At the Winter Meeting, Charles Socarides continued his efforts to amend The American's Statement on Homosexuality, which expresses opposition to public and private discrimination against homosexuals and prohibits the use of sexual orientation as a criterion in the selection of candidates or faculty, including training and supervising analysts (for the full text, see TAP 26/3). Socarides's concerns were countered by Ralph Roughton, author of the amendment passed April 30, 1992, that broadened the original statement of May 9, 1991, to include the language on training and supervising analysts.
Socarides, the author of several books on homosexuality, began his efforts at the Spring 1991 meeting in New Orleans and since then has raised the issue in various forums. At the Spring 1992 meeting in Washington, he led opposition to the Roughton Amendment at meetings of Board and Council, and in the closing minutes of the Meeting of Members entered a motion for a mail ballot to be sent to the entire membership. The motion was tabled for further discussion at the Winter Meeting.
In recent months Socarides has garnered the support of 91 colleagues, organized as the Committee of Concerned Psychoanalysts, which has drafted a further amendment to the Statement. The amendment's key provisions are (1) that thorough investigation of all aspects of human behavior, including sexuality, is not to be prohibited in an analysis; (2) that no censorship or abridgment of the freedom of speech, in presented or published materials, is to be tolerated; and (3) that individuals who wish to change their sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual are not to be prohibited from doing so. At a meeting on December 12 the Executive Committee of Council found the amendment inappropriate and unnecessary, as analysts do not need to be reminded of analytic neutrality or the scope of analysis, and established a Joint Board and Council Committee on Homosexuality to serve as a consultative forum for candidates and local institutes.
At the recent New York meeting, Socarides made successive presentations to the Board on Wednesday, the Council on Thursday, and the Meeting of Members on Friday. In each setting he made a plea for action on the part of The American, characterizing his amendment as a Bill of Rights for analysts and citing examples of scientific presentations or child development research proposals that were either revised or rejected because of intimidation by gay rights activists.
At each presentation Roughton, who chairs the new Committee on Homosexuality, responded by raising the issue of individuals—unmentioned in the Socarides amendment—who might wish to change their sexual orientation from heterosexual to homosexual. He noted that the Statement does not concern itself with treatment but rather is limited to discrimination in the selection of candidates, training analysts, and faculty. The important question, he argued, is whether homosexually oriented individuals can function as analysts and whether the requisite abilities are independent of sexual orientation. In Roughton's clinical experience, and that of many others, he maintained, homosexual orientation is by no means universally associated with severe character problems, and he deplored the unsupported assumption that it was. Calling for further scientific exploration of the matter, Roughton argued that open-ended analysis of conflict and of the whole person is always in order, and that statements regarding specific areas to be covered might well open the door to a variety of such requirements, thereby adversely affecting analytic neutrality.
As the new amendment was clearly aimed at the Council, the presentation to the Board was limited, with questions regarding sexual orientation and the ability to function as an analyst tabled for further discussion. The Council, after a closed executive session that lasted long into the afternoon, allowed further discussion, but little time was left for extensive debate. Several Council members deplored any attacks on freedom of speech in scientific research or presentations that may have occurred, and suggested that The American move to protect scientific neutrality. Finally a vote was taken, and the amendment was defeated 40 to 2.
At the Meeting of Members, emotional and thoughtful debate interspersed with interruptions, changes in the motion (on the advice of colleagues, Socarides moved to withdraw the amendment's third provision), appeals to Robert's Rules (the motion couldn't be changed, as 87 mail proxies had voted for the amendment in its entirety), and questions as to whether the Roughton Amendment was ever approved by the Meeting of Members. Time was allotted for three additional statements from either side. C. Downing Tait argued that these issues should be decided by cumulative scientific efforts and called for a poll to determine where the membership really stands. He described a tension in some members who, though considering homosexuality abnormal, wish to be politically correct. Would heterosexual candidates, he asked, object to having a homosexual training analyst, and would such an analyst be sensitive to marital issues? Joseph Schachter felt that there were honest differences of opinion but that guidelines for training analysts are a scientific question not to be determined by a plebiscite. Abraham Freedman had concerns that homosexual analysts are opposed to bringing their homosexuality into the analysis, to which Arnold Rothstein objected, saying that Richard Isay—a gay analyst not present but nonetheless a principal figure in the debate—had been misquoted, and that indeed Isay has said that homosexuality should be analyzed. Raymond Raskin preferred a different amendment, saying the present one was too much a reaction to the American Psychiatric Association's resolution opposing therapies that advocate a change of sexual orientation. Selma Kramer raised concerns about gender identity rearchers have been intimidated or prohibited from pursuing their work. When debate was again curtailed by time constraints, the proposed amendment was defeated 173 to 92.