The Homosexualities and the Therapeutic Process

Rating:
Summary: Socarides = fraud. NARTH = group of frauds
Review: Charles Socarides, with Benjamin Kaufman, and Joseph Nicolosi founded the North American Reparative Therapy (NARTH) organization in 1992 to combat what they claim to be the erosion of the scientific study of homosexuality. NARTH states that homosexuality is a mental disorder caused by conscious and unconscious conflicts, is a "sign that deep emotional wounding has occurred," and is the cause of intense suffering because it "distorts the natural bond of friendship" between members of the same sex and "works against . . . the all-important family unit."

Socarides' son, Richard Socarides, is one of the best-known gay activists in the country. He was a special assistant to President Clinton and senior adviser for public liaison; one of his principle jobs is White House liaison to the lesbian and gay community. Charles Socarides explains his theory that same-sex desire is a "neurotic adaptation" that can be traced to "smothering mothers and abdicating fathers." Asked once by a reporter whether his "lousy parenting" caused his son to be gay, "Socarides neatly places the blame on 'a combination of uncontrollable events,' like the fact that he and Richard's mother divorced when Richard was about 3 years old, the age at which the 'neurotic mechanism' of homosexuality can be implanted in a child. Socarides also says that Richard's now-dead mother was 'quite harsh towards my son' after the divorce."

It should be noted that Socrades has been married 4 times so the views put forward by a man was unable to maintain a steady relationship with a woman, should give one pause.

NARTH begins its work with the presumption that homosexuality is a developmental disorder or a mental illness, which it frequently compares to alcoholism. It claims that "powerful political pressures have done much to erode scientific exploration and study of this disorder." It attempts to position its adherents as heroes swimming against the mighty tide of the brainwashed psychological community and the mainstream media.

Charles Socarides has also run into trouble with the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA), of which he is a member. According to a letter from Dr. Ralph Roughton of the APsaA, Socarides misrepresented the position of the APsaA in a published paper and a court affidavit. Socarides attempted to make it appear that the APsaA agrees with his positions on homosexuality. He did this by quoting an APsaA document written in 1968, which supported his views and which he called the "official position" of the APsaA, while ignoring a 1990 revised statement that drastically contradicted his views. The Executive Committee of the APsaA instructed the organization's attorney to write a letter to Socarides asking him to cease this misrepresentation and threatening legal action if he continued.

Additionally, the APsaA newsletter decided to stop printing advertisements for NARTH meetings because the organization does not adhere to APsaA's policy of non-discrimination "and because their activities are demeaning to our members who are gay and lesbian," according to Roughton.

It should also be noted that Socardies has tried to tie homosexuality with pedophilia, and conflate gay rights groups with NAMBLA (National Man Boy Love Association) a fringe pedophile group whose existence is dubious at best. Nobody has yet been able to actually identify a single member of this alleged organization.

Socarides, NARTH's president, wrote in JAMA in 1970 that "homosexuality is a dread dysfunction, malignant in character, that has risen to epidemic proportions." More recently, in 1995, he wrote that the removal of homosexuality as a mental disorder from DSM was a "Trojan Horse which, once admitted into the gates of the heterosexual world, has led to a sexual and social dementia." He asserted that homosexuality "is a freedom that cannot be given."

NARTH's presence in the psychotherapy profession is small but significant. NARTH members are licensed psychotherapists, psychiatrists, and medical professionals who, by virtue of their credentials, have some influence within certain psychotherapy and medical institutions. In addition, these credentials give their ideas the appearance of legitimacy when marketed to the public. Last year, Charles Socarides, Benjamin Kaufman, Joseph Nicolosi, Jeffrey Satinover, and Richard Fitzgibbons co-authored an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal advocating reparative therapy for gay men.

In response to the aggressive marketing of reparative and conversion therapy to both the public and the psychotherapy profession, the American Psychological Association, in August 1997, reiterated its long-standing official position that homosexuality and bisexuality are not mental disorders and therefore do not require treatment.

NARTH's positions on homosexuality and reparative therapy, that it is a choice and should be "reversed" are universally rejected by every major medical and psychiatric organization. NARTH's founding members appear on the boards of many far-right Christian hate groups. Socarides for instance is listed as a major contributor to "The Pink Swastika" and other hate-fear propaganda. In fact if you read the acknowledgments of that book you will find the same cadre of far-right religious lug nuts that ooze out of the wood-work over and over again such as Peter LaBarbera, Lon Mabon, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, etc.

"The Pink Swastika" is a piece of ideological [junk] which tries to equate the foundation of Nazism with homosexuality. Never mind that homosexuals were herded into the concentration camps bearing the infamous pink triangles sewn to their clothing, in the same fashion that (and at times used in conjunction with) the yellow star of david used to identify and "sort" jews.

The above is only a scratching of the surface of the "connection" of Socarides, NARTH and other anti-gay activists and "doctors". It should hopefully shed a sliver of light onto the cockroach like lurid agenda being out forth by such "doctors".

Rating:
Summary: Excellent, scholarly articles on homosexuality
Review: This compendium includes articles by many well-known psychoanalysts, including John Frosch,MD, Ira Brenner,MD, Vamik Volkan,MD, and Felix Loeb, MD.

This is not a political book, but addresses case histories of homosexual people who were unhappy being homosexual, and how they were treated. Also, there is a considerable amount of modern analytic theory about the origins of the cruising compulsion, bisexual fantasies, and the contributions of various phases of child development to the problems of homosexual people.

The material is fascinating and refreshingly apolitical. The articles reflect what is apparently called object relations theory, and some use "ego psychology." This is not at all like old Freudian stuff, but actually quite complicated.

The authors do a great job of explaining the complicated theories analysts use in treating homosexual people who are conflicted about their functioning. For example, one article addresses the unconscious wish to develop AIDS in suicidal homosexual men. Another female author discovered her patient was searching for feminine identity in her lesbian relationships.

I think this book is a great addition to the scientific work on homosexuality, and doesn't bother the reader with whether homosexuality is good or bad. Instead, I finished the book feeling quite a bit more educated about the causes of homosexuality, the incredible history of disturbed homosexual people, and I had a good bit of respect for the highly intelligent psychoanalysts who studied their patients so closely and were able to help them with profound insights.

Rating:
Summary: Our primate past
Review: What Sigmund Freud did for Oedipal theory, Charles Socarides, MD has now done for pre-oedipal theory in his unitary theory of the sexual perversions. However, whereas Freud's Oedipal theory produced a whole new psychology, Socarides' pre-oedipal theory has passed for the most part with only a few disparaging comments in the media about reparative homosexuality. Nonetheless, Socarides' theory is just as compelling and controversial, and equally rich as a basis for future inquiries into human sexuality and human origins.

Socarides' pre-oedipal theory suggests the evolution of human patriarchal society was a passing from a retained primary pre-oedipal (maternal)identification in the common primate ancestor to an Oedipal(paternal)identification in humans:

Highly visual year-round estrous displays, and continuous sexual receptivity in the common human/bonobo ancestor promoted the following: In male young, 1.a pre-oedipal(maternal)trauma(i.e., an incestuous approach and avoidance conflict, along with a simultaneous power conflict with the adult males)and 2.a pre-oedipal fixation point, along with a retained maternal identification; while in female offspring, the first signs of pre-puberty marked a pre-oedipal separation crisis leading to a broken primary maternal identification and adolescent female out-migration in service of the incest prohibition, to avoid mating with unidentifiable fathers(female out-migration is detailed in Frans de Waal's book, Bonobo: the Forgotten Ape, on pages 116-117).

In the prototypical bonobo branch, all offspring, male and female, retained a primary maternal identification and a primarily visual, highly sexualized socialization centered around approach/avoidance reactions to the highly visible estrous displays. As a result, bonobo males could remain with their mothers for life in a female-dominated bonobo society, where unknown fathers are notably absent, distant, and abdicating to the females. In a clearcut parallel to bonobo society, human fathers of those in whom sexual perversions later develop, including homosexuals, are, to quote Socarides, "exquisitely passive", emotionally distant, and power abdicating to the mothers, with early primal scene exposure and instances of exposure to the opposite-sex parent's genitalia routinely documented in these case histories.

In humans, the adaptation of language promoted identification and bonding of offspring and fathers, so that human males and offspring were now able to identify each other. Paternal identification of offspring allowed fathers to invest time and resources specifically in their own paternity. An Oedipal(paternal)identification thus evolved, enabling the more complex psychosexual sequence of successful maternal separation and individuation(the pre-oedipal) followed by a paternal separation and individuation(the Oedipal). Polygamy in human males consequently evolved patriarchal human society. As an interesting parallel with implications for both paternity and homosexuality, Frans de Waal describes bonobos' calls as distinctly higher-pitched and more shrill in comparison to chimpanzees': "The difference in timbre between the voices of the two species may well be of the same magnitude as that between a small child and grown man(page 9)." This difference in timbre may itself suggest an hormonally shallower pubertal development in these female-dominated pansexual bonobo males, resulting in the higher falsetto pitch. This might be analogous to the instinctively higher pitch of baby-talk, which would enhance interaction with adult males and also help explain reduced rates of infanticide in bonobos. Or, conversely, it may suggest that the more complex Oedipal route to paternal identification(or at least identification with alpha males as in chimpanzees)promotes a deeper voice and possibly an hormonally deeper puberty.

As a result of these early pre-oedipal exposures and intense visual socialization to highly visual, extended estrous displays in both mother and competing females, the brains of human males today remain more highly visual, while human females are more verbally specialized. This verbal advantage gives females a way to identify and select only the most verbally skilled, and thus socially successful males. This success, in turn, further promotes the original evolutionary adaptation and selection for language and verbal socialization in both males and females, with social advantages and wealth being gained for future offspring and generations. From an evolutionary standpoint, completing the additional Oedipal psychosexual development also 1.enhances incest avoidance with unknown fathers and 2.provides a capacity in these females for monogamy, in service of the overriding paternal interest, and the now much larger paternal investment in offspring.....

Socarides' model of splitting of ego/object in the perversions can be used to explain colorful mating attractions, and even hunting and predation in early primates, and in mammals and birds. From the perspective of dependent young, internalized aggressive and competitive reactions to the absent, or withholding, feeding mother are later externalized, resulting in all the behaviors involved in stalking and killing of prey. Pre-oedipal exposure and visual socialization centered around female/maternal estrous also suggests why hunting for meat peaks in chimpanzee males(and theoretically, early humans)when many estrous females are present. Carnivorous killing and competition for meat may be seen as an externalized oral/aggressive displacement of revenge internalized during intense, survival-dependent, pre-oedipal competition for the unavailable mother.

Socarides' theory suggests that the incest prohibition is a dual mechanism, which operates pre-oedipally in relation to the mother, and then Oedipally in relation to the father. In his case histories, Socarides consistently cites homosexuality as a defense, either Oedipal or pre-oedipal, against the child's incestuous feelings toward father or mother. Similarly, early exposure to the forbidden maternal estrous in all primate males and females served the function of incest prohibition, enabling male bonobos, for example, to remain non-sexually with their mothers for life; while a similar prototypical pre-oedipal crisis in pre-pubertal and adolescent bonobo females internally drives them to separate from their mothers and out-migrate when their first sexual bumps begin to appear, in order to avoid sexually competing with their mothers and/or mating with their unidentifiable fathers within the home group.

In summary, pre-oedipal maternal identification and separation was a crucial evolutionary development in the common human/primate ancestor, allowing