Abstract
I welcome this article as the author rightly challenges group analysis on its slowness to address sexuality in general and homosexuality in particular. In an earlier publication (Nitsun, 2006), I highlighted this state of affairs, as have a few other group analysts (Burman, 2002; Weegmann, 2007). But my impression is that the discourse on sexuality remains marginal and that group analysis still has a rather coy, ambiguous approach to sexuality in its many forms. It confirms in my mind a conservative streak within group analysis, perhaps epitomized in Foulkes’ notion that the group constitutes the norm from which all members deviate. This notion is seldom challenged in a substantive way, yet, as I have pointed out (Nitsun, 1996), it could be understood as reflecting a static view of what constitutes social norms and an implied emphasis on conforming rather than challenging social norms. It suggests that group analysis, like most conventional psychotherapy, has a normative view of difference, sexual and otherwise, while at the same time claiming to respect difference and diversity. Even in his usage of the term ‘homosexuality’ rather than the more commonly used ‘gay’, the author himself reveals a conservative streak. The deconstruction of fixed sexual identities is part of a cultural shift, challenging, amongst other shifts, the notion of a unitary ‘homosexuality’.
I detect here a discrepancy between theory and practice since most group analysts I know are open-minded people, not given to conventional or oppressive judgments, and not particularly pathologizing when it comes to sexual diversity, including homosexuality. This may be connected to my living in London, where most of my colleagues are city-dwellers like myself and open to the great diversity of its inhabitants. Most psychotherapy groups, both private and public, in London include a significant number of gay individuals of both sexes and there is a sense that this is part of the weft and weave of a major city. In this way, group analytic theory lags behind the manifest realm of social attitudes and values, not an unusual situation in the psychotherapies, which tend to follow rather than precede social change.
There is a further schism in so far as the sexual landscape, certainly in the urban environment, has widened considerably in the last few years. Homosexuality is no longer the focus or the problem that it used to be for many decades, if not centuries. There has been a marked liberalization of attitudes towards gayness. In the USA the supreme court ruling legitimizing gay marriage and in parallel the UK governmental decision to equalize marriage across sexual and gender differences reflect a strong shift in cultural attitudes in most western countries. Chung and Klann (2015) note that 32 countries now recognize same-sex marriages or other unions. The absorption of gay relationships into mainstream society challenges any psychotherapeutic theory that continues to marginalize or pathologize homosexuality. The theory needs to adjust to social change. Anderson is correct to draw attention to the gap in group analytic theory and this takes on added significance in the light of recent dramatic social changes. It is ironic that the psychotherapies need to adjust their theories in the light of social change: it would have been good if it were the other way round. But, as I noted in a recent publication (Nitsun, 2015), the rate of not just technological but also social change is now so rapid that it is difficult to keep up culturally and psychotherapeutically.
But there are also reasons to be cautious about the nature and extent of social change in relation to the sexualities. So, in terms of the ‘average’ group analytic practitioner, there may still be confusion about how best to approach sexual diversity in the consulting room. The absence of both a relevant discourse and a contemporary redefinition of norms means that practitioners may feel suspended between the precepts of the past and the quick-fire movement of present trends. In the absence of a consensus on sexual norms, group analysts may fall back on past categorizations and prejudices—however liberal their views are at another level. Hence, the urgency of the agenda Anderson proposes is still relevant. I suspect that the adage ‘many a slip between the cup and the lip’ is relevant to a situation in which practitioners place a value on openness and diversity but feel unsure how to represent this in the pressures of the consulting room. This may apply to gay analysts themselves. There are now many more openly gay psychotherapists, but they too may as yet be unsure of how to mediate the sexual discourse in the best interests of all their clients, whatever their sexual persuasion.
As the marginalization of homosexuality has lessened in recent years, so a whole range of sexual deconstructions is emerging. Even the seemingly inclusive acronym LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersexual) may be challenged in light of the far greater emphasis on sexual fluidity that is a feature of contemporary society. LGBTI may itself be accused of embodying fixed and prejudicial identities. The particular preoccupation at the present time is with transgender politics and the transitioning process for men and women seeking to redefine their gender and sexual identities (Atnas, 2015). This has moved far beyond the preoccupation with homosexuality as a single identity. Yet, the same issues about how we understand gender and sexuality remain, albeit in a changed world. If anything, the agenda is more complex than ever before and the need for a coherent discourse on sexuality in group analysis gains a sharper edge.
A further point I want to make concerns the paradox that while gayness has been increasingly assimilated in many countries, it has become a focus of intense intolerance in other countries. Chung and Klann (2015) provide shocking statistics on this: as of May 2014 there were five countries (Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen) and parts of Nigeria and Somalia that imposed the death penalty on LGBT persons; the same category of persons could be imprisoned in 78 countries. It is difficult to understand the violent regression that has taken place in these countries in parallel to the marked progress in other countries. Or is it difficult to understand? A ready interpretation is that the increasing normalization of homosexuality in western society and its absorption into the cultural mainstream poses a significant threat to homophobic countries such as those mentioned above. These countries are often dominated by rigid religious and moral codes, whether Christian or Muslim, in which the prevalence of heterosexual norms coupled with a fiercely God-fearing mentality holds sway over the population. These edicts are not just the proclamations of the religious hierarchy or police control: they are widespread across the resident public, often seen in mass protests in photographs and television footage documenting the aggressive homophobia that saturates their societies.
Another interpretation of the violent reaction to homosexuality in the above countries suggests that a process of equilibrium is generated when there is sudden or marked social change. Looked at globally, the reactionary countries rebalance the altered position on sexual norms. By escalating their attitudes at the opposite end of the scale, they seek to mitigate change and re-institute the status quo. I highlight this here not only to attempt a rounded perspective on world politics of sexuality, but to point out that these social and group processes are themselves worthy of interrogation and group analytic study. Hence, group analysis faces the challenge not only of constructing / reconstructing a theory of sexuality. It also faces the prospect of drawing on large group process to explore and understand the overall dichotomous and split world position on sexuality. Further, in our own society, while there is evidence of a marked change in attitudes towards gayness, there remain pockets of fierce resistance to change and continuing homophobia. We still hear of children who are bullied for being gay, young people struggling to come out amidst continuing prejudice, parents still shocked at the discovery of a child’s gayness, and suicide not that uncommonly the consequence of fear and isolation. We like to think that ours is a free, tolerant society. But the situation is not simple.
A final point about fixed and fluid sexualities. While appreciating the current openness about sexual—and gender—fluidity, I think there is a danger in this going to the opposite extreme. It is probably the case that most people want a clear, firm sexual identity, including sexual orientation, and prefer this to a very open, fluid sexuality. Many people, I suspect, are bewildered by contemporary deconstructions of sexuality and want to live in a simpler world. Some people are absolutely sure that they are heterosexual and want to stay this way: others may feel homosexual through and through and do not seek any other identity. For the latter group, there may be continuing problems about living in a predominantly heterosexual society where there are still pockets of prejudice and oppression, but they nevertheless would probably choose to be who they are.
Anderson ends his article with several questions that need to be addressed, such as ‘What is the experience of being gay in a hetero-normative group?’ These are relevant questions for practice, highlighting the immediate ethical and practical concerns about working openly and responsibly with gay men and women. I like these questions since they highlight that what matters most is not theory per se, or theory for the sake of theory, but the nature of the human contact and understanding in our work and how close we can get to our clients’ concerns, whatever their sexual identity or orientation.