ABSTRACT
In classical psychoanalytic theory and practice homosexuality is considered to be non-pathological if it is surpassed, if it is seen as adolescent experimentation, as a preparation for “adult,” genital sexuality. The purpose of psychoanalytic case studies is to illustrate common features and specific diversity and complexity. Michel Foucault argues that psychoanalysis analyzes sexuality in terms of repression and in doing so operates with a substantive notion of the “human” with the notion of a “true” underlying sexual identity. Sexual identity is not simply a question of isolated individuals repressing or discovering their “true” desires, or of a logical definition, but is variously inscribed in cultural, religious, legal and political systems and practices. Psychoanalysts whose conception of the baby’s earliest relationship as that to phantasized objects where the phantasies are postulated as being a-linguistic, not just pre-verbal, advocate baby-observation as crucial to learning about early developmental stages.
