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For the first 80 years of its history, psychoanalysis was engaged in the self-imposed project of converting homosexuality. The past 20 years, however, has witnessed a startling turnabout: the transformation of psychoanalysis itself by homosexuality along with feminism and the literary ideas associated with modern hermeneutics and deconstruction. Gay people and their supporters have argued successfully to have this sexual orientation recognized as the full equivalent of the more common hetero-sexuality, and, in doing so, they have forced a reassessment and reformulation of basic psychoanalytic principles and procedures. This represents an extraordinary moment in intellectual and social history, and Jack Drescher's Psychoanalytic Therapy and the Gay Man may be considered its monument. It is the objective marker, the celebration and the concrete embodiment of the shift that has unsettled and reestablished psychoanalysis. Because it is the monument of this moment, it offers us the opportunity to take the measure of how far we have come, what still needs to be done, what we have gained, and what we have lost.
The book itself is a pleasure to read. It is gracefully written and blessedly free of jargon, obfuscation, grammatical errors, and pomposity. Drescher's tone is remarkably humane, and although he can be quite stern when he deals with what seem to him to be moral issues, he projects a winning sense of humor and a sober respect for his patients and his readers. Similarly, he disagrees with other clinicians (including the present reviewer) in a respectful though sometimes exasperated and sardonic tone, and only rarely does he descend to bad manners (e.g., p. 159). For people