by Ahmad.
Sigmund Freud was an Austrian doctor of psychiatry and the father of the psychoanalytic school of psychology. Freud has so many known theories discussing the unconsciousness, the defense mechanism, the clinical dialogue between patient and psychoanalyst, and most importantly sexual desire. He redefined sexual desire as the main stimulating energy for humans, and he talked about its importance. On the same issue of sexual desire, Freud also talked about homosexuality and how it’s acquired. He said that all humans are born bisexuals and then they turn out to be 
either homosexuals or heterosexuals according to their incidents with family and friends. Also, he spoke about treating homosexuality. In my opinion what Freud said is mostly wrong in many cases because of the many researches lately done on homosexuality and the impossibility of its treatment, and because of many examples of Homosexual people who didn’t have any incidents – like those mentioned by Freud- with their families.
Despite all that, Freud didn’t consider homosexuality as a mental disease, because he assumed that all people are born bisexual. And as a result of the person’s past experience with his family and environment, one becomes homosexual or heterosexual. Few hypotheses, describing the experiences of a person with his family, are derived from the assumptions of Freud. One of them is the relationship the son had with his father in his early childhood, saying that a bad or modest relationship will slow down the son’s super ego growth which will most likely make him homosexual. On the other hand, he also claims that a strong father-son relationship will also make his sexual desires towards his mother stronger, thus making him less likely to become a homosexual. On another level, Freud spoke indirectly and directly about the treatment of homosexuality. He spoke indirectly about it when Paul Robinson, in “Homosexuality and Psychoanalysis” said that Freud said that homosexuality is “made rather than born”, thus giving the possibility for homosexuals to be “unmade”, meaning by that to turn them heterosexual. He talked about curing Homosexuals directly in the now-famous letter to an American mother on April 9, 1935, where he told her that even though homosexuality is “nothing to be ashamed of”, but if she wants help he can help her son without promising her any success. He said that if by helping her she means eliminating “homosexuality and make normal heterosexuality take its place” – thus contradicting himself when he said heterosexuality is nothing to be ashamed of and that heterosexuality is normal and homosexuality is not- then he will try, giving examples of past experiences with his ex-homosexual patients who increased their heterosexual tendencies, found in every homosexual.
In my opinion, shared by many people, homosexual and heterosexual, Freud’s theories are wrong. According to Allan and Barbara Pease, in their book “Why Men Don’t Listen & Women Can’t Read Maps” in the 8th chapter which is all about Gays and Lesbians and transsexuals, homosexuality is INBORN and not a choice. First, they say that research shows that a fetus at first is a female. Then they talk about the hormones, saying that a male (XY) fetus starts receiving male hormones in great amount to make the testes and transform the female brain into a male one, but if insufficient amount of male hormone is received by the male, there’s a chance he will be born with a female brain structure and a male’s body and in that case there’s a chance he will grow up to be gay. In addition, Anne Moir, a geneticist, exposed her research’s outcome and she stated that “homosexuality is inborn, not a choice.” Moreover, her research showed that how and where we are raised “plays lesser role” in how we behave in society than what was previously thought, because what really plays that role is the “impact of male hormones on the brain”. As for the father- son relationship hypothesis, in the book they say that it was more likely to be believed that gay men were trying to fight back their fathers when they were boys and become gays to spite them, but researches showed that “there’s no scientific evidence to prove this theory”. Also, in their book they talked about the curing of homosexuality. They stated that professionals in the human sexuality approved that homosexuality is an “orientation and unchangeable”. They also talked about the ways of treatment used to hold back homosexual feelings, and they included “breast amputation, castration, drug therapy, uterus removal, frontal lobotomy, psychotherapy, electric shock therapy, prayer meetings, spiritual counseling and exorcism”, of which none has succeeded. Also on the topic of treating homosexuality, Null Hypothesis - online journal – states that curing homosexuality “is at number four the top ten least ethical experiments” for the following reasons: treating homosexual people using electrodes and psychological abuse, injecting people with vomit-inducing drugs, zapping them with electricity while making them watch gay porn. That, according to Null Hypothesis – and to many gay and straight people-, is “Not so hot on the human rights.”
In the end, it’s needless to say that Freud is wrong about his hypothesis about homosexuality concerning the relationship between the father and the gay son, and concerning the treatment of homosexuals. And according to the recent and updated research, Homosexuality has different reasons than what was thought before and it’s not a disease to be cured. Eventually I hope that people will become more aware that homosexuality has nothing to do with parenting and more with what God want when we are born
1 comments
Post a Comment