Commentaries on Trop and Stolorow: Introduction

One of the most hallowed ideals of most analytic clinicians is the principle of nondirectiveness. For many of us, what seems most precious and unique about the analytic process is its function as a vehicle for locating, developing, and protecting the genuine individuality and subjectivity of the patient, his or her true nature, his or her true self.

The psychoanalytic literature on homosexuality that emerged in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s reflected another ideal, which conflicted with the principle of nondirectiveness, an omnipotent ideal that placed the analyst in the position of arbiter of the good life. Homophobic currents within American culture merged with certain lines of psychoanalytic theory to produce the view that heterosexuality is the acme of emotional development and that homosexuality is, by definition, pathological. Within that view, analytic clinicians must insist that homosexual patients renounce their sexual orientation and actively direct the process of conversion into the “good life.” It is a reflection of the passion and fear of those who shaped this position that it seems to have gone unnoticed how far it took us from Freud's own views on sexual orientation (he considered it largely constitutional and not a proper focus for analytic treatment) and the central analytic ideal of nondirectiveness.

The directive-suggestive approach to sexual orientation and the clinical practice it shaped have been largely (although not universally) discredited and now seem, to many of us, a dark episode in American psychoanalysis. For the many patients who were subjected to this treatment approach, it caused considerable pain and contributed to a massive interference in their pursuit of their own personal meaning and satisfaction. From our current historical vantage point, it has seemed important and, perhaps, not overly difficult to rescue the ideal of nondirectiveness from the contaminating influences of homophobia, the medical model, and illegi