ABSTRACT
In January 2012, the British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC) agreed a position statement on homosexuality, which began: “The BPC does not accept that a homosexual orientation is evidence of disturbance of the mind or in development.” There was a palpable sense of relief among those who attended, and hope was expressed that it marked the beginning of a new era, leaving behind the troubled history of the relationship of British psychoanalysis to homosexuality. Some said that they felt it infringed on the autonomy of member organizations, the proper sources of authority on psychoanalytic theory. The Association for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy in the NHS invited American psychoanalyst Charles Socarides, who was well known for his view that homosexuality was a pathological condition in need of cure, to give the annual lecture. Gender and sexual identity are inextricably involved with one another. And the history of psychoanalysis shows how difficult it has been to build on Freud’s more tolerant attitude towards these obscurities.
