As members of the Committee of Concerned Psychoanalysts, we wish to express our deep concern as to the statements, published in TAP (27/4) under the headings “New Committee to Address Issues of Homosexuality” and “Psychoanalysis and Gay Protest,” written by Ralph Roughton, the chair of that committee.
As a preamble to the views expressed in this letter, we wish to assert that we believe that candidates, faculty, and training and supervising analysts are to be selected on the basis of their qualifications and merit in accordance with the expressed view of the leadership of our organization. There should be no bias toward anyone. We are also in full agreement with the resolution sponsored by the Social Issues Committee of The American, chaired by Raymond Raskin, which was passed unanimously at the San Francisco meeting on May 21, 1993. It stated the following: “(1) Scientific issues should be researched, discussed, and debated in a scientific atmosphere of free and open exploration. Threats to disrupt scientific meetings, intimidation of clinical researchers, and sexual politics have no place in our continuing attempt to understand human sexual behavior. (2) The contract entered into by analyst and analysand is a private one. Once embarked in the treatment, the goals are the concerns of the patient and analyst alone, and these goals may be changed and clarified as treatment progresses.”
The Social Issues Committee action was prompted by a “few incidents” which had come to the attention of the committee, to wit, “(1) Informal contact with the chair of the Ethics Committee of the American Psychiatric Association has confirmed what was once rumor: namely, that the Gay and Lesbian Caucus of the APA is pressuring the Ethics Committee to brand any treatment geared to converting homosexual behavior to heterosexual behavior as unethical. (2) A member of one of our societies was threatened before presenting a scientific paper on perversions: the meeting would be disrupted by force. (3) In another open scientific forum, a leading homosexual analyst stated that only a homosexual analyst could treat a homosexual patient.”
It was our belief that the resolution of the Social Issues Committee ensured all psychoanalysts the free psychoanalytic exploration of individuals with homosexual or heterosexual orientation. There would be no exercise of censorship or abridgment of freedom of speech, thought, or writing in connection with presentation or publication of material on the subject of homosexuality or heterosexuality, which would occur in an atmosphere free of intimidation or coercion. It is now quite clear on the basis of Dr. Roughton's report on the work of his Committee on Homosexuality, and his letter entitled “Psychoanalysis and Gay Protest,” that he has no intention of abiding by the letter or the spirit of this resolution. This is an unfortunate and unwarranted attack on the right of members to speak their minds, and imperils the pursuit of scientific knowledge on the subject of homosexuality as well as our ability to maintain our professional integrity.
Roughton argues that the resolution of the Social Issues Committee was biased and unbalanced, as it “failed to recognize that psychoanalysts have given some cause for the anger that has led to protests.” We cannot disagree more with this statement. For psychoanalysts have maintained a flexible and neutral position as regards homosexuality, even to the point that they did not enter arguments regarding the normalization of homosexuality by the American Psychiatric Association in December 1973.
Let us examine some of the “tasks,” cited by Roughton, that he intends his committee to undertake. These do not demonstrate a call to scientific inquiry but rather a call to political action on behalf of the agenda of a particular group. Furthermore, his stated purposes are in direct repudiation of the resolution of the Social Issues Committee, as they call for the public and professional silencing of those whose scientific reporting stands in the way of his achieving his political aims and goals. We are stunned by a stance that allows psychoanalysis to become the tool of any political party, either from the right or from the left. Roughton urges our members to adjust to “changing social realities.” Nazism, we would remind him, was also a new “social reality” that many “realistically” went along with.
One of the aims of his committee is to erase the “insidious effects of stereotyping in clinical language.” What exactly does this mean? Indeed, many members of our organization have already been threatened with disapproval if they dare use the words “narcissistic disorder,” “developmental arrest,” “perversion,” etc. in reference to various types of homosexuality. Are we then to be told that we will not be permitted to publish any paper on homosexuality in which these terms occur? Are we to be “condemned” if the language we use does not conform to the supposedly non-biased vocabulary of the Chairman? Shall we institutionalize the “thought police” who will, as George Orwell predicted, teach us “correctthink” and “correctspeak” under the false banner of nondiscrimination and liberality? Let us not forget that the communist constitution of the former USSR read as the most “democratic” document ever written. Are those who use such words or phrases to be considered “insidious,” “a minority,” to be threatened with isolation and ostracism as “narrow-minded, unscientific,…homophobic,” and deserving of “scorn”? Such hateful epithets, repeated often enough, cannot help but have an intimidating effect on the scientific productivity of our members. This is a particularly horrendous state of affairs, as we know of no other group of individuals who are more concerned with the personal and civil liberties of homosexual patients than are psychoanalysts. A recent study by Houston Macintosh of the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute, presented at The American's meeting in December 1993, confirms this fact. In addition, we know of no psychoanalysts among the ninety-five members of our association who requested the passage of the New York Resolution to the Statement on Homosexuality who hold discriminatory views toward homosexuals. For Dr. Roughton to level such an accusation is irresponsible and unconscionable.
Another “task” of the committee is to compile and make available a “list of readings from the rapidly expanding literature on sexual orientation.” We ask, of course, does this literature include the findings of those in disagreement with gay activist propaganda? Or who disagree with the loose and uncorroborated science of the Levay and Hamer studies? Would this include the works of other analysts who have made findings as regards the psychogenesis of homosexuality, thereby relieving homosexuals from a genetic immutability? From the tenor of Roughton's comments, we think not.
A third “task” is to foster “working with other committees where.. joint interests can be served.” We ask, “What joint interests?” and “What other committees?” Would this include a joint meeting with the Committee on Gay and Lesbian Affairs of the American Psychiatric Association, under the leadership of Richard Isay, the foremost proponent seeking to declare those who treat homosexuals who wish to discover the unconscious roots of their homosexuality as “unethical” and “abusers of psychiatry” (American Journal of Psychiatry, Feb. 1992)?
A fourth “task” is to address “concerns about the public perception of psychoanalysts in general, and The American in particular, as being homophobic and discriminatory.” This wholesale indictment of the members of our association is a strategy to intimidate scientists from reporting findings that do not conform to the committee's sociopolitical straitjacket. We strongly object to this task and to the motives which prompt it. We maintain that the public does not perceive The American as either “homophobic” or “discriminatory.” The reverse is true. The American Psychoanalytic Association is considered by most thinking people to be the last bastion of free inquiry and scientific integrity in a sea of controversy. If The American were to cave in to political subversion and threats, all of the behavioral sciences would be in further deep trouble on this issue. We psychoanalysts have constantly resisted the political sway of special interest groups in a valiant effort to remain focused, scientifically, on what is their main concern, the individual.
A fifth “task,” related to the fourth, is to “monitor the mass media, as well as the professional literature,
and respond in appropriate ways to correct any misperceptions of The American's current position, or of the attitudes of its members“ (italics added). Here we have the chilling declaration of the formation of a watchdog committee, and not a scientific committee, to watch over our colleagues. Members who do not comply with Roughton's committee or with Roughton himself will be denounced. This is rampant political bullying of the first order and has no place in The American. It is our hope that our association will remain free of such tactics from those whose goals do not include free scientific inquiry and reporting.
Finally, we respectfully assert that the resolution of the Social Issues Committee be maintained and strictly observed. If this is not the case, scientific civil rights will remain at risk despite an earlier solution to this problem. We regret that the two pieces by Ralph Roughton could not be ignored. The result is that we are wasting time and energy in further endless deliberations on this issue instead of focusing on real problems assailing The American.
Charles W. Socarides, co-chair, New York; C. Downing Tait, Jr., co-chair, Atlanta; Alexis Burland, Philadelphia; Theodore Dorpat, Seattle; Abraham Freedman, Philadelphia; Eleanor Calenson, New York; Felix Loeb, Portland; Loretta R. Loeb, Portland