Joni Crone
’Some people are born lesbian, some achieve lesbianism and some have lesbianism thrust upon them.’ Helen Eisenbach
This parody of lesbian sexuality in Helen Eisenbach’s lighthearted book Lesbianism Made Easy points up the classic questions related to lesbianism when it was historically (and perhaps hysterically) treated as a ‘deviant’, ‘ abnormal’ and ’pathological’ form of sexuality. Questions such as: is lesbianism innate or acquired, hereditary, genetic or a political choice? Thankfully, in the late 20th century the views of therapists from all schools are now more enlightened and most of us belong to professional organisations which include an ethical code that treats lesbian clients and therapists as equals and lesbian rights as human rights.
As a lesbian feminist therapist who trained initially with Co-Counselling Ireland and in recent years with Newtown House Psychodrama Centre in Cork. I would like to make some observations and raise some questions which relate to lesbian sexuality and therapy.
Freud and Feminism
When I was actively involved in the women’s movement in Ireland in the seventies and eighties, legal and medical issues were high on the agenda. Free, legal, safe contraception, the founding of rape crisis centres and refuges, political lobbying for equal pay and equal treatment for women in the workplace were all important issues. Sexuality was discussed at conferences, workshops and seminars and caused much heated debate.
It was in this milieu that I first encountered Freud when he was constantly referred to as a misguided misogynist. I came to see him as the enemy, the patriarchal mastermind of psychoanalysis who viewed the world through male eyes, treated women as inferior creatures who suffered from ‘penis envy’ and basically blamed mothers for all the ills of humanity. My reading of radical feminist philosophers. Mary Daly among others, helped me to conclude that Freud had never understood what women wanted, that he had been on the right track, but had missed the point, namely, that women did not envy or desire the male organ but that they did want to possess the power wielded by men in society and to share that power on an equal basis.
My studies in recent years, including feminist critiques of Freud by Nancy Chodorow among others, have made me realise that Freud cannot be dismissed so lightly. Chodorow in Feminism and Psychoanalytic Theory is concerned with a feminist theoretical framework which allows us to explore the dynamics of ‘gender, sexuality, sexual inequality and domination’ (Chodorow, 1989). Psychoanalytic feminism has provided her with a means of understanding the ‘multiplex web’ which constitutes sexual inequality. She credits Freud with having given us ‘standards for human fulfillment in both the emotional and interpersonal spheres.’ (Chodorow, 1989). In her own work she elucidates the complexities of the interrelationships between sex and gender, sex and power, sex and domination and sex and therapy. I now believe that while Freud has to be acknowledged for his meticulous recording of his observations, for his own self scrutiny and for originating a vast body of theory which is still highly influential, yet his writings on sexuality need much more critical analysis from lesbian and gay therapists.
It is Freudian concepts which are largely responsible for the lingering view of lesbian and gay sexuality as problematic, for the assumptions that gay people would not be gay if we had not had some problem in adolescence; or that we have all had weak fathers or dominant mothers; or we have all been sexually abused as children or we have all had some ‘bad experience’ somewhere along the line; or that all gay men are effeminate and all lesbian women are masculine. A recent example of this popular prejudice was a report in the Sunday Independent in January 1999 about a young French tennis player, Amelie Mauresmo, described as ‘the first player on the women’s tour since Martina Navratilova to talk publicly about being lesbian’ only to have her opponent describe her as ‘half a man’ because of her strong muscular topspin backhand. If we look at lesbian women and gay men in an Irish context a perusal of recent publications such as The GLEN Survey on Poverty among Lesbians and Gay Men or Lesbian and Gay Visions of Ireland, Towards the 21st Century will show that misconceptions, prejudice, discrimination, harassment and violence are still prevalent in Irish society despite the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Irish law.
Lesbian Sexuality and Therapy
In the absence of research about the number of lesbian women in Ireland who seek therapy or the issues which concern them, I would like to make some observations from my own experience. As a founding member of several lesbian organisations, as a community arts trainer who has worked all over Ireland and as a therapist in recent years I have become acquainted with several thousand lesbian women living in Ireland over the past twenty years. I have never met a lesbian woman who sought counselling to change her sexual identity or because she had any doubts in that regard. The vast majority of lesbian women who seek therapy do so because of issues related to homophobia, specifically concerns about the consequences of ‘coming out’ at work or within the family, especially to parents. The stresses involved include fear of rejection or of being bullied or stigmatised, fear of violence or of losing one’s job or of being ostracised. In my own life, the consequences of ‘coming out’ publicly have included verbal abuse, harassment, assault, discrimination and ostracism so, in my view, the fears I have mentioned above are well founded.
Lesbian couples in long term relationships who seek therapy tend, in my experience, to present some of the same issues that concern any two people in a long term relationship: sexual incompatibilities, the lessening of sexual desire over time, a sense of betrayal by one partner, and different understandings of commitment. Since lesbian couples do not enjoy the same legal protections as married women, economic inequalities can also cause considerable distress. Among older couples, the breakup of a longterm partnership, illness or in the case of death when the surviving partner is not respected or even acknowledged by family members, all this can cause extreme distress.
Questions for Therapists
In an effort to improve the effectiveness of therapists dealing with issues of lesbian sexuality generally I would like to suggest some questions which I think all of us as therapists need to address.
1. Have you ever doubted your own sexual identity? What fears or fantasies does this evoke in you?
2. How would you react if your daughter, sister or mother told you she was lesbian?
3. How would your own values, political views, or ethical concerns influence how you would treat a client whom you discover to be lesbian, heterosexual, bisexual or celibate?
4. If you felt it would be preferable to refer a lesbian client to a lesbian support group or therapist, is this information readily available to you? Have you got it on file?
5. How would you respond to a young lesbian woman who is not in a long term partnership and wants to become a mother by means of a donor and who has come into therapy because of strong objections from her siblings and parents?
Changing Roles, Creative Solutions
If we scanned the last hundred years through the lens of sexuality I think we would find a pre-Freudian, Victorian picture of rigid roles for women as mothers, wives and homely passive creatures and more varied but equally rigid roles for men as fathers, husbands, providers, protectors and leaders in the public sphere. Then we would see how these roles have shifted over the course of the twentieth century to give us a wider range of roles for women and men, a range of sexual identities and new relational constellations which place much greater demands on our psyches. The nature of sexual identity is still an open question. Moral issues, abortion, a woman’s right to choose, parenthood, custody, child abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, safe sex practices, the range of issues which clients can present in therapy is to say the least, very challenging. But it is my belief that a humanistic and integrative approach which respects our clients as self-defining and self-actualising can help us find creative solutions to the most taxing problems in therapy And finally a reminder:
‘Fortunately, psychoanalysis is not the only way to resolve inner conflicts . Life itself still remains a very effective therapist.’
Karen Horney
Bibliography:
Eoin Collins and Ide O’Carroll, 1995. The GLEN Survey on Poverty among Lesbians and Gay Men. Dublin. Combat Poverty Agency.
Chodorow, Nancy. 1989. Feminism and Psychoanalytic Theory, Oxford. Polity Press.
Crone, Joni, 1988. Lesbian Feminism in Ireland. Women’s Studies International Forum, vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 345.
Eisenbach, Helen. 1998. Lesbianism Made Easy, London. Virago Press.
Freud, Sigmund. 1905. Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, Vienna, Standard Ed.
Freud, Sigmund, 1917. Mourning and Melancholia, Vienna, Standard Ed.
Ide O’Carroll and Eoin Collins 1995. (eds.) Lesbian and Gay Visions of Ireland, Towards the 21st Century, London. Cassells.
LOT, Lesbians Organising Together, 1997. Lesbian information and resource pack, Dublin. LOT, LEA/NOW, Combat Poverty Agency.
Joni Crone is a psycho-drama psychotherapist, writer and trainer. She runs a weekly psychodrama group in Dublin and works as training co-ordinator with WEST, Women’s Education for Transformation, a North-South Peace and Reconciliation Project.