A Discussion of “De-Pathologizing Homosexuality”; A Presentation by Lawrence Hartmann, MD, to the New York Psychoanalytic Society November 2024

This discussion offers a response to Dr Lawrence Hartmann’s lecture on the history of de-pathologizing homosexuality within psychoanalysis. While commending Dr Hartmann’s thorough and courageous account, I reflect on the profession’s painful slowness to enact change. Drawing from my own experience – as a past president of the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA), a former board member of the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA), and a clinician – I trace the resistance and eventual evolution within psychoanalytic institutions, particularly APsaA, from discrimination to formal apology. I share personal encounters, including the pivotal moment of Dr Richard Isay’s talk in 1991, and reflect on the systemic and subjective factors that sustained harmful diagnostic practices. I examine how the institutional resistance to change – when fueled by misuse of theory and unconscious dynamics – threatens not only the integrity of our field but its future relevance. Finally, I argue that organizational apologies, while insufficient alone, are necessary starting points for transformation. Dr Hartmann’s talk reminds us of what psychoanalysis can become when it acts in alignment with its deepest values

Homosexuality · Psychoanalysis · Psychoanalytic theory · Medicine · Psychology · Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications

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