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IT IS WITH GREAT PLEASURE that I offer my commentary on Dr. Friedman's paper Psychodynamics and Sexual Object Choice .
At the outset I wish to seriously question the author's conclusion that "the patient has always been heterosexual." In my opinion he shows both homosexual and transvestitic conflicts but somehow has managed to function sexually with the opposite sex. This is a common phenomenon in those with sexual deviations. It is unfortunate that my contribution is offered against the backdrop of the "recent controversy" cited by Dr. Friedman which most psychoanalysts believe was a social/political manoeuver and not a reasoned scientific one.
The rich and dramatic symptomatology of his patient leads Dr. Friedman into several areas: the psychodynamics of depersonalization; the importance of separation-individuation processes; physiological, psychological and sociological determinants of gender identity; schizophrenia; cognitive developmental sex role concepts and attitudes; psychodynamics of male transsexualism; origin of homosexuality; and of course, the determinants of sexual object "preference."
A major thrust of Dr. Friedman's paper is to emphasize his observation that there is limited information and knowledge as regards the causative processes in sexual object choice or aim in sexual perversions or deviations. With the exception of some comments on the meaning of depersonalization in this type of patient I