A Place of Recognition

Abstract

Abstract A case of a gay therapist treating a gay patient is discussed from a relational psychoanalytic perspective informed by feminist/gender/queer theory. The terms gay, lesbian, homosexual, bisexual, transgendered-each is a signifier. Each represents a different subset of assumptions in a psycho-social culture which is organized around spurious gender categories and where there is a conflation of gender and desire, identity and object choice. The case under discussion raises the issue of “transference fields,” which include the feelings, projections, unconscious communications, constructions, and enactments which unfold within and between the therapist and the “therapized.” It also focuses on the issue of recognition in which the subjectivity of the “other” must be fully recognized in order for the self to fully experience his or her own subjectivity in the other's presence. The relational approach requires consistent effort to explore and recognize the patient's subjectivity and to create a safe hold...