Analytic Theory Of Homosexuality

The concept of sexuality is very complex; however, society often looks at it in a very simplistic way. For centuries homosexuality has been a taboo topic, especially because of the lack of information on it. Society has expressed that homosexuality was unnatural and in the mid-1900s the DSM categorized homosexuals as having a psychological condition. The DSM, an abbreviation for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, regarding homosexuality, has attracted controversy and criticism over the years and people who belong to the LGB community have been ridiculed against for something that doesn’t fully relate to them. Homosexuality is not a psychological condition; with research disproving this prior theory, many actions have been

They believe that homosexuals have abnormal desires as a result from early childhood trauma (Cameron, 1997). This idea has been around predating the nineteenth century; same-sex sexual activity (specifically between men) has been, and still in some cultures today, referred to as "unnatural acts” (The History of Psychiatry & Homosexuality, n.d.). The only source of psychological justification for labeling homosexuality as a mental illness is the analytic theory. The analytic theory, also known as analytic psychology, was a foundational approach to the study of the human mind. This theory was created by a man named Carl Jung, who was a Swiss psychiatrist (Mitchell, n.d.). Analysts connected homosexuality with many severe mental illnesses including schizophrenia, obsessional disorders and severe character pathologies. These disorders, however, are not present in all homosexuals, just like mental disorders are not present in all heterosexuals (Lewes, 1995; Bieber, 1962). An analogy for this could be going to a Volkswagen dealership, observe that all the cars on the lot are Volkswagens, and then conclude that all cars are Volkswagens. Although the analytic theory is the only one with vindication on the matter, there is very little support found in objective scientific investigations on many components of this theory (Jensen, 1996). Over-generalizations can be extremely misleading and are not fair towards the people who are being victimized. Psychoanalytic studies on homosexuality, which pre-date the 1950’s, used patients who needed treatment for a wide range of symptoms or who were brought to treatment prisons or mental hospitals (Jensen, 1996). This research is extremely biased and does not represent the general population of homosexuals. For this reason, the results gathered from these experiments are not valid and do not support the claim