Charles Socarides

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Charles W. Socarides (born January 24, 1922 in Brockton (Massachusetts) , † December 25, 2005 in New York City ) was an American doctor , psychiatrist , psychoanalyst and professor of psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine , Montefiore Medical Center in New York. He is best known for his work on homosexuality , which he saw throughout his life as a serious mental disorder that could be changed. After homosexuality was removed from the list of mental illnesses, he co-founded the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality in 1992 .

Life

After reading a biography of Sigmund Freud at the age of 13, Charles Socarides decided to become a doctor and psychoanalyst. He graduated from Harvard College in 1945, received his doctorate in medicine from New York Medical College in 1947, and completed his training in psychoanalytic medicine in 1952 from Columbia University . From 1954 until his death he practiced as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in New York City .

Socarides was a member of the American Medical Association , the American Psychiatric Association , the Association for Psychoanalytic Medicine , the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA), and the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA). At the latter, he led a discussion group for years. He was also a partner in the Royal Society of Medicine , London, and served on the board of directors of the Margaret S. Mahler Psychiatric Research Foundation. He taught psychiatry at Columbia University and the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center . From 1978 to 1996 he was Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine . He has also lectured in London at the Anna Freud Center , the Portman Clinic, the Tavistock Clinic and before the British Psychoanalytical Society . He has published eight books and over 80 psychoanalytic articles. On television, he has appeared on Dateline NBC , 60 Minutes and Larry King Live to discuss his work. He was also a guest on March 7, 1967, at the then very controversial CBS Special entitled "The Homosexuals" hosted by Mike Wallace .

Socarides devoted a large part of his professional life to homosexuality and its "treatment". In 1995 he estimated that he could “help about 1/3 of his patients get straight”, saying that they are now married and happy with it. He compares this number with the values ​​of alcohol withdrawal clinics . Another third remained homosexual, continued to have same-sex sex, but could now control their “homosexual impulses” more, understand the reasons for their desire for same-sex sex and are not part of the [unspecified] gay scene . He also booked this group as a success.

Franklin Kameny and Barbara Gittings served as security clearance consultants for the United States Department of Defense in 1967 . In the first case, the Ministry presented Socarides as an expert. “We listened with fascinated horror when he was questioned in a direct interview.” The cross-questioning by Kameny and Gittings then lasted three hours. The result was that Socarides was removed from the list of reviewers a short time later.

In 1973 there were efforts in the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to delete homosexuality without substitution in the second version of the DSM, created in 1952 . Socarides and Irving Bieber , the discussion leaders for the International Psychoanalytical Association , strongly advocated a psychopathological classification of homosexuality. Reimut Rich analyzed: "From the unanalytisch-essentialist argument of Socarides goes deduction forth slogisch that homosexuality per se be pathological need." Socarides criticized the under discussion change as a purely political decision based on any scientific basis. In addition, Robert L. Spitzer , who wrote the ultimately adopted opinion for the deletion, had not previously written a single article on homosexuality or "sexual deviations". According to Spitzer, however, the claim that homosexuality per se is a serious personality disorder and that homosexuals can never be happy was unsustainable. As a compromise, Sexual Orientation Disturbance was introduced, which was renamed Ichdystoner Sexualorientierung in the 1980s , but was deleted again in 1987.

In 1978 Socarides criticized, among other things, that the APA were introduced as additional criteria for diagnosing psychological stress (subjective distress ), impairment of social functional areas or "intrinsic disadvantage". These are not adequate criteria for a psychiatric illness.

In 1992, Socarides co-founded the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) in response to the American Psychiatric Association's increasing political bias to regard homosexuality as not worthy of treatment and treatable per se, in order to “prevent scientific studies “Treatment and Problems Associated with Homosexuality”. He was also its first president.

Following a letter from Ralph Roughton of the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA) to the Human Rights Campaign, Socarides (sometime between 1990 and 1999) misinterpreted their position in an article and a judicial opinion. Socarides had tried to make it appear that its views corresponded to the official position of the APsaA. He quoted from an APsaA document from 1968 and ignored a more recent one from 1990, which takes drastically contrary views to his opinion. The APsaA's Executive Committee had the organization's lawyer write a letter to Socarides asking them to end this misinterpretation or legal action to be taken. In addition, the APsaA newsletter decided to stop printing ads for NARTH meetings because the organization does not comply with anti-discrimination rules "and because its activities are degrading to our gay and lesbian members."

Socarides was married four times and has four children. Are from his first marriage , Richard (* 1954) and Daphne (⚭ after 1985 with Robert D. Stolorow , † 1991), from his second marriage also a daughter and a son and from his fourth marriage (⚭ 1988) a daughter. His first son Richard noticed his attraction to men from the ninth grade (around age 15, 1969). In 1986, at the age of 32, he came out to his father. Richard was involved in the American gay movement and was the first openly gay to achieve a high position in the White House . After initial anger, Charles calmed down and until his death the relationship was a respectful, but troubled and complex relationship. Richard said shortly after his father's death: "We tried to understand each other as father and son."

In 1992, neuroscientist Simon LeVay interviewed Charles Socarides for the British documentary Born That Way? When LeVay asked Socarides what the reasons for his son's homosexuality were, “he got angry and said, among other things, 'How would you like it if I asked about your HIV status?'” Socarides became at the request this part cut out of the documentation. In 1995, another reporter asked him if his "lousy upbringing" was the reason. “Socarides cleverly placed the blame on a combination of uncontrollable events, such as 'the fact that he and Richard's mother divorced when Richard was around three years old, the age at which the neurotic mechanism' of homosexuality can be implanted in a child . Socarides also said that Richard's now deceased mother was 'pretty harsh to my son' after the divorce. "

View of homosexuality

Male homosexuality - so Socarides - has its cause in a dominant mother and a weak or rejecting father and is always destructive for everyone:

“Homosexuality is based on the fear of the mother and on the aggressive attack against the father; it is full of aggression, destruction and self-deception. It is a masquerade of life in which certain psychic energies are neutralized and kept in a reasonably calm position. Nevertheless, there is always the threat of a breakthrough of unconscious manifestations of destructiveness, feelings of hatred, incest and fear. Instead of unity, cooperation, consolation, stimulation, enrichment, healthy challenge and success, we only find destruction, mutual defeat, exploitation of the partner as well as oneself, orally sadistic incorporation, aggressive attacks, attempts to appease fear, and a sham solution for the aggressive and libidinal impulses that dominate and torment the individual. "

- Charles W. Socarides : The Openly Homosexual (1971, p. 22)

In his opinion, the foundations of a homosexual orientation are usually laid before the age of three and are therefore pre- oedipal . He thinks it is theoretically possible that as a young, shy, horny (“horny”), 18-year-old from a small town, he could have been seduced into gay sex at the university if he had only been asked to try it he was trying to get in touch with a certain seemingly unreachable girl. That's why he openly believes gay tutors are another form of child abuse.

Socarides does not see homosexuality as immoral :

"Once my patients have gained an insight into this dynamic - and realize that their long-standing and mysterious needs do not involve moral misconduct - then they tend to move quickly on the road of change."

- Charles Socarides : How America went gay, 1995

“The homosexual is sick and anything that helps to cover up this fact reduces the chance of treatment. [...] If homosexuality is accepted by society, this would only exacerbate these problems. […]
About half of the patients who engage in homosexual activity have accompanying schizophrenia or paranoia, are latent or psychoneurotic schizophrenic or suffer from a manic-depressive reaction. The other half of the patients, if neurotic, are obsessional, or occasionally phobic. Sometimes they suffer from character disorders, a psychopathic personality, or various forms of addiction. [...] As a solution, homosexuality is always doomed to failure, and even if it is placed in the service of utilitarian goals - for example prestige, power, protection from a stronger man - the success is short-lived. "

- Charles W. Socarides : The Openly Homosexual (1971)

In his opinion, homosexuality is a social impairment per se, since heterosexuality alone is biologically and socially useful. There would also be a fundamental truth in both the unconscious psychodynamics and in the connection between anatomy and psychosocial identity. In an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association , he described homosexuality as "a dreaded disorder, malignant in character, which has grown to epidemological proportions." He estimated that 4 million Americans "suffer" from the condition and he warned that it does the leading disease in the country. With reference to Bieber (1962), he complained that a third of exclusively homosexual patients could be converted to exclusive heterosexuality through psychoanalysis. (Bieber reported a 19% success rate in his post.)

The consensus of the authoritative American psychological and psychiatric trade associations, the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association, is that these theories and views are scientifically unsustainable.

Honors

  • 1970–1973 - Physicians Recognition Award from the American Medical Association
  • The first Sigmund Freud Lectureship Award from the New York Center for Psychoanalytic Training.
  • 1987 - Sigmund Freud Award from the American Society of Psychoanalytic Physicians
  • 1995 - Distinguished Psychoanalyst of the Association of Psychoanalytic Psychologists, London (criticism of the award of Andrew Samuels, Joanna Ryan and Mary Lynne Ellis after a meeting of the Psychotherapists and Counselors for Social Responsibility )

Works

  • The Overt Homosexual , Jason Aronson, Inc. or Grune and Stratton, New York 1968, ISBN 0-87668-162-3
  • Beyond Sexual Freedom , New York Times / Quadrangle Books, 1975, ISBN 0-8129-0532-6 .
  • with Selma Kramer: Work and Its Inhibitions: Psychoanalytic Essays , International Universities Press, 1975, ISBN 0-8236-6866-5
  • The World of Emotions: Clinical Studies of Affects and Their Expression , International Universities Press, 1977, ISBN 0-8236-6867-3
  • Homosexuality , 1978; new edition under the title: Homosexuality: Psychoanalytic Therapy , Jason Aronson, Inc., 1989, ISBN 0-87668-814-8
  • with Toksoz B. Karasu: On Sexuality: Psychoanalytic Observations , International Universities Press, 1979, ISBN 0-8236-3857-X
  • Preoedipal Origin and Psychoanalytic Therapy of Sexual Perversions , International Universities Press, 1988 ISBN 0-8236-4287-9
  • with Vamik D. Volkan: The Homosexualities: Reality, Fantasy, and the Arts , International Universities Press, 1990, ISBN 0-8236-2347-5
  • with Vamik D. Volkan: The Homosexualities and the Therapeutic Process , International Universities Press, 1991, ISBN 0-8236-2348-3
  • Homosexuality: A Freedom Too Far. A Psychoanalyst Answers 1000 Questions About Causes and Cure and the Impact of the Gay Rights Movement on American Society , Roberkai, 1995, ISBN 0-9646642-5-9
  • with Abraham Freedman: Objects of Desire: The Sexual Deviations , International Universities Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8236-3731-X
  • with Loretta L. Loeb: The Mind of the Paedophile: Psychoanalytic Perspectives , Karnac, 2004, ISBN 1-85575-970-5

literature

  • Reimut Reiche: A reply: Socarides, the hidden anti-homosexual , in: Psyche 26, 1972, pp. 476-484
  • Paul Parin: Commentary on "Psychanalysis in Gays" by the Federal Association for Gays in Health Care. In: Psyche 39, 1985, pp. 561-564

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Paid Notice: Deaths - SOCARIDES, CHARLES WIL LIAM, MD , New York Times, December 27, 2005
  2. ^ A b c Margalit Fox: Charles W. Socarides, Psychiatrist and Psychoanalyst, Is Dead at 83 , New York Times, December 28, 2005
  3. ↑ a b Charles Socarides: How America Went Gay ( Memento of the original from July 12, 2007) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , leaderu.com, first published in America , November 18, 1995 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.leaderu.com
  4. ^ Franklin Kameny: Frank Kameny's Eulogy for Barbara Gittings , kamypapers.org, 2007
  5. ^ Reimut Reiche: Triebschicksal der Gesellschaft: About the structural change of the psyche , Campus Verlag, 2004, ISBN 3-593-37496-X , p. 132, footnote 14
  6. ^ Charles W. Socarides: Sexual Politics And Scientific Logic: The Issue Of Homosexuality ( Memento of October 22, 2002 in the Internet Archive ) - his criticism of the deletion of homosexuality from the diagnosis list, published in: The Journal of Psychohistory 19 (3) , Winter 1992
  7. ↑ Robert L. Spitzer in an interview: Homosexuality and the real chance for change , Bulletin of the DIJG , 1/2001, pp. 27–29
  8. ↑ Jim Burroway: Today In History: APA Removes Homosexuality from List of Mental Disorders , Box Turtle Bulletin, December 15, 2008
  9. ^ A b Charles W. Socarides: The Sexual Deviations and the Diagnostic Manual , in: American Journal of Psychotherapy, Volume XXXII, Number 3, July 1978; as The Annals of Homosexuality with a summary on narth.com, February 8, 2008
  10. ^ Benjamin Kaufman: Regent University Law Review Vol. 14: 423 Why NARTH? The American Psychiatric Accociation's destructive and blind pursuit of political correctness p. 423, also online as PDF ( Memento from November 27, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
  11. ↑ a b Kim I. Mills: Mission Impossible: Why Reparative Therapy and Ex-Gay Ministries fail ( Memento of the original from March 16, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Human Rights Campaign, February 1999; Footnote 8, with a reference to Times Newspapers Limited (UK), April 30, 1995 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.csufresno.edu
  12. ↑ Ruth M. Pettis: Socarides, Richard ( Memento of the original of February 28, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Version: October 19, 2006, in: Claude J. Summers (Ed.): Glbtq: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.glbtq.com
  13. ↑ Simon LeVay: Queer Science: The Use and Abuse of Research into Homosexuality , The MIT Press, Cambridge 1996, ISBN 0-262-12199-9
  14. ↑ Homosexuality: A Freedom Too Far (introduction and excerpt), narth.com, February 8, 2008
  15. ^ Vernon A. Rosario: Homosexuality and Science: A Guide to the Debates , ABC-CLIO, 2002, ISBN 1-57607-281-9 , p. 151
  16. ^ APA: Just the Facts
  17. ^ Ann Oakley , Juliet Mitchell , Who's Afraid of Feminism? Seeing through the Backlash , Hamish Hamilton, London 1997, ISBN 0-241-13623-7
personal data
SURNAME Socarides, Charles
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Socarides, Charles W.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American psychoanalyst
DATE OF BIRTH January 24, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Brockton, Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH December 25, 2005
Place of death New York City