Assaults to the Self: The Trauma of Growing Up Gay

Moving away from the historically dominant psychoanalytic position of homosexuality as psychopathological, and informed by the burgeoning field of gay studies, the authors propose a new direction. Specifically, what can psychoanalysis illuminate about growing up gay in a homophobic society, and the effects, internalizations of this, on the child that remain with him (her) as a gay adult? For the purposes of this study, the development of the boy, who will later become a gay man, is the primary focus. Relying on concepts originally introduced by Freud in “On the Psychical Mechanism of Hysterical Phenomena: Preliminary Communication” (1893), we suggest that the gay man as a child is forced to manage, on his own, at a young age, a highly complex and enormously difficult situation, that meet all the criteria set out by Freud as traumatic. A dissociation results, with potent ramifications for the gay adolescent and gay man. A more contemporary discussion of the concepts of trauma and dissociation (Davies, 1996a, b) is brought in to broaden the discussion. A case example illustrating these ideas is presented.