Depathologizing Sexuality: Changing Times, Changing Psychoanalysis

Reviews the book, Sex changes: Transformations in society and psychoanalysis by Mark J. Blechner (see record 2009-01380-000). Michel Foucault argues for a way to examine the phenomenon of sexuality that treats issues of behavior, identity, and cognition not as evidence of a personal pathology but rather as a way of “speaking” about the social environment, an environment that, Foucault suggests, is a “system of prohibitions and values.” In light of this suggestion, the reviewers read Sex changes: Transformations in society and psychoanalysis as a tour-de-force demonstration of Foucault’s proposed method of analysis, one that accurately outlines the struggle for homosexuals to adapt and live not only in a faith-driven American society but also in the field of psychoanalysis itself, both as patients and as therapists. Blechner’s work, a deliberate blending of memoir and academic writing, both shows and tells the story of homosexuality in the United States in the last half of the 20th century, a story poignant, provocative, and perverse. What emerges across these occasionally uneven and stylistically experimental chapters is an ambivalent tale of evolution, both of a brave man and of a not-always-brave field. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)