The Homosexualities, Reality, Fantasy, and the Arts. Charles W. Socarides and Vamik D. Volkan (eds.). Madison, CT:  International Universities Press, 1990,  392 pp.

This book aptly conveys the vast, complex scope of the homosexualities, their multiple determinants, and their forms of expression. The distinguished editors, Charles Socarides and Vamik Volkan, are well known for their many years of investigating sexual deviations, publishing extensively and conducting workshops and study groups for the American Psychoanalytic Association. In this volume they have assembled a noteworthy panel of experts who explore the diverse meanings, classifications, and the creative or maladaptive aspects of homosexual behaviors, bringing in current analytic concepts of child development, object relations, female psychology, preoedipal and oedipal conflicts with their associated unconscious fantasies, and the role of trauma and developmental defect. There are clear expositions of theory, well-presented clinical material, and studies of homosexual behavior in the lives of artists and writers.

Socarides leads off with a crisp articulation of his classification of the homosexualities. In the preoedipal form he stresses the inadequate differentiation of self and object representations, the desire and the dread of merging with mother. Gender identity is severely disturbed, there is weak masculine identity in the male and a distorted and unacceptable feminine identity in the female. This is related to primary feminine identification, the result of failure of adequate separation from mother. In the “Type 1” preoedipal form there is regression from oedipal conflicts and fears but no serious difficulties in object relationships and no serious impairment