When is a Pervert Not a Pervert?

My purpose here is to argue for an open-minded but rigorous way of thinking about homosexuality psychodynamically and to investigate the real and imagined problems it brings up in relation to suitability for psychoanalytic training. I propose that to exclude a person from such training because of his or her homosexuality per se indicates the presence of phobia in certain areas of the analytic establishment, namely in the Freudian-Kleinian stream of the BAP and in the Institute of Psycho-Analysis. As far as I know, only these two institutes have an official line on this issue though other training establishments also seem to be affected by prejudice, making it difficult for a homosexual to brave the choppy waters' of training without compromise and discomfort.

Although my experience of a psychoanalytic environment is confined to London, it seems that the psychoanalytic view of homosexuality which I am criticising is widespread, judging from the literature published here and abroad. There are exceptions. The Lacanian school, for instance, sees human sexuality as constructed within cultural, linguistic frameworks rather than being a biological ‘given’ vulnerable to distortion from its natural, heterosexual state. I am also aware, from discussions with individual analysts and psychotherapists, that there is a new trend of thought focusing on perversions more as an issue of character structure and sado-masochistic dynamics than as a problem of object choice. That is, perversion is seen as cutting across both homosexuality and heterosexuality. The focus is on the presence or absence in the personality of, for instance, narcissism, depressive concern, the tendency to part or whole object relating, to anaclitic, dependent relating, and so on. These are all characteristics and qualities which can be found in homosexuals and heterosexuals and in their modes of relating to others. This way of viewing sexualities does not attempt to blur the distinctions between them but to tabu