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In spite of recent genetic, biological, and psychoanalytic discoveries in research, homosexuality still poses many unsolved questions. The selection of homosexuality as a clinical symptom is part of the larger problem pertaining to the choice of symptoms in psychiatric syndromes, about which we know all too little.
It is the premise of this paper that it is in the nature of the male and female to develop, function and relate as such, provided that the necessary healthy components for growth are made available in the formative years. If that does not obtain, as in homosexuality, then the assumption is made that psychological obstructions to such maturation have occured. Freud's1 notion of an inherent bisexuality, in which one or the other instinctual components must be effectively repressed in order that a homogeneous sexual identity hold sway, is rejected. His theory of libidinal energies in a closed system, that can only be displaced on various points of fixation or sublimated, is also rejected.
By healthy emotional environment2 we mean one in which there is a minimum of anxiety and sufficient acceptance or love to provide adequate opportunity for the infant or child to relate to both the father and mother, so that it can, through adequate comparisons, learn and experience its own self-images, particularly in regard to its sexual identification.
The following psychodynamic factors are, in my opinion, the most important in the creation of the homosexual syndrome. The homosexual-to-be experiences a great deal more anxiety, both qualitatively and quantitatively, in his early formative years. As a result of this anxiety, a number of maturational processes are partially or completely blocked. The capacity to shift from perceptual to conceptual thinking and experiencing is severely diminished—particularly in the realm of self-identification. The nucleus of one's inner image of one's self is formed very early in life. Significant facets such as body image, sexual image, and