title: Toward further analytic understanding of lesbian patients.
abstract: Psychoanalytic understanding of lesbianism has been excessively welded to unitary dynamic and etiologic themes, while actual dynamics vary among lesbian patients. Clinical material will illustrate this variety. Limitations in past theories and countertransference issues will be discussed. It is proposed that dynamics in lesbian patients should not be confused with pathology, and that an object choice originally embedded in conflict can become secondarily autonomous or remain fluid.
authors.affiliation: Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, USA.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Schuker
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D003379:Countertransference; D003674:Defense Mechanisms; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D018452:Homosexuality, Female / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D009769:Object Attachment; D009813:Oedipus Complex; D011574:Psychoanalytic Theory; D011575:Psychoanalytic Therapy; D019529:Sexuality / Q000523:psychology; D014167:Transference, Psychology; D014930:Women / Q000523:psychology*