Overview

This landmark book is the first and only historical, cultural, and theoretical account of how male homosexuality has been viewed—and frequently misconstrued and distorted—by the psychoanalytic tradition from Freud through the 1980s. In this groundbreaking survey, Kenneth Lewes shows how the original psychoanalytic ideals of understanding and compassion were betrayed by later psychoanalytic clinicians and theorists. Reconsidering Freud and his early followers in a new light, Lewes shows how they posited a model of psychological development that included homosexuality as one of its natural variants. But psychoanalysis, in its later attitudes toward homosexuality, 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 relationships between homosexuals and psychoanalysis, Psychoanalysis and Male Homosexuality is a sometimes shocking account of intolerance, hostility, and close mindedness. But it also carefully and fairly documents a parallel story of unexpected sensitivity as it explores the future possibilities—as well as the limits—of psychoanalysis as a humane science. This twentieth anniversary edition includes a new introduction by the author, in which he reflects on the changes that have occurred in the past twenty years between the psychoanalytic establishment and people who are homosexual. It also includes two forewords by prominent analysts, Gilbert Cole and Donald Moss, who discuss the personal and historical importance of Lewes's work.

Full Product Details

9780765706478

Table of Contents

Reviews

This is an enormously important book. A work of profound scholarship and equally profound compassion, it places the psychoanalytic view of male homosexuality in historical perspective for the first time...Lewes brilliantly recaptures the views of the early analytic school and contrasts its complexity and comparative open-mindedness with the simplistic, polemical, and abusive dogma that subsequently gained hold...It is a model of dispassionate yet engaged research, a milestone in the restoration of human values. -- Martin Bauml Duberman ...after the death of Freud, American psychoanalysis provided strong support for the traditional prejudices against homosexuality in our society, often with devastating social and legal consequences. Kenneth Lewes's book is a carefully written, scholarly account of how its theories promoted this bigotry. The courage, candor, and honesty with which he treats this painful theme are admirable. -- Louis Crompton I think it is the best overview of the psychoanalytic attitudes toward homosexuality that I have read. It emphasizes how much psychoanalysts were prisoners of their own prejudices...Hopefully, this book will lead psychoanalysts to do the kind of critical examination of their own discipline and assumptions which every scholarly and scientific discipline should. Lewes has certainly finished enough data for them to start such an examination. -- Vern L. Bullough Lewes's book is perhaps the most important work on psychoanalysis and homosexuality since Freud ... All future attempts to understand psychoanalytic conceptualizations and treatments of homosexuality must now begin with Lewes's monograph. -- Ritch C. Savin-Williams

This is an enormously important book. A work of profound scholarship and equally profound compassion, it places the psychoanalytic view of male homosexuality in historical perspective for the first time...Lewes brilliantly recaptures the views of the early analytic school and contrasts its complexity and comparative open-mindedness with the simplistic, polemical, and abusive dogma that subsequently gained hold...It is a model of dispassionate yet engaged research, a milestone in the restoration of human values.--Martin Bauml Duberman

Author Information

Kenneth Lewes is an independent scholar and clinician living in New York City. He has a Ph.D. in Renaissance English literature from Harvard and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Michigan.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available