The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 23, 1954, No. 1: Gustav Bychowski. 'The Structure of Homosexual Acting Out.'

The analysis of homosexuals is characterized by alternating phases of working through and acting out. Bychowski suggests the following explanations of the acting out. (1) The prerequisite is an archaic, narcissistic ego-structure. (2) The choice of partners is therefore based on narcissistic projection—it is to this that they owe their high if transient value. (3) The ego cannot bind libidinal excitations sufficiently not to be overwhelmed by discharges along primitive lines. As in the traumatic neurosis the ego is striving not merely for pleasure but for mastery of the libidinal and aggressive impulses and of the archaically cathected objects. (4) The ego is filled with conflicting identifications with parental images. Since each identification is dethroned as soon as it is made, considerable counter-cathexis is required to maintain them. As a result of this further weakening of the ego, object-cathexis comes to be felt as ego-loss. (5) Because of the low potential of free ego libido there is a lack of the neutralized mental energy indispensable for control. Therefore even identification cannot be maintained on a purely intrapsychic level, so that acts of genital and motor discharge become necessary for the un-bound and un-neutralized libidinal energies.