Pseudo-Homosexuality as Studied in Group Psychotherapy

Lionel Ovesey1-5 defines pseudo-homosexuality as the misinterpretation by the male of a failure to achieve societal, non-sexual goals. The cultural standards of success for the adult translates itself into the gender equivalents of masculinity (success) and femininity (failure). A failure to achieve in any area of behavior can be symbolized unconsciously for the male through fantasy-laden, genitalized steps to the conclusion: “I am a homosexual.” This carries with it anxiety which is defined by Ovesey as pseudo-homosexual anxiety. Previously, therapists as well as patients might interpret it as homosexual anxiety or latent homosexuality.

This anxiety over inadequate social assertion produces in the “weak, failing” male “strivings for power and dependency.”8 These attempts, doomed in advance, intensify the pseudo-homosexual anxiety as they progress inevitably to failure.

In the woman the same psychocultural sequence can be defined as masculine aspirations.4 The woman's fantasy-laden, genitalized, unconscious sequence