A Boy and Two Mothers: New Variations on an Old Theme or a New Story of Triangulation? Beginning Thoughts on the Psychosexual Development of Children in Nontraditional Families.

Abstract

The author examines the ways in which a psychoanalytic perspective may illuminate the underlying developmental dynamics of children of lesbian parents. Families headed by gay and lesbian parents demand reconsideration of a theory of oedipal development based on heterosexual parents. If triangulation, the move from dyadic to triadic object relationships, depends on 2 primary processes-the child's acceptance of the immutability of generations and the child's recognition that children are excluded from the world of adult sexuality-parental gender or sexual orientation assumes less importance. The emergence of conscience from multifaceted processes of identification is consistent with this view of triangulation as a developmental phase. Children of gay and lesbian parents must be offered theories of healthy development that include them. Although this article has had many beginnings over the past few years, its original impetus grew from a family visit to welcome the newborn son of our friends Nancy and Susan. As we drove away, our then 10-year-old son mused from the backseat, "I wonder what they'll want him to be-whether they'll want him to be like them and be with a man, or be like them and be with a woman." This question astounded and sobered his parents in the front seat. We had grown up in a world of closeted homosexuality and, until well into adulthood, had had little reason, either personally or professionally, to consider a universe that did not assume the hetero

Classic psychoanalysis and male same-sex parents: A reexamination of basic concepts.

“…For the moment, studies of children in psychoanalysis who grew up with same-sex parents are quite rare. Aside from a single investigation of psychoanalysis with adopted children of gay couples (Smolen, 2009), a short discussion on a clinical case focusing on a boy with two mothers (Corbett, 2014), and beginning thoughts on the psychosexual development of children in gay families (Heineman, 2004), there is almost no literature available. Such studies are crucial for a better understanding of the inner world of these children from a psychoanalytic perspective.…”

Becoming a Mother by “Aid” Within a Lesbian Couple: the Issue of the Third

“…Other studies, more clinically oriented, draw on their authors' psychotherapeutic work with members of families with same-sex parents (Friedman 2007;Heineman 2004;Martin 1998;O'Dell 2000). These clinical studies, which are essentially systemic or psychoanalytic, deal with such diverse issues as the impact of new procreation techniques on the psyche of those involved, the psychosexual development of children, the relationship between clinical and cultural aspects, and the development of new narrative scenarios.…”