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You have asked for a rational discourse of our psychoanalytic points of view about homosexuality. There are certain difficulties about this because the discourse is no longer rational and has become influenced by certain analysts' needs for political redress about “past discrimination” toward homosexuals by the psychoanalytic establishment. In this context, for instance, I was told recently by a colleague active in homosexual causes, that I believe homosexuality is pathological. I wish to start my discussion of my point of view on this topic.
When I was in training I always understood that psychoneurosis was ubiquitous, that in a civilized society there was bound to be conflict between the aggressive and sexual instincts on the one hand and the superego and outside reality, moderated by the ego, on the other hand. In that sense all people had conflicts, guilt, characterological adaptations and inhibitions or inabilities. And some people developed distressing symptoms that caused them to seek treatment. The label “pathological” was not aimed at these neurotic conflicts, but at the psychoses and at primitive defense mechanisms such as denial and projection. In prerecognition of future trends about the counter-transference it was thought that all analysts were neurotic in some way. In fact the concept of labeling all diagnoses as pathological is a by-product of American psychiatry's having put out various DSM classifications for statistical and insurance purposes.
In this sense then I had always viewed homosexuality in the same way as any other sexual conflict solution, be it frigidity or psychic impotence, or attachment to some sexual expression other than the missionary position in intercourse. In other words I never thought