Book Review by Homosexuals Anonymous:

Female Homosexuality: Choice Without Volition

While some still try to maintain that men and women who struggle with homosexuality cannot change, a number of dedicated, open-minded, and courageous mental health professionals are finding otherwise. Consider the following:

Dr. Elaine V. Siegel received her Ph.D. from the Union Graduate School in Cincinnati, Ohio, and served as the Faculty Supervisor and Training Analyst at the New York Center for Psychoanalytic Training.

Dr. Siegel worked with twelve women who were referred to her for help with emotional difficulties. "...All these women saw themselves as homosexual, strove for homosexual liaisons, and had homoerotic fantasies." [Female Homosexuality: Choice Without Volition - A Psychoanalytic Study, Volume 9 of the Psychoanalytic Inquire Book Series, (Hilldale, NJ: The Analytic Press, 1988, p. xii] "As with any other patient, I did not set out to 'cure' them or to dissuade them from their lifestyle. Rather, I prepared myself to listen and to be emotionally available." [ibid., p xi]

As Dr. Siegel worked with these women, she noted, "I was struck by their common need to idealize homosexuality as better than heterosexuality and by the volatility of their suffering..." [idem.] "I came to understand their difficulties as developmental arrests that precluded heterosexual object choices. But that was after I knew them well and had concluded some of the analyses." [ibid., p. xii]

The process was disquieting for Dr. Siegel. "To be a liberal and liberated woman and yet to view homosexuality as the result of untoward development seemed at times a betrayal of all I then believed. But viewing my patients through the lens of psychoanalytic thinkers and clinicians soon showed me that allowing myself to be seduced into perceiving female homosexuality as a normal lifestyle would have cemented both my patients and myself into a rigid mode that precluded change of whatever nature. Thus, I kept on analyzing, always trying to open myself to the often heavy developmental needs of the women." [ibid., p. xiii]

Dr. Siegel found, "As conflicts were resolved and distanced from, anxiety was reduced and life became more joyful and productive for all these analysands. With the attainment of firmer inner structures, interpersonal relationships also solidified and became more permanent. Although I never interpreted homosexuality as an illness, more than half of the women became fully heterosexual. This was taken by the referral source as a 'betrayal of the sisters.' The homosexual community and networks to which... my patients belonged reacted very much like the families of disturbed children when the child, as a result of treatment, is no longer forced to express conflict for them. Even those women who at the end of their analyses remained homosexually inclined were viewed with suspicion by their former peers." [ibid., p. xii]

Dr. Siegel noted, "I have never met a homosexual person, either male or female, who did not appear internally driven toward homosexuality. Most often, the homosexual is egosyntonic. But so are many other symptoms. It is during analytic investigation that the patient, not the analyst, decides what is 'good' for him or her and what he or she wishes to change, what to retain. Often, as we all know, such changes are accompanied by mourning and anxiety because the symptoms appear to have served well and have become familiar accompaniments of life." [ibid., p. xiii]

Dr. Siegel was asked, "Of all the homosexual women you've worked with, how successful were you in helping them to acquire a heterosexual identity?" [Tom Gregory, "Interview: Elaine Siegel on Lesbianism," NARTH Bulletin, Vol. IV, No. 3, (December 1996), p. 17] She replied, "More than half. At least 70% decided to at least give heterosexuality a try. ...If you look at this from an analytic angle, some of them started to live heterosexual lives, but still had homosexual fantasies. So, to my mind, the analyses were not finished, but the women thought they were..." [idem.]

Dr. Elaine Siegel, Ph..D., A.D.T.R., offers the important insights of an experienced clinician and scholar who has psychoanalyzed over 40 Lesbian women. She states, "Homosexuality is not an illness, it is a developmental lag."