| As
Freud matured, he developed an elaborate theory of mental
processes that he called psychoanalysis. Freud
taught that mental health and mental illness spring from a
child's upbringing, not his heredity. In a 1905
book, he applied this new perspective to the development
of a child's sexual inclinations and decisively rejected
earlier ideas of defective heredity and degeneration
as causes of homosexuality.
The medical establishment
initially ridiculed Freud's ideas, but his successful
treatment of hysteria was hard to refute. Still, he
had little support in established universities, so he
encouraged the development of psychoanalytic training
institutes in England and the U. S. The institutes
produced many graduates who became increasingly
influential, and by the 1950s, psychoanalysis was the most
popular theory and method of treatment in English and
American psychiatry.
Even though Freud's own
opinion of homosexuality was relatively benign, followers
like Irving Bieber and Edmund Bergler used his complicated
theory to label homosexuals sick. The homophile
and gay liberation
movements expended much energy in attempts to refute the
psychoanalysts' homophobia and ultimately succeeded in
1974 when the American Psychiatric Association removed
homosexuality from its official list of mental diseases. |
