Talk #1 - Ethical Issues in Treating LGBT Patients
The American Psychiatric Association’s Principles of Medical Ethics emphasize competence, respect and upto-date knowledge as a basis for appropriate professional behavior toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) patients. This presentation first reviews historical psychiatric attitudes towards LGBT patients that could be construed, at best, as patronizing and, at worst, overtly hostile. In modern clinical practice, as opposed to trying to “cure” homosexuality or “transsexualism,” LGBT patients are helped to live their lives according to their own natures and desires. This presentation outlines some common clinical questions raised by LGBT patients—what is known and not known about the origins of homosexuality and transgender expression, sexual orientation conversion efforts (SOCE), therapist self-disclosure, how therapists should address LGBT patients, and controversies surrounding treatment of transgender children—as well as ethical issues raised in these clinical encounters.
Talk #2 - A Bisexual Man's Search for Identity: An Interpersonal Psychoanalytic Perspective
This is a case presentation of a man starting treatment in his thirties, initially presenting with obsessional anxiety about his sexual identity. Questions about his sexual identity were never resolved in a previous treatment despite eight years of four-time-a-week psychoanalysis. Shortly after beginning a new, once a week treatment, that included pharmacotherapy for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, the patient experienced a significant reduction in anxiety that allowed him to address questions about sexual identity in a more productive manner. The clinical material evoked in the analyst associations to the process by which homosexuality was removed from DSM-II in 1973. That history, which includes the replacement of “homosexuality per se” with “sexual orientation disturbance” is reviewed. These associations were shared with the patient. As the patient began feeling more comfortable exploring his sexual desires for both men and women, he managed to put aside questions of identity until he had accumulated more intimate experiences with both sexes. The case illustrates how the therapeutic task of defining a sexual identity is often a complex, interpretative and interpersonal process.
Talk #3 - From Bisexuality to Intersexuality: Rethinking Gender
The study of human sexual identities is changing, and these changes oblige analysts to think about sexualities in ways never envisioned by their psychoanalytic forbears. These changes also require that they be aware of some of the limitations imposed upon by their own theoretical traditions. Toward that end, this presentation begins with a definition of terms related to modern conceptions of sexuality and sexual identities. This is followed by a review of historical assumptions underlying the theory of bisexuality. The next section introduces the audience to the role of categories and hierarchies in general, and to the clinical meaning of sexual hierarchies in particular. This is followed by a discussion of the meanings and uses of the “natural.” The final section concludes with a commentary on intersexuality as an example of both the social and surgical construction of gender.
Jack Drescher, MD, is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City. He is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons and a Faculty Member at Columbia’s Division of Gender, Sexuality, and Health. He is a Senior Psychoanalytic Consultant at Columbia’s Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research and Adjunct Professor at New York University’s Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. He is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the William Alanson White Institute. Dr. Drescher Co-Chairs the Committee on Public Information of the American Psychoanalytic Association and co-edits APsaA’s Psychoanalysis Unplugged blog on PsychologyToday.com. He is a consultant to the Sexual & Gender Diversity Studies Committee of the International Psychoanalytical Association. Dr. Drescher is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, Past President of the Group for Advancement of Psychiatry and a Past President of APA’s New York County Psychiatric Society. He presently serves as a Consultant to APA’s Ethics Committee.
Dr. Drescher is Author of Psychoanalytic Therapy and the Gay Man (Routledge) and Emeritus Editor of the Journal of Gay and Lesbian Mental Health. He has edited and co-edited many books dealing with gender, sexuality and the health and mental health of LGBT communities. He has authored and co-authored numerous professional articles and book chapters as well. His publications have been translated into Italian, Portuguese, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Finnish and German.
Dr. Drescher is an expert media spokesperson on issues related to gender, sexuality and mental health, appearing frequently on broadcast and cable television networks and often sought for comments by print and internet media outlets.
Fees: $150 general public, $135 members. $75 students/mental health professionals
