ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book aims to develop new ways of extending psychoanalytic theories, always informed by the clinical experience, with patients at the centre. It explores how the development of psychoanalysis in the English-speaking world has foregrounded infant–care-giver relationships and relegated erotic experience to a less prominent position than S. Freud proposed. The book focuses on psychosocial research outside the psychoanalytic field that demonstrates the shame-inducing impact of homophobia on the development of a boy who grows up with an awareness of a gay identity. It also explores how the loss of the unconscious oedipal mother can be manifested as a loss of sexual desire in a couple’s relationship. The book describes the work of The Gender Identity Development Service, which is the one NHS highly specialist service in England and Wales for children and adolescents.
