Daniel Twomey. Journal of Gay & Lesbian Psychotherapy. Volume 7, Issue 1-2. 2003.
There has been an increasingly tolerant social and political attitude in the United Kingdom towards gays and lesbians. This was illustrated recently in the reality TV show, “Big Brother,” where an openly gay man was voted the winner by millions of viewers. The UK now has an equal age of consent; gay people are accepted in the armed forces and openly gay members of parliament occupy positions in the government. The present Labour government is proposing a new law, which would make discrimination illegal in employment and training on the basis of age, sexual orientation and religion.
These societal and political changes have brought a change in theorising and official policy with regards to accepting gay and lesbian candidates for training. There are two registration bodies for psychotherapists in the UK: the British Confederation of Psychotherapists (BCP) and the United Kingdom Conference for Psychotherapy (UKCP). Nearly all training bodies belonging to these organisations have an Equal Opportunity Policy, which states that “they do not discriminate on grounds of sexual orientation.” This is indeed progress; however, as this paper will detail, there is still some cause for concern.
In a recent study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry (Bartlett, Philips and King, 2001), among a sample of 218 members of the British Confederation of Psychotherapists, 64% believed that a gay or lesbian client’s “sexual orientation was central to their difficulties.” The study’s authors further concluded that “Gays and lesbians seeking psychoanalysis or psychotherapy in the National Health Service (NHS) or outside it for personal and/or training purposes will be unlikely to find a gay or lesbian therapist if they want one. The British Confederation of Psychotherapists’ practitioners takes on gay and lesbian clients/patients, although many do not see these social identities as relevant to the therapeutic process. Evidence from this study indicates that such clients/patients may encounter overt or covert bias, including the pathologisation of homosexuality per se.”
Historic Psychoanalytic Theory and Practice
As far as I have been able to ascertain there are no “out” gay psychoanalysts in the UK. Furthermore, in my extensive research for this paper, I was unable to find any British psychoanalyst who was of the theoretical belief that homosexuality could be a normal, healthy end-point of psychosexual development. These attitudes among psychoanalytically-oriented psychotherapists could be traced back to Ernest Jones, the psychiatrist who founded the British Institute of Psychoanalysis in 1919. In 1921, he requested an opinion as to whether a “homosexual” candidate should be accepted for analytic training. He received the following reply in a Circular Letter from Freud and Otto Rank (1921):
“We do not want to exclude such persons because we cannot condone their legal prosecution, we believe that a decision in such cases should be reserved for an examination of the individuals other qualities” (quoted in Lewes, 1988, p. 33). If this advice had been accepted, the relationship between British psychoanalysis and the gay and lesbian community may have been very different from the one that eventually developed. Jones rejected their advice because he believed that “homosexuals” were fixated at an early stage of development, i.e., they had not resolved the Oedipus complex. Thus homosexual men and lesbians were excluded from psychoanalytic training and all “homosexuals” were pathologised.
In the ensuing years, many comments of British psychoanalysts and the language they used to describe homosexuality and “homosexuals” illustrated a deep level of antihomosexual bias. Ronald Fairbairn (1946), for example, was one of the most important theorists of British object relations theory. He recommended that “homosexuals” should not be offered psychotherapy since they did not want “cure but re-instatement” (p. 293). He also thought that they should be removed from society and placed in settlement camps (p. 294). Michael Balint (1956), considered by many to be Ferenczi’s successor, came to England from Hungary in 1939 and joined the British Analytic Society. He classified homosexuality as a perversion because “of the atmosphere of pretence and denial that is so characteristic of this group of perversions” (p. 24) He also believed that “without normal intercourse there is no real contentment” (p. 24).
Ismond Rosen, a member of the British Psychoanalytic Society (BPAS), edited a book entitled Sexual Deviation. In the introduction, homosexuality is linked to a wide range of sexual disorders: “Sexual deviations are usually separated into categories according to the predominant and outstanding behaviour. These categories include homosexuality, sexual activities with immature partners of sex (paedophilia), dead people (necrophilia), animals (bestiality), or inanimate objects (fetishism). Also included are sado-masochism, sexual violence, rape, incest, exhibitionism, voyeurism, and transexualism” (Rosen, 1979, p. 3).
These views could be dismissed as old-fashioned; however, they still resonate with more recent statements by British analysts. Peter Hildebrand, another training analyst of the BPAS who also worked at the Tavistock clinic, wrote in 1992, “aspects of the homosexual lifestyle are profoundly unacceptable to non-homosexuals” (p. 457) and that “The often hidden desire to harm the other person, is central to all forms of sexual perversion whether sado-masochism fetishist or homosexual” (p. 458). In a criticism of the work of the hospices and voluntary bodies caring for people with AIDS, he further added, “The difference between the psychoanalytic approach and the approach of the caring organisations which I have described is that we do not allow for a collusion that they [“homosexuals”] are living a sanctified life in the way in which the hospice group do and we would, in fact, insist very strongly on the profound aggression towards the object which seems central to their psychopathology” (1992, p. 459).
Returning to the early psychoanalytic years, among the individuals whose theoretical work is most representative of mainstream British theorizing about homosexuality are Glover, Anna Freud, the Kleinian school, Gillespie, Glasser, and Limentani. Edward Glover was born, in 1888, into a strict Presbyterian background and became a powerful member of the British Society, second only to Jones. He maintained that homosexuality was a perversion “being a regression to an earlier stage of sexual development, (but was) the most advanced and organised form of sexual perversion” (1939, p. 257). Nevertheless, Glover held out the possibility for a non-pathological form of homosexual relatedness and a non-neurotic group of homosexuals: “the manifestations of homosexual love-feelings and the attitude to the love object cannot be distinguished from those associated with normal heterosexual love” (1939, p. 257). Years later, he wrote “Some analysts have maintained that every homosexual presents signs of neurosis. This is certainly not true of the homosexual group as a whole” (1960, p. 212). Glover campaigned, in the tradition of Freud, for the decriminalisation of homosexual acts. Glover, William Gillespie, Wilfred Bion and Hannah Segal had a powerful influence on The Wolfenden Commission, which led to the 1967 legalisation of homosexuality in the UK. However, they all considered homosexuality a perversion and supported the ban on admitting gay and lesbian candidates into psychoanalytic training.
Anna Freud had a very different view from her father in that she saw homosexuality as an illness that could be cured. She formulated her theories from her analysis of four homosexual men. She postulated that “homosexuals” had lost their masculinity and attempted to regain it through identification with their partners. Men who choose a passive partner vicariously enjoyed a passive or receptive mode, whilst men who preferred an active partner recovered their lost masculinity (1949, p. 96). That masculinity had once been there and had gotten lost was a new theoretical contribution. In analysing homosexual men, Anna Freud recommended interpreting the transference between the same-sex partners rather than the transference between the analyst and the patient (1952). Like modern-day reparative therapists, she admonished her homosexual patients not to “act out” their sexuality if they wished to get the benefit of treatment (1954).
Melanie Klein theorised that the mechanisms operating in paranoia enter “into every homosexual activity” and felt “The sexual act between men always, in part, serves to satisfy sadistic impulses” (1932, p. 262). The Kleinian analyst Rosenfeld (1949), in a reversal of Freud’s (1911) formulation of the Schreber case, saw homosexuality as a defence against paranoia. Hannah Segal (1990), the leading Kleinian in the UK today, is known to be opposed to homosexuals becoming parents and sees all homosexuality as an attack on the heterosexual couple.
William Gillespie was analysed in Vienna by Edward Hirshmann and joined the BPAS in 1932. He had influence in both British and international psychoanalysis, discarded Freud’s bisexuality theory, and regarded all expressions of homosexuality as a sign of disturbance. Gillespie hypothesised two categories of homosexual behaviour: one as a preoedipal fixation, the other as a regressive defence against oedipal problems (1964).
Mervin Glasser (1977) a training analyst in the BPAS, and a strong influence on British theorising about homosexuality, said that “homosexual men behaved histrionically and gave the gay behaviour of homosexuals its apt name.” He also said that “the homosexual’s” ability “to live a part rather than to merely play it” was reminiscent of “psychopathy.” Glasser also maintained that women became lesbians “because of the persistence of the attempt to deny what they believe to be their anatomical inferiority.” In the “Core complex” (1979), he postulates a universal stage of development. The need to engage intimately, to fuse with another is in conflict–because of the terror of engulfment it arouses–with the need to withdraw from and to destroy the object with which it wishes to fuse. The prototypical object is the mother. This withdrawal leads to feelings of abandonment. In order to compensate for this loneliness, the subject begins to re-desire fusion. Glasser held that all the “homosexuals” he had known sexualised the aggression with the mother and converted it into sadism, thus setting up a sadomasochistic relationship with the mother which generalises to all their other relationships. This theory has been applied extensively to the treatment of “homosexuals” in England, and underlies the psychoanalytic assertion that all gays are promiscuous, sado-masochistic and incapable of loving and lasting relationships.
In line with Stoller’s belief that (1985, p. 97) “It is better to talk of the homosexualities rather than a homosexuality,” British Psychoanalyst Adam Limentani (1979) proposed three classifications of homosexuality. However, none of them allowed for the possibility of an ordinary, non-pathological homosexual development:
- Situational homosexuality, as in prisons, which is no longer acted upon when the individual returns to ordinary life.
- A homosexuality based on a fear of castration and which is amenable to psychoanalytic intervention.
- A homosexuality which is a defence against psychosis and which is not amenable to psychotherapy without involving grave risks.
Eric Rayner (1990), a training analyst at the BPAS, in his book on Human Development, describes homosexuality as “a perversion and a dislike of the idea of the penis within a vagina.” He also states that because the biological urge to recreate has been diverted, “Something psychologically very intense must be happening” This book is still used on many social work and counselling courses.
In 1985, the French analyst, Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel, became the Freud Memorial Professor at the University of London. Although she is not British, she has had a very strong influence on British psychoanalytic theorising on homosexuality. She maintains that all homosexuality is pathological and perverted: “Their [“homosexuals”] tendency to organise themselves and to claim public approval helps many individuals to consider their perversion not as an illness but as a different or even superior form of human existence” (1985b, p. 90). Repeatedly referring to “homosexuals” as “perverts,” Chasseguet-Smirgel further maintains that the creative works of “perverts” are only “pseudocreative”; for example, she dismisses Oscar Wilde’s work as being only of a “glitzy” creativity . . . The work of art achieved by subjects presenting such a structural chore [perverts] and however original it claims to be is nevertheless nothing but an imitation” (p. 71).
Today, attitudes like these in the UK have had an impact on decisions regarding who can and cannot train as a psychoanalyst. There are only three papers in English which theoretically argue that certain “homosexuals,” like certain heterosexuals, are suitable to undergo intensive psychoanalytic training (Cunningham, 1991; Ellis, 1994; Mendoza, 1997). And although it is becoming increasingly difficult to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation in the UK, anecdotal accounts indicate that psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists may be nevertheless practising antigay discrimination.
Protest and Reform
It is crucial to understand that homosexuality in the UK was only decriminalised in 1967. Many gay men entrapped by police ended up at the Portman clinic where many of the psychoanalytic theoreticians who are cited above worked. Theories formulated up to 1967 unequivocally mirrored societal feelings about homosexuality; as Drescher (1995) puts it “it is extremely difficult to separate a scientific theory from the cultural matrix in which theories are formulated” (p. 240). As a result, most of the theories cited above were developed from the analysis and psychotherapy of “homosexuals” who sought treatment because of criminal sanctions against homosexuality or who had been sent for treatment by the courts. Therefore, during this time, accepting an openly gay man for psychoanalytic training, or one who was in a gay partnership, was tantamount to accepting someone who was involved in criminal activity.
The first recorded protest in England against laws that criminalised and theories that pathologised homosexuals took place in Highbury Fields London in 1950. A group of gays met and chanted “One-two-five-six-eight! Gay is as good as straight!” It would take another thirty years before a group of gay psychotherapists publicly challenged psychoanalytic theories of homosexuality. This challenge took place in the 1980s at a public lecture given by Ismond Rosen at University College London. A group of gay and lesbian psychotherapists in the audience, organized by PACE, asked questions and put forward ideas which challenged the belief that all homosexuality was pathological (PACE, Project for Advice and Education, is a counselling psychotherapy and community work organization for lesbian and gay men).
In 1995, the next and more significant protest against the pathological model took place when the Association for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy in the National Health invited Charles Socarides to give their annual lecture. Ismond Rosen was the discussant. Since both speakers viewed homosexuality as pathological, the failure of the association to provide a speaker who would put forward a different theoretical viewpoint caused concern. At a meeting of Psychotherapists and Counsellors for Social Responsibility, Andrew Samuels, a Jungian training analyst, and Joanna Ryan, a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, decided to respond to Socarides’ visit. They together with Mary Lynne Ellis organised a letter protesting the failure to provide a speaker with a different viewpoint. The letter was signed by 200 psychotherapists and became a “rallying point for many who worried about psychoanalytic theorising of homosexuality and its implication for practice” (Ellis, 1997).
Socarides’ visit galvanised a group of psychotherapists, both gay and heterosexual, who were unwilling to accept theories that pathologised all expressions of homosexuality. They were instrumental in the national press eventually taking up the theoretical debate (Kogbara, 1995) and in organising in 1997 a conference in Cambridge on “Homosexuality and Psychoanalysis.” Most of the speakers at the conference were gay or lesbian and 375 people attended.
Socarides’ visit also polarised opinion against the British institute of Psychoanalysis which was labeled “homophobic” by the protest organisers. On the other side, according to one anecdotal report, the protesters were described as “fearing their identity will be destroyed and [people] who attack truth and free speech.” This subsequent polarisation around this issue has had an adverse effect on scientific and intellectual debate about homosexuality in the UK. For example, only 6 members of the British Confederation of Psychotherapists attended the conference in Cambridge. Even today, efforts to have a public debate with psychoanalysts about their theoretical beliefs are proving more difficult, if not impossible to arrange. Christopher Shelly was unable to find a British psychoanalyst willing to write the chapter on Psychoanalysis and Male Homosexuality in his edited book Contemporary Perspectives on Psychotherapy and Homosexualities (1998).
Although they have withdrawn from the public arena, a private debate did take place within the BPAS. Some of the papers presented in this debate were published in the Society’s bulletin, a publication only available to Society members. In preparing this paper for the Journal of Gay & Lesbian Psychotherapy, attempts were made to ascertain if any papers on homosexuality were written by members of the BPAS or the Society of Analytic Psychology in the last ten years. The librarians of both organisations found that none were written by members of the Society of Analytic Psychology while seven papers had appeared in the bulletin of the BPAS between 1996 and 1997. As a non-member of the BPAS, however, one had to apply to the librarian for permission to read the papers; this was granted in the case of 5 of the 7 papers. Access was given on condition “that these papers are strictly not to be circulated beyond the named recipient–Daniel Twomey.” In any event, permission was not granted to quote any part of the papers. It is not clear why the papers are being treated with such secrecy. It is worth noting, however, that a spirit of inquiry free from antihomosexual bias permeates the papers. Throughout the collection there exists a spirit of openness to new ideas, a willingness to rethink past assumptions, and a recognition that some of the samples used to generate theory in the past might not have been representative of the gay population.
There are other signs that psychoanalysts are gradually changing their thinking on homosexuality. In the current volume of the British Journal of Psychotherapy, Ann Zachary (2001), a psychoanalyst and psychiatrist, has written a paper, “Uneasy Triangles: A Brief Overview of The History of Homosexuality.” The author accepts the universality of bisexuality. What she calls the triangles of (sin crime illness) (reaction resistance projection) and (mother child father) are useful in preventing discussions about homosexuality from becoming “polarised into two dimensional debate” about what is pathological and non-pathological. Zachary sees the Oedipus complex as dynamic and being negotiated internally throughout life. Zachary comments on the change “in our ability to challenge previously fixed polarisations such as heterosexuality and homosexuality and in recognising different sexualities.” She goes on to suggest “that there will always be some sin, some crime and some illness for homosexuals and heterosexuals and that the answer lies in keeping things fluid and open minded not rigidly set in polarised positions.” Another psychoanalyst, Sira Dermen, is quoted as saying in a lecture at Regents College London that “heterosexuality and homosexuality are solutions to anxietydriven situations of which Oedipus remains paramount. Both are achievements in the technical sense.
The exclusion of gays and lesbians from psychoanalytic training was taken up in the British press in 1994. This public airing of the issue was stimulated by the work of Mary Lynne Ellis (1994) who researched both attitudes and policies of the main psychoanalytic training bodies with regard to the acceptance of gay and lesbian candidates. She reported encountering evasions, confusion and a reluctance to even discuss the issue among the organisations she interviewed. She was told by the Chair of Admissions at the Institute of Psychoanalysis that they “wondered about a homosexual’s ability to work intensively with a lot of issues of a heterosexual nature such as relationships with children” (p. 511). He further went on to say “that they would worry if someone had made a firm choice of homosexuality as their sexual orientation and didn’t feel that was something that needed to be considered in their lives” and he also believed that “a person’s sexual adjustment would coincide with a heterosexual orientation” (p. 512). The British Association of Psychotherapists declined to give Ellis an interview, stating that her research “was not relevant to the selection policy of the BAP” (p. 514).
One gay analysand in training with another organisation told Ellis he had been told by his psychoanalyst “that if a report was required for assessment purposes, he could only respond negatively” adding that “Homosexuals can’t be psychotherapists” (p. 513) while another psychoanalyst told a lesbian applicant that she would not be accepted for training at his institute because it was felt that she would be “insensitive to certain aspects of human relationships” (p. 513). These responses were consistent with a history of excluding of gay men and lesbians from psychoanalytic training which began with Jones and was later supported by Melanie Klein and Anna Freud. After the British press took up the issue, journalist Paula Webb (1994) concluded that “Prejudice against homosexuality is as important for Gays and Lesbians on the couch as for those behind it.”
In other words, there is no doubt that until very recently, there was a ban on accepting gays and lesbians for psychoanalytic training in the UK. That it operated unofficially–while being officially denied in public–is also verifiable. A qualitative study by Phillips, Bartlett, and King (2001, p. 80) found in a sample of 15 British Confederation of Psychotherapists members that their responses to the suggestion of having gay and lesbian trainees divided into two groups: (1) “those who were in full agreement with the current process of selection (for training) including the exclusion of gay and lesbians on the grounds of their sexuality; and (2) those who felt that current selection methods and criteria regarding gay and lesbians are inappropriate and outdated.” That there is a change in British psychoanalysis is beyond doubt. The beginning of accepting openly gay and lesbian candidates into training has taken place. Attempts at building a non-pathological theory of homosexuality are being taken seriously. Equal access to training is soon to be enshrined in law. In all likelihood, as in the United States, a greater change will only occur when gay and lesbian psychoanalysts come out of the “closet” and write and theorise about their own life work and sexuality.
Psychoanalytic Psychotherapists
Today, members of the British Confederation of Psychotherapists now officially admit gay and lesbian trainees. In contrast to psychoanalysts, there have been many publications by psychoanalytic psychotherapists that are more accepting of gay and lesbian subjectivities. Many of these publications have appeared in The British Journal of Psychotherapy. In 1991, an author writing in that journal under the pseudonym of R. Cunningham used a Kleinian approach to argue for the existence of a non-pathological form of homosexuality. In contrast to traditional Kleinian theory, she said many “homosexuals” are capable of achieving the depressive position and have the ability to appreciate the “beauty and creativity” of the heterosexual couple in reproductive sexual intercourse.
In 1993, Noreen O’Connor and Joanna Ryan’s Wild Desires and Mistaken Identities was published. The authors argued for “the need to create a theoretical and conceptual space for non pathological possibilities in relation to homosexuality” (p. 10). They called for clinicians to pay more attention to their countertransference responses when formulating theories and they note “the absence of counter-transference considerations in case studies describing work with homosexual patients” (p. 11). They suggested an equivalence in theorising between heterosexuality and homosexuality, allowing for pathological and non pathological variations of both, which “would greatly advance psychoanalytic understanding of homosexuality in its many forms” (p. 11). Susannah Izzard’s paper Oedipus-Baby and Bath Water? (1999) enters the debate between some who would abolish the Oedipus complex from psychoanalytic theory, others who would deconstruct it like O’Connor and Ryan (1993), and those who would reform it. Izzard, like the Americans Isay (1996) and Lewes (1988), favours reformation by keeping the oedipal baby and meeting him afresh.
David Jones’ (2001) “Shame, Disgust, Anger and Revenge” pleads for more insights into homosexuality and a treatment of “homosexuals” derived from an examination of one’s countertransference toward them. Steven Mendoza’s (2001) “Genital and Phallic Homosexuality” argues that it is the quantity of genital or phallic organisation involved in a sexual relationship which determines its psychological maturity: “Sexual orientation does not determine or even, to a reliable, extent, indicate, any special disturbance requiring particular treatment… A homosexual, limited to his or her own sex, may be capable of a love of the other in the sense of a whole object which may be called genital” (p. 155).
Analytical Psychology
As Andrew Samuels (1985) notes, homosexuality has not received much attention from Jungians. However, it is common knowledge that for many years, numerous members of London’s Society of Analytical Psychology have accepted and taught non-pathological views on homosexuality. In contrast to Hildebrand (1992), Jungian writers have demonstrated a deep level of nonpathologising empathy and understanding towards people afflicted with AIDS. As Frantz (1995) notes, “… it is no longer them it is now us” (p. 257) and “The trauma experienced by the psyche in AIDS is beyond the ability to articulate of anyone who does not have the disease. We who try are like foreign correspondents” (pp. 256-257).
Robert Hopcke (1989), an American Jungian analyst who has influenced analytical psychology in Britain, states “all sexual orientation is the result of a personal and Archetypal confluence of the masculine, feminine and Androgyny” (p. 187). His approach allows for a non-pathological theory of homosexuality. Hazel Davis (1995) is a Jungian who takes up the issues of prejudice against “homosexuals” and pathologising theories that often lie hidden in the profession. She describes a non-pathological homosexuality using concepts from Friedman, Stoller and Jung. She points out that the concept of the anima/animus allows for masculine or feminine images that are “spontaneously activated to be independent of the gender of the individual” (p. 322) and this understanding of “a dual unconscious gender potential frees the analyst and patient from making gender assumptions” (p. 324). Homosexuality is seen as being compatible with the goals of individuation, which are “the value of wholeness, internal harmony, a steady and reliable self image, the possession of a non-defensive attitude and the capacity to develop intimate relationships being the key issues” (p. 327). The paper calls for equal valuing of what the author calls gay and straight “lifestyles.” The Jungian Society of Analytical Psychology has admitted gay candidates to training for many years and has a number of outgay members.
Other Mental Health Professions
The main emphasis in this paper has been on psychoanalytical theory and practitioners. Nevertheless, mental health attitudes toward homosexuality outside the psychoanalytic community changed much earlier. In 1984, the European parliament rejected classifying homosexuality as a mental illness. The Royal College of Psychiatrists supported the equalisation of the age of consent in the same year and it also has a gay and lesbian mental health interest group consisting of 120 members (Nakajima, 2003). In 1986, The Greater London Council, that is the Government of London, called for an end to drug, shock and behaviour therapy to “cure” lesbianism. In 1993, the National Government removed homosexuality from its central computer list of psychiatric disorders.
However, it is important to note the influence of psychoanalytic thought on other health professions in the UK. Psychiatry, as practised in the UK, is eclectic. Some psychiatrists are trained in psychoanalysis while others train in behavioural and pharmacological modalities. Until the 1960s, all of these theoretical approaches shared a common view of homosexuality as pathology. “Despite disagreement about the origins of homosexuality, both behaviourists and analysts assumed that it required treatment” (King and Bartlett, 1999, p. 108). An interdisciplinary team consisting of psychiatrist, psychiatric social worker and psychologist is an integral part of British psychiatric practice. It is also from these core professions that most candidates for psychoanalytic training are recruited. Many psychiatrists who trained at the BPAS often became consultants in the National Health Service (NHS) and were responsible (until the late 1970s) for the work of all members of the multidisciplinary team.
Clinical psychology in the UK has not been very influenced by psychoanalytic theory and practice if examination of the Clinical Psychology Journal published by the British Psychological Society is any indication. An examination of the contents of eleven journals from March 1999 through September 2001 revealed no articles with a psychoanalytic viewpoint. The British Psychological Society has a gay and lesbian section since 2000, which publishes its own journal. The Society’s equal opportunity policy includes sexual orientation and applies to “academic, professional training and to users of the service.” This policy is enshrined in the Code of Conduct Ethical Principles and Guidelines.
The first social work training in the UK took place at the London School of Economics (LSE). Among its student were Clare Winnicott and Betty Joseph, both of whom were to become important figures in British psychoanalysis. Donald Winnicott taught psychoanalytic concepts on this course for many years. Social workers who trained at the LSE have dominated social work for many years and worked psycho-dynamically. Unsurprisingly, they viewed homosexuality as an illness and subscribed to the psychoanalytical theories of their time.
In the 1980s, the profession became theoretically eclectic and politically conscious. Social workers became involved with minority groups and many “came out” and campaigned for gay and lesbian rights. The National Association of Social Workers now has an Equal Opportunity Policy as part of their Code of Ethics and Practice. All members are required to uphold the code and make a commitment to it at their annual renewal of membership. Its members have been in the vanguard in supporting the rights of gay and lesbians to be parents, to adopt and to foster children.