. Some influential classic and contemporary psychoanalytic theories regarding suicidality and the development and character of a cruel and punishing superego are presented. The concept of internalized homophobia and the impact of heteronormative masculinity on the gay man's psyche are explored as drivers for suicidality. A composite case study from clinical experience with suicidal gay men in an NHS setting is presented to illuminate the discussion. This paper could add new perspectives and important dialogue for psychoanalytic psychotherapists working with this patient population.
“…Sidney Phillips (1998) wrote about the gay analyst working with a heterosexual patient: he presented a case of a heterosexual man who learned of the analyst's homosexual orientation inadvertently through extraanalytic sources of information. Phillips underscored the usual analytic task of helping the patient understand the meanings of any information about the analyst, be it race, gender, age, marital status, or any other personal data.…”
Section: Transference and The Homosexual Analystmentioning
The treatment of adolescents by gay analysts is uncharted territory regarding the impact of the analyst's sexuality on the analytic process. Since a core challenge of adolescence involves the integration of the adult sexual body, gender role, and reproductive capacities into evolving identity, and since adolescents seek objects in their environment to facilitate both identity formation and the establishment of autonomy from primary objects, the analyst's sexual orientation is arguably a potent influence on the outcome of adolescent development. However, because sexual orientation is a less visible characteristic of the analyst than gender, race, or age, for example, the line between reality and fantasy is less clearly demarcated. This brings up special considerations regarding discovery and disclosure in the treatment. To explore these issues, the case of a late adolescent girl in treatment with a gay male analyst is presented. In this treatment, the question of the analyst's sexual orientation, and the demand by the patient for the analyst's self-disclosure, became a transference nucleus around which the patient's individual dynamics and adolescent dilemmas could be explored and clarified.
“…This imposition of gendered requirements is troublesome, especially as the gender binary is everywhere implicit in APsaA’s approach. As is true for sexuality (Phillips 1998), focusing on the binary gender of the analyst and the gender of a particular patient is a radical reduction that runs counter to the analyst’s attempt to foster a process in which “the broadest range of unconscious meanings can enter into experience” (LaFarge 2014, p. 1269). According to Grossman and Kaplan (1988), all similarities and differences—in age, ability, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status—“are invested with intense feeling by all people” (p. 352).…”
So What iS Gender anyWay? and Who'S havinG Sex With Whom? J ust as Ralph Roughton challenged us in 2001 to reexamine our theoretical understanding not just of homosexuality but of all sexuality (Roughton 2002), our panel aimed to challenge the psychoanalytic community to reexamine outdated theories of gender and their impact on our patients and on candidate education. We used an episode of the awardwinning TV show Transparent to delve deeper into our personal experience of gender, our reactions to the problematizing of the gender binary, and the possibilities that come with a richer experience of gender boundaries.The panel was arranged in response to a request from APsaA's Program Committee to its Committee on Gender and Sexuality, which Susan McNamara and I co-chair, for a panel on transgender issues. It was held at the Chicago meeting of APsaA in June 2016 and was chaired by Ethan Grumbach. Robert Galatzer-Levy and Susan McNamara were presenters. I was asked to be the panel's reporter and to speak about my perspective as a candidate. The panel takes us on a journey through the political, societal, and institutional forces that shape the gender binary, the violence engendered by counterphobic attempts to police this boundary, unconscious fantasies of the chaos that ensues if we loosen our mental grip on this boundary as portrayed by the series Transparent, and finally the creative potential of accepting the complex nature of gender boundaries, elegantly depicted as a fractal boundary by Galatzer-Levy.In his introductory remarks to the panel, Grumbach dedicated the panel to the forty-nine people who died and the fifty-three who were injured at the Pulse Club mass shooting in Orlando earlier that same month. He noted that although huge shifts in LGBTQ rights have taken Panel held at the Spring Meeting of the
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