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As well as challenging heteronormative assumptions in psychoanalysis, this edited collection demonstrates the relevance of couple psychoanalytic ideas when working with same-sex couples and other identities.
In the first chapter, Paul E. Lynch points to the danger of psychoanalytic theory becoming de-sexualised. But, he says, anatomy and sexuality have been brought back by contemporary theory which now acknowledges the variety of ways in which gender and sexuality might develop. He, like other contributors to this collection, refers to Adrienne Harris' description of gender as “soft assembly” (2009) and urges therapists to use their countertransference to look at how received orthodoxies about gender and sexuality are mobilised.
The authors in this book imply that psychoanalysis might also be thought of as a “soft assembly” of ideas, and they look at how some of them might be reassembled. Shelley Nathans, for example, highlights the importance of reconceptualising oedipal theory. She refers to the importance of Klein's “oedipal situation” (with its emphasis on triangulation) and shows how a revitalised oedipal theory is not only applicable to heteronormative relationships.
All the chapters in this book show how the internal and external are dynamically intertwined. Andi Pilecki Eliza-Christie highlights the damage caused by internalised homophobia. She demonstrates the intersections of class, race, nationality, and religion to point to the unique experience of each person's life which psychoanalysis must address.
The way in which culture resides in the psyche is demonstrated in Patricia Porchat's chapter which shows how heterosexual models of marriage exert an influence on same-sex couples in Brazil.
Kate Thompson writes as a straight therapist working therapeutically with same-sex couples and argues that internalised homophobia needs to be uppermost in the mind of both the therapist and the client. Thompson illustrates how crucial supervision is to grasping what might b