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Upon first reading Paton’s paper, I was struck by his candour and his willingness to confront some of the difficult questions he raises, both in the personal and in the professional domain. I felt grateful that he had done so much research and offers the reader a chance to see how harsh and painful life may be for children and young people discovering and exploring their sexual feelings as they grow up; grappling with anxieties and fears about both feeling and being seen as odd or different, and the isolation, shame, prejudice, and persecution they suffer, particularly when they might consider their sexual feelings ‘unacceptable’.
I would like to comment on some of the topics he addresses in the paper: the experience of children and young people upon exploring and discovering their sexuality and developing a sexual identity, as mentioned above; psychoanalytic writing about sexuality, mainly in Britain; the attitudes towards LGBTQ+ applicants and trainees prevalent in institutions, pertaining to child psychotherapy as well as psychoanalytic training schools; and Paton’s own experience of being a gay therapist and now a psychoanalyst in training.
I was privileged to supervise one of Paton’s training cases when he was becoming a child and adolescent psychotherapist, and I was impressed by his thoughtful and sensitive manner with his patient, particularly in response to the patient’s excited, intrusive, and curious interest in the therapist’s body. One incident I recall vividly was of the patient pushing toys and pieces of paper into Paton’s shirt and trouser pockets and how he interpreted the child’s wish to know what was underneath the clothing, the pockets signalling the breasts and genitals, as well as the excited wish to penetrate and produce excitement in the therapist. He used language that was appropriate for a child of primary school age; he did not obfuscate or avoid the sexual nature of the child’s actions. This was the work of a competent, attuned therapist, w