Directors's Column
Psychoanalysis and Gay Rights 

By Seth Warren, PhD

I would like to share a recollection of an experience I had about 20 years ago at an APA conference I attended. A gay friend and colleague and I attended a panel workshop sponsored by Division 39 (the APA Division of Psychoanalysis), on a topic I no longer recall, perhaps it dealt with psychodynamic work in groups. As part of the workshop my colleague and I joined a smaller group discussion following a larger presentation. Although I'm pretty sure the panel had nothing to do with sexuality per se, the group leader expressed some overtly pathologizing ideas about homosexuality being a perversion. When my gay friend and colleague spoke up and challenged him, the group leader persisted, adding something gratuitous and insulting to the effect that "gay" was a misnomer, that there was no such thing as a happy gay person, or something similarly demeaning and outdated.

My colleague stood up angrily and left the room, and I followed, stunned and mortified for him, for myself and the field, shocked that such a thing could take place in a time I thought was long past the hegemony of such biased ideas in psychoanalytic circles - after all, this was the early 1990's! We were there at that conference (coincidentally) along with other colleagues presenting on our clinical experiences working as straight and gay therapists with straight and gay patients - what a bizarre and shocking disjunction!

I recognize looking at my physical and emotional reactions that this was a traumatic moment for me. And this experience gave me a window into the experience of my gay and lesbian colleagues, since it was very clear to me in that moment that such an incident, while becoming rarer by then, was by no means unique or exceptional, but formed a background of experience shared by generations of gay and lesbian patients and psychoanalytic clinicians that included shaming, pathologizing, and theorizing about homosexuality as deviant, perverse, and a symptom to be cured.

For a good part of its history, for all its emancipatory potential and concern, within its own institutions, theories, and practices psychoanalysis unfortunately mirrored beliefs rooted in particular religious ideas and culturally broad anti-gay ideologies mixed in with a good bit of bad science. It was virtually impossible during the first 50 or 60 years of psychoanalytic development to be an openly gay psychoanalyst (though to be accurate, this was time when most homosexuality was closeted). A variety of pathologizing theories about the "etiology" of homosexuality prevailed, along with theoretically-framed preferences for the "maturity" of genital heterosexuality, defined in narrow terms. In the 1960's and '70s some quite courageous individuals began to address the biases and inaccuracies in psychoanalytic theories and practices, supported not only by an increasing research-based understanding of human sexuality, but a rising tide of political change. I cannot imagine the pain, shaming and rejection the first openly gay analysts must have endured, but we have all surely benefited from their persistence and courage.

Old ideas die very slowly, often only accompanying to the grave those who hold them dear, but I am very glad to say that the past 20 years have made such occurrences such as I have described almost unheard of within most contemporary psychoanalytic institutions. Contributions to our field by gay and lesbian clinicians, researchers and theorists have transformed our understanding of sexuality and gender, and how we work within the kaleidoscopic complexity of the domains of multiple identifications, the fluidity of sexuality, and our recognition of the diversity of sexual identity. I feel proud of the fact that psychoanalysis, transformed by political, theoretical and cultural waves of contemporary feminism, queer theory, constructivism, and the rise of relational psychoanalysis, has contributed greatly and importantly to a larger re-evaluation of our conceptions of gender and sexuality, opening new areas of discourse, and new possibilities for clinical work.

I share these reflections in the wake of what is clearly a transformative moment in history, following President Obama's public declaration of his support for the right of gay Americans to marry. From a certain point of view this is just one more point in a long historical process that still has a very long way to go, but it seems important to acknowledge this moment as a new high-water mark in the movement toward full legal, social, and political recognition of gay citizens, and another step toward the fulfillment of the larger vision of the democratic revolutions that began during the 18th century in which the equality and the fundamental rights of all human beings are affirmed and safeguarded. I believe it is important for us, as psychoanalysts, to affirm and celebrate this moment, even as we acknowledge the darker side of our history and the unfortunate contributions of psychoanalysis to the suffering and oppression of a minority group already much oppressed by religious and cultural traditions.

Susan Masluk, Chair, Events Committee

Our Events: Graduation and End of Year Celebration 

There was a special warmth in the air as we celebrated the 2012 CPPNJ graduation at the Rutgers Club on Saturday, June 9th. The fellowship and food hit the spot, for which we owe a sincere thanks to Susan Masluk, Cathy Van Voorhees and the members of the Events Committee. Their efforts in putting this evening together were greatly appreciated.

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From left to right: Rose Oosting, Veronica Horenstein, Daniel Goldberg and Tom Johnson.

 

From left to right: Mitchell Milch, Seth Warren, Ronnie Bearison and Marilyn Legato.

  

The Effectiveness of Psychoanalytic Therapy: Evidence from Research 

By Nancie Senet, PhD 

Part 3: Dodo Redux  

We last left our prescient bird knocked slightly off his perch. First the CBT group claimed that it simply wasn't true that "all had won and all must have prizes." They had proclaimed themselves to be the winners. And now Shedler had come along. At first our Dodo had been hopeful of retaining his "top bird" status when Shedler's meta-analysis of outcome research showed that CBT had not been the "winner" and that psychodynamic therapy had outcomes as successful as CBT. But before Dodo could reclaim his vaulted ranking among the scientifically inclined birds, he discovered that Shedler's further conclusions placed psychodynamic therapy a cut above the others. "Woe is me" thought Dodo, "I better just sit tight while the battle continues."

Indeed, it did continue. Many in the CBT community immediately took issue with Shedler's findings. The following year the American Psychologist published in their February-March 2011 issue a series of commentaries critical of Shedler's analyses and conclusions. These writers (Anestis, Anestis, & Lilienfeld; McKay; Thombs, Jewett, & Bassel; Tryon & Tryon) based their criticisms of Shedler's work upon several rationales. It was argued that Shedler's meta-analysis provided no meaningful comparison of psychodynamic techniques to behavioral techniques for specific diagnosis. Therefore it had yielded no proof of psychodynamic efficacy. It was also argued that Shedler had based his meta-analysis on studies of poor quality. Acknowledging that there were factors common to many therapies, including psychodynamic and CBT, it was nevertheless, argued that these factors could not be claimed to be "psychodynamic factors." Tryon and Tryon argued, "Although these features may have originated in the psychodynamic literature, they transcended their origins and became pantheoretical more than 30 years ago." (p.151) Then with blatantly spurious reasoning, it was argued that the cornerstone of psychoanalytic concepts used for justification of psychodynamic therapies was the theory of "symptom substitution" and that there was no credible evidence supporting this assumption. They, therefore, concluded that no credible evidence existed to support the use of psychodynamic therapy.

Shedler refuted these arguments in that same American Psychologist issue. In his typically straightforward manner he laid out what he saw as their serious flaws. He argued that these writers were debunking fictions of their own inventions. "The academic psychology literature is filled with pronouncements about psychodynamic theory, often stated in authoritative tones, that present a picture of psychodynamic treatment that is unrecognizable to me and to other contemporary psychodynamic practitioners...the mental health professions have come to believe that these fictions, created as straw men by people who did not practice psychodynamic therapy, were psychodynamic therapy." (p.152)

Member Presentations and Publications 

Charlotte Kahn, EdD 

• Participated in the CPPNJ program on CAPA, May 6.  
• Presented at the Washington Square Consultation Center yesterday, May 17, on "Multigenerational Transmission."
• Will have an article published in the June issue of The Psychoanalytic Review, entitled "Aspects of Narcissism and Symbiosis or Essential Neurosis of Twins"

All Programs are Co-Sponsored with the New Jersey Society for Clinical Social Workers 

Our E-Newsletter Editorial Staff

Unsolicited articles are welcome.  Something you'd like to write?  Send it to us at cppnj@aol.com.  We're happy to hear from you.   

Thank you for joining us. Look for our next newsletter in July when we will share the speeches of our 2012 graduates.