Sexual Orientation and Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

Richard C. Friedman, M.D., is a clinical professor of psychiatry at Weill Medical College, Cornell University, and a lecturer at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He is the author of Male Homosexuality: A Contemporary Psychoanalytic Perspective.Jennifer I. Downey, M.D., is clinical professor of psychiatry at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. She is the editor, with Richard C. Friedman, of Masculinity and Sexuality: Selected Topics in the Psychology of Men.Friedman and Downey have coauthored numerous articles on psychoanalysis and sexuality. They are psychoanalysts in private practice in New York City.

[H]ighly recommended because it presents a broad and encompassing view of current neurobiological research into sexual orientation. Further, it highlights in considerable detail a number of noteworthy, complicated clinical issues such as internalized homophobia, disclosure of the therapist's sexual orientation, the power of sexual fantasy, and gender development. -- Robert F. Tyminski Journal of Analytical Psychology [Friedman and Downey] have effectively documented the carnage caused by the current antagonism toward homosexual relations in males. -- Michael Ferguson Journal of Homosexuality Friedman and Downey not only make an important contribution to psychoanalysis; they have in addition begun the process of making psychoanalytic therapy relevant to the treatment of homosexual individuals... It would be difficult to think of any other recent book that makes such an important contribution to the revision of psychoanalytic theory while advancing the therapeutic potential of psychoanalysis in the treatment of gay and lesbian individuals. -- Henry J. Friedman American Psychoanalytic Association The most clear thinking, completely erudite, and unbiased presentation of sexual research... that has yet been written. -- Roman N. Anshin, M.D. American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry [Richard C. Friedman and Jennifer I. Downey] have been at the forefront of the movement within psychoanalysis challenging previously orthodox ideas... Friedman and Downey accurately discuss the dangers of psychoanalytic theorizing divorced from basic science and insist on a systems approach to human sexuality that integrates clinical and theoretical understanding. American Journal of Psychiatry A fascinating book... A vital contribution to the ongoing dialogue about how sexual desire arises from the interplay of human constitution and the human proclivity for love, fantasy and sexual expression. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease

• Part 1: Theoretical/Developmental 1. Sexual Fantasies in Men and Women 2. Genetic Influences on Sexual Orientation 3. Psychoendocrinology and Sexual Orientation 4. Psychoendocrinology and Role Behavior 5. Freud, Oedipus, and Homosexuality 6. Toward a Revised Formulation of Male Oedipal Aggression 7. Psychobiology of Late Childhood: Significance for Developmental Psychoanalytic Theory 8. Female Homosexuality: Classical Psychoanalytic Theory Reconsidered Part 2: Clinical 9. Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, and the Negative Therapeutic Reaction 10. Internalized Homophobia, Pathological Grief, and High-Risk Behavior in a Gay Man with Multiple Psychiatric Disorders 11. Internalized Homophobia and Gender-Valued Self-Esteem in the Psychoanalysis of Gay Patients 12. Homophobic Parents 13. Psychopathology, Suicidality, and Homosexuality: New Developments 14. Coming Out at Eighty-Four: The Psychotherapeutic Treatment of Internalized Homophobia in a Lesbian Patient 15. Sexual Orientation and Psychoanalysis: Problems and Controversies 16. The Model of Homosexuality as Psychopathology: Science and Psychoanalysis