Publication Announcement by Mary Lynne Ellis (UK)
(2021). Psychodynamic Practice, 27(3): 241-258.
Many psychotherapists across a range of modalities remain unaware that from the late 19th and 20thcentury on, lesbians and gay men were pathologized in classical psychoanalytic theories and deemed “unfit” to train as psychoanalytic practitioners due to theorized failures in their early sexual development. In this article I describe the history of challenges for lesbian and gay clients, applicants to training, trainees, and qualified psychotherapists in the UK between 1986 and 2015. As emphasised by Ricoeur and Dosse, the work of remembering is vital to prevent the repetition of past failures. I describe how lesbian and gay analytical psychotherapists, in addition to establishing counselling and psychotherapy services accessible to lesbians and gay men, organised conferences, spoke publicly, published and demonstrated.
Our challenges to heteronormative psychoanalytic theorising included an engagement with other disciplines such as fiction, biography and poetry written by lesbians and gay men, post-colonial theorising, queer theory, and philosophical texts. Challenging universalising interpretations of the “causes” of “homosexuality,” we emphasised the critical importance of attending to differences in individuals’ experiences of their sexualities and identities and the specificity of their own voices.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14753634.2021.1939113
Mary Lynne Ellis, BA Art and Design, MA Art Therapy,
Dip. Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, MA Modern European Philosophy
London, United Kingdom
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