Homosexuality and psychoanalysis: Technical considerations revisited

From Dead to Alive: Desire, Dissociation and Passion in the Analytic Dyad

“…The same can be said of many gay men. Patients like Steve come into treatment in a shut-down state hoping to be reawakened yet prepared to be disappointed by another authority figure (Blum & Pfetzing, 1997;Drescher 1998;Frommer, 1994;Sherman, 2005Sherman, , 2014. When the analyst is gay, the field may become particularly charged as dissociated sexual longings are once again stirred.…”

Heterosexual displacements of homosexuality clinical implications

“…Nor is it sufficient to consider ourselves open to the idea that some patients may be gay. Frommer (1994) objects to Mitchell's suggestions, well-intentioned as they may be, that openness is sufficient to adequately help patients conflicted about their sexual identity-that in a truly neutral environment they will come to the truth on their own. He says:…”

Gay Men Living with Non-HIV Chronic Illnesses

“…These assumptions then provided practitioners with a definition of physical and psychological health and a road map for intervention where otherwise none would have existed. However, as subsequent theorists and researchers have pointed out, these practice principles were often more useful for binding the conscious and unconscious anxieties of practitioners than for helping those who sought out their services (Abelove, 1993;Frommer, 1995). Specific to this discussion, negative evaluations of homosexuality and physical illnesses as symptomatic of unresolved, deep psychological conflict often quelled medical and mental health providers' own psychological conflicts around not knowing as well as social anxieties related to difference, while doing damage to those in need of psychosocial support (Friedman & Downey, 1993).…”

“…Until 1973, homosexuality was classified as a mental disorder requiring psychiatric intervention (Abelove, 1993). Applying Herek's (1990) model of illness construction to homosexuality prior to its declassification, we can see that the origin of homosexuality was assigned to derailment in early childhood development; that responsibility for homosexuality was assigned to the families (and particularly the mothers) of homosexual individuals; that the role of the "sick" homosexual was defined as stunted, degenerate, and dangerous; and that responsibility for cure lay entirely in the lap of the identified ill person (Frommer, 1995). Reflective of the sociocultural milieu, social institutions did their part to reinforce and sustain this moralistic, quasi-religious construction of homosexuality (Abelove, 1993).…”