Dr. Kaufman apparently opposes anything that fosters acceptance of homosexual candidates. He so misrepresents our purpose that it seems necessary to remind readers that we are an official committee of The American. My recent report to Board and Council described the same progress Dr. Kaufman finds offensive, but no objections have come from our officers or from those representing the institutes and societies. Further, the Board's Ad Hoc Committee on Selection has endorsed our committee's paper, “Evaluating the Homosexual Applicant.”
Despite Dr. Kaufman's rash assumptions, no one advocates accepting unqualified applicants or failing to evaluate their strengths and limitations, including psychopathology. Our point is that homosexual applicants, like heterosexual applicants, should be judged on qualifications and merit, without prior assumptions of disqualifying psychopathology, as was routinely done in the past. It is not a distortion of truth to say that an atmosphere of intimidation and rejection pervaded many institutes and that generations of potential analysts were unfairly denied the opportunity for training in our institutes.
Dr. Kaufman portrays our disagreement as science vs. politics. He asserts that I want political correctness to shape science. I believe, instead, that we have quite different understandings of homosexuality and that those differences shape our attitudes about accepting homosexual candidates.
One view, consistent with The American's policy, holds that many homosexual individuals have proven to be qualified psychoanalysts, measured by any criteria. Therefore, it is discriminatory and wrong to use homosexual orientation as a marker for disqualifying pathology, even without definitive understanding of its etiology.
Another view was stated in Dr. Charles Socarides's affidavit supporting the Colorado amendment that would overturn gay rights ordinances and restrict equal participation in the political process. This hundred-page sworn statement begins: “I wish to assert that obligatory homosexuality is a psychiatric psychopathology. The homosexual, no matter his or her level of adaptation and functioning in others areas of life, is severely handicapped in the most vital area—interpersonal relations. These individuals are not only afraid of members of the opposite sex but have deprived themselves of meaningful relationships to men/women as a group and individually” (Affidavit, District Court, Denver, CO, Case No. 92CV7223, October 8, 1993, p. 3).
Anyone holding that view would naturally conclude that homosexual individuals are not acceptable as analytic candidates; therefore they would likely assume with Dr. Kaufman that institutes accepting such candidates are only bowing to political pressure. In fact, however, institutes that I know about are operating on the other view; they are carefully evaluating homosexual applicants and accepting those who qualify.
As more lesbians and gay men openly join our ranks as respected colleagues and contributors, it becomes untenable to sustain an archaic theory that summarily declares them, one and all, unqualified. That is not a case of politics shaping science, but an example of reality and observed experience telling us we must reexamine our theory.
Ralph Roughton, M.D.
Chair, Committee on Issues of Homosexuality