Thompson discards Freud's libido theory and with it his formulation of the nature of homosexuality. She contends that 'homosexuality is not a clinical entity, but a symptom with different meanings in different personality set-ups'. Among the meanings she has encountered in patients analyzed by her she mentions fear of the opposite sex, fear of adult responsibility, a need to defy authority, a flight from reality, a symptom of destructiveness of oneself or others.