Psychology of homosexuality
Nature vs. Nurture: The Biology of Sexuality
MED prof speaks tonight on whether sexual orientation has genetic basis
Homosexuality was considered a mental illness when Richard Pillard was in medical school. It was the s and the School of Medicine professor of psychiatry was at the University of Rochester. At the time, the American Psychological Association still listed homosexuality as a disorder and psychologists and psychiatrists were trained on ways to deal with it.
The first psychological test undertaken to determine whether there was a living explanation for homosexuality was in With a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, Karen Hooker studied the relationship between homosexuality and psychological development and illness. Hooker studied both homosexuals and heterosexuals—matched for age, intelligence, and education level. The subjects were then given three psychological tests: the Rorschach, the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), and the Make-a-Picture-Story Test (MAPS). Hooker found no major differences in the answers given by the two groups. Because of
Heterosexuality (attraction to members of the opposite sex), homosexuality (attraction to members of the same sex), and bisexuality (attraction to members of both sexes) are the three most commonly discussed categories of sexual orientation, although they are by no means the only ones in the world of sexual identification.
The designation queer, for example, is used by some for its non-specificity to sexual orientation and gender identity, and acts as an umbrella term for non-heterosexual, cisgender individuals. Pansexual and omnisexual are terms gaining currency as the binary division of gender itself is called into question in some subcultures.
What is sexual orientation?
Sexual orientation describes patterns of sexual, romantic, and emotional attraction—and one's meaning of identity based on those attractions. Some scientists categorize sexual orientation as being attracted to men or masculinity (androphilic), women or feminity (gynephilic), pansexual, asexual, or something else.
What’s the difference between sexual orientation and gende
The Psychology Behind Homosexual Tendencies
A ZENIT DAILY DISPATCH
The Psychology Behind Homosexual Tendencies
Part 1
Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons Makes Distinctions of Same-Sex Attractions
WEST CONSHOHOCKEN, Pennsylvania, 5 DEC. (ZENIT)
The new Vatican document on the priesthood and homosexual tendencies mentions a range of conditions, from deep-seated homosexual tendencies to transitory same-sex attractions.
To learn more about the nuances of the range of lesbian tendencies and their treatment, ZENIT turned to Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons, a psychiatrist, author and contributor to the Catholic Medical Association's document "Homosexuality and Hope."
Part 2 of this interview will come Tuesday.
Q: How would you distinguish between someone with same-sex attractions and someone with deep-seated homosexual tendencies?
Fitzgibbons: Those with deep-seated lgbtq+ tendencies identify themselves as
homosexual persons and are usually unwilling to examine their emotional conflicts that caused this tendency. Strong physical attraction is present to other men's bodi
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In the s and s, many therapists offered aversion therapy of the kind featured in A Clockwork Orange to "cure" male homosexuality. This typically deeply interested showing patients pictures of naked men while giving them electric shocks or drugs to build them vomit, and, once they could no longer bear it, showing them pictures of naked women or sending them out on a "date" with a young nurse. Needless to state, these cruel and degrading methods proved entirely ineffective.
First published in , DSM-II (the second edition of the American classification of mental disorders, and a forerunner of DSM-5) still listed homosexuality as a mental disorder. In this, the DSM followed in a long tradition in medicine and psychiatry, which in the nineteenth century appropriated homosexuality from the Church and, in what must have seemed like an élan of enlightenment, promoted it from sin to mental disorder.
In , the American Psychiatric Association (APA) asked all members at its convention to vote on whether they believed homosexuality to be a mental disorder. 5, psychiatrists voted