Editors Comment – LGTBQI+ Special Edition
I’m delighted to publish the April edition of Contexts focusing on LGBTQI+ themes and experiences. We have articles, art, music and poetry from members.
I recall in my early days training as a psychotherapist being given recommended reading that included Pre-oedipal Origin and Psychoanalytic Therapy of the Sexual Perversions by Charles Socarides. At the time I was working as a psychotherapist in the UK NHS with patients, mainly young gay men, affected by HIV/AIDS. Many of my patients at the time died from the illness (as did some of my colleagues). I couldn’t reconcile what I experienced working closely with many marginalised, frightened men with the book I had to read as part of my training. Thankfully Socarides, his books and theories have been relegated to the history section of life under discrimination and conversion therapy. Much later I learned more about Socarides and his family. You might be interested to watch a short film about his children, When We Rise, an article by Richard Socarides on coming out to his father and also the making of the series. Links to all are below. I also give a reference for an interesting article from gay colleagues working with UK-NHS patients affected by HIV/AIDS.
“The discussion that follows has arisen from the meetings of a supervision group in which we have become increasingly aware of the thrills and spills of living a life in which the personal, the professional and the political overlap and intrude upon one another in ways which are rarely acknowledged in the literature and which were certainly never ad- dressed in our training. We have plenty of dilemmas but alas, few solutions, and would welcome the observations and experiences of others. So far we have considered three sets of dilemmas pertaining to dual relationships, coming out and professionalism.” Taylor, G., Solts, B., Roberts, B. and Maddocks, R. (1998). A queer business: Gay clinicians working with gay clients.Clinical Psychology Forum, 119, 9-13.
When We Rise:
https://youtu.be/XmDVH4fSbm8?si=yv2-IffO2HXJ234Z
Article:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/coming-out-to-my-father
Film:
https://www.vulture.com/2017/03/when-we-rise-the-story-behind-the-socarides-brothers.html
If you have access to Netflix I recommend the series, It’s a Sin, recounting the early days of HIV in the UK and the experiences of gay men at the time and the horrendous discrimination against them.
It’s a Sin:
and Bronksy Beat, their song, Small Town Boy, resonates for many.