The Executive Council responded enthusiastically to a report that the tiny investment of $1,800 in December 1995 to fund research preparation for a scientific statement on homosexuality would eventually surface as a major book by Bertram Cohler of the University of Chicago. The grant was made (through the Committee on Scientific Activities) because the Executive Council recognized that The American, when promulgating its non-discrimination statements about homosexuality, had failed to supply its members and the public with the reviews of current research that provide the theoretical grounds for such statements.
The decision that sexual orientation was not to be considered in the selection of candidates for psychoanalytic education, or for the appointment of teachers or training and supervisory analysts at our institutes, had been made and supported by our members. The scientific evidence underlying a view of homosexuality as a particular developmental pathway had not been adequately collated nor explicated. While we had agreed that all forms of sexuality are of interest from a psychoanalytic perspective, in terms of their significance in the analysand's lived experience, we were also aware that our organizational history had not supported this open and scientific position.
The partial draft of the Report on Psychoanalysis and Homosexuality continues some of Cohler's work on sexual orientation and the course of a person's life. The new work focuses on the implications of current literature for psychoanalytic study and interventions. The draft has twice been presented to the Committee on Scientific Activities for review and critique and will undergo further revisions before it is distributed to the Council. Ultimately Cohler plans to submit the report for publication.
Chapters of Cohler's book will deal with analytic inquiry into biology, sexuality, and the foundations of human sexual orientation and will address familial influences on gender orientation. The committee hopes that those most concerned with the effect such a report would have on the treatment of conditions they believe related to homosexuality — such as childhood “gender identity disorder” — will review the data and engage in a dialogue with Cohler during the coming year.