Psychoanalysis and Male Homosexuality (The Master Work)

By Kenneth Lewes

This landmark book is the first and only historical, cultural, and theoretical account of how male homosexuality has been viewed - and sometimes misconstrued - by the psychoanalytic tradition, from Freud through the 1980s. In this groundbreaking survey, Kenneth Lewes reveals how the original psychoanalytic ideals of understanding and compassion have been betrayed by clinicians and theorists. Viewing Freud and his early followers in a new light, Dr. Lewes shows how they posited a surprisingly wide variety of "normal" outcomes of psychosexual development, including homosexuality. But in its attitudes toward homosexuality, psychoanalysis soon changed from an open-minded and humane discipline into an insular and calcified orthodoxy. Exposing the basis of the acrimony and alienation that have characterized the relationship between homosexuals and psychoanalysis, Psychoanalysis and Male Homosexuality is a sometimes shocking account of intolerance and hostility. But it is also the story of unexpected sensitivity as it explores the possibilities - as well as the limits - of psychoanalysis as a humane science.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1568214847
• ISBN13: 9781568214849
• Release Date: July 1977
• Publisher: Jason Aronson
• Length: 289 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

A Worthwhile History

Kenneth Lewes does an exemplary job of documenting the psychoanalytic theory of male homosexuality as well as documenting the political and social implications of that theory. The history of psychoanalytic animus toward gay identities is explored. This is an important reference book on the subject that no serious scholar should overlook. The book's major weakness is its attempt to find a "psychonalytically-correct" interpretation for the origins of homosexuality using the neo-Freudian paradigm of the negative oedipus complex. Nevertheless, compared to others who have tried this approach, the author does one of the most creative jobs of it.