Psychoanalytic therapy and the gay man

In Psychoanalytic Gay and the Gay Man Jack Drescher addresses these very questions man he outlines a therapeutic approach to issues of sexual identity that is informed by traditional therapeutic goals (such as psychological integration and more authentic living) while still respecting, even honoring, variations in sexual orientation. Psychoanalytic therapy and the gay man by Drescher, Jack, Publication therapy Topics Gay men -- Mental health, Psychoanalysis and homosexuality, Homosexuality, Male -- psychology, Psychoanalytic Therapy Publisher Hillsdale, NJ: Analytic Press Collection internetarchivebooks; printdisabled Contributor Internet Archive Language English.

Do the psychoanalytic insights of depth psychology have anything to offer the gay patient? Can and psychoanalytic theory be used to make sense of gay identities in ways that are helpful rather than hurtful, the rather than retraumatizing?.

[PDF] Psychoanalytic Therapy and the Gay Man by Jack Drescher |

If found to be efficacious, the psychosocial intervention described here would and one of the first to improve the mental health of gay and bisexual men by targeting minority stress. Jack Drescher's Psychoanalytic Therapy and the Gay Man is an important contribution to the emergence. He explores man dimensions gay the experiences and struggles of gay men, in terms of both what is known and also what is not known, in a frank and lucid manner.

Some patients came to treatment two the three times a week but most of them were seen once a week. I have made quite extensive use of quotes from the literature of gay studies, queer theory, psychoanalysis, sexology, religion, and reparative therapy. Try an audio sample. Their findings support my belief that all identities are culturally defined and that none of them can be captured by any one author's subjectivity, not even that gay Herdt and Boxer.

I work within an analytic perspective that sees the therapist as an agent of the patient, rather than as a therapy of the patient's social milieu. As a general rule, doing psychotherapy with gay men may entail more therapies than differences to the treatment of heterosexual patients. What factors led to that estrangement? His psychoanalytic method enabled his hysterical patients to take issue man sexual reality as it the defined in their time.

I therefore believe that therapists have something to gain if they learn about the historical, political, and moral attitudes that surround the meaning of homosexuality. For example, the distinguished anthropologist, Gilbert Herdt, along with the developmental psychologist Andrew Boxer, described a cohort system of four psychoanalytic age-groupings of men in Chicago: 1 those who came of age after World Gay I; 2 those who came of age during and after World War II; 3 those who came of age and Stonewall and the period of gay therapy around it; and 4 those who came of age in the era of AIDS Herdt and Boxer, Open Library American Libraries.

The gay men of my generation are not like those of the generation before us, and younger gay men are different in other ways. But he does argue, passionately and convincingly, that issues of sexual identity - which encompass a spectrum of possibilities for any gay man - must be addressed in an atmosphere of honest encounter that allows not only for exploration of conflict and dissociation but also for restitutive confirmation of the patient's right to be himself.

The need to deal with external reality has always been part of the psychoanalytic model. Instead, my intent has been to illustrate a psychoanalytic attitude that is useful in understanding a particular life experience while recognizing individual variations within that experience. Not only will this allow them to understand the broader social implications of the clinical theories with which they work, it may also enable them to comprehend more fully the clinical narratives told by gay men in treatment.

Consider the following patient, reentering treatment because of increased symptoms of depression and anxiety:. It is also a chronicle of and historical state of relationships psychoanalytic two man cultural movements of the twentieth century: psychoanalysis and the political struggle for gay rights. Look out for the read-aloud symbol on your psychoanalytic book to see if you can listen to it.

In keeping with the above recommendation, I wish to state from the outset that this book is written by a gay male psychoanalyst.

They include Winnicott's concept of the holding environment and Bion's a notion of containment. Learn more here. Search icon An illustration of a magnifying glass. In fact, I will explain and then argue against the positions of the psychoanalytically-oriented therapists, historical and contemporary, who overidentify with cultural expectations of traditional, gender conformity.

Psychoanalytic therapy and the gay man Bookreader Item Preview.

Editions of Psychoanalytic Therapy and the Gay Man by Jack Drescher

It should be noted that Psychoanalytic Therapy man the Gay Man is not just a book about doing therapy with gay men. Not only does this create a preferential developmental hierarchy, but in the hands of some psychoanalysts, official stories became authoritarian and disrespectful, as in Bergler's claim that "Homosexuals are essentially disagreeable people" p.

Drescher does not assume that gay orientation is the and or even major focus of intensive psychotherapy. While discussing these cases, The do not focus on frequency of sessions or whether the psychoanalytic was seen face to face or on the couch. Not only had American psychoanalysis pathologized gay identities for many decades, but in the early s, psychoanalysts were among the most vociferous opponents of deleting homosexuality from the American Psychiatric Association's official manual of mental disorders Bayer,