Curable Disease?

What is homosexuality? Is it curable? Some recent misleading propaganda alleges that homosexuality is an incurable, hereditary condition, and that the homosexual way of life is therefore "normal" for an unspecified proportion of the population. This view has had an assist from Kinsey statistics on the frequency of homosexual acts in youth.

Not so says Manhattan Psychoanalyst Edmund Bergler. In Homosexuality: Disease or Way of Life? (Hill and Wang; $5), published last week, he swiftly demolishes some popular misconceptions. The common definition of a homosexual as one who "derives his sexual excitement and satisfaction from a person of his own sex" is less than a half-truth, says Bergler, because 1) it accepts a kind of parity between homosexuals and heterosexuals, "and hence becomes a useful argument in the homosexuals' advocacy of their perversion"; 2) it ignores the fact that certain personality traits, partly or entirely psychopathic, are specifically and exclusively characteristic of homosexuals.

Injustice Collector. Homosexuality, says Analyst Bergler, is neither a "biologically determined destiny, nor incomprehensible ill luck." In Freudian terms he traces a complicated pattern of the development of homosexuality from infantile frustrations, through "pleasure in displeasure." to unconscious psychic masochism. The full-grown homosexual, as Bergler sees him, wallows in self-pity and continually provokes hostility to ensure himself more opportunities for self pity he "collects" injustices--sometimes real, often fancied; he is full of defensive malice and flippancy, covering his depression and guilt with extreme narcissism and superciliousness. He refuses to acknowledge accepted standards even in nonsexual matters, assuming that homosexuals have a right to cut moral corners as compensation for their "suffering." He is generally unreliable, in an essentially psychopathic way.

To Bergler. who has treated plenty ot homosexuals (and interviewed others who refused treatment), the most striking feature of this galaxy of homosexual traits is its universality--"regardless of the level of intelligence, culture, background or education, all homosexuals possess it."

Along the way, Bergler takes a roundhouse swing at what he considers another myth--bisexuality. This, he says, "has no existence beyond the word itself--[it] is an out-and-out fraud, involuntarily maintained by some naive homosexuals, and voluntarily perpetrated by some who are not so naive. The theory claims that a man can be--alternately or concomitantly--homo-and hetero-sexual. The statement is as rational as one declaring that a man can at the same time have cancer and perfect health. Some homosexuals are occasionally capable of lustless mechanical sex with a woman . . . They tend to marry as a means of proving . . . that they are completely normal."

Usable Guilt. What of cures? Psychiatrist Bergler takes his own profession to task for having been, in the past, too pessimistic. It can effect cures in 90% of cases, he insists, provided that analyst and patient are willing to take the tremendous time and effort to get to the root of the difficulty. By "cure" Bergler does not mean making a guilty homosexual proud of his perversion, but changing his character and, among other things, leading him to normal sexual enjoyment.

But Bergler advises analysts not to attempt the impossible, and suggests these criteria by which they can judge whether a prospective patient offers reasonable hope of cure: he must have inner guilt feelings that can be put to use in treatment; he must accept the treatment voluntarily and actively want to change; he must give up his habit of using homosexuality as a weapon against his family, which (unconsciously) he always hates. The analyst must not begin by attacking the homosexuality head on--or the patient will at once cry that he is being persecuted. Yet the analyst must convince him that his self-damaging tendencies will engulf his whole personality, if they have not already done so. There are, says Bergler, no "healthy homosexuals."

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