Men’s sexual desire is a powerful but often unexplored element of identity development whose examination can threaten men’s relationship to a masculinity characterized by heteronormativity entailing unequal power in gendered sexuality. Although it is often examined as a biological process of sexual functioning, I explore the experience of sexual desire for young men as intimately linked to psychological, relational, and sociostructural systems. I explored this phenomenon across a diverse group of young men through critical, psychodynamically-informed analysis of qualitative interviews. I am conducting clinical narrative interviews with young men (ages 18-32) diverse by race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, relationship status, and sexual experience. Using the Listening Guide (Brown & Gilligan, 1992), a feminist and psychodynamically-oriented method of qualitative analysis, I have identified multiple voices in young men’s experiences of sexual desire, focusing on voices of constraint and rebellion set against the rigid walls of masculine ideal. Listening to how these voices interact in men’s narrated experiences illuminates the conflicts between expectations of masculinity and desire. For gay and bisexual men, experiences of same-sex desire served as a means of, and sometimes necessitated, deconstructing and resisting masculine ideologies. In contrast, heterosexual men voiced ongoing and often unheeded struggles with identity development impacting interpersonal relationships within the social pressures around maintained expectations of masculinity. I present two case studies, one heterosexual and one gay man, to exemplify the complexity of these struggles and how they differ across sexual identity. Findings present a deeply embedded conflict for young men shrouded by cultural intrusion and relational silence around what it means to be a man.

This project examines the implications of sexual desire for identity formation across social, cultural, and psychological dimensions. Qualitative methodology informs understanding of sexual desire and identity through participant experiences and their struggles to integrate them within their unique sociocultural environments.

Exploring the intricate psychosocial challenges faced by adolescents, focus centered on the often-hidden issue of incestuous abuse. Adolescence, marked by challenges spanning biological, psychological, social, moral, and spiritual dimensions, becomes a battleground for sensitive and tragic experiences. This prompted a qualitative study aimed at understanding the profound intrapersonal impact of incestuous abuse on adolescent girls. Five girls, aged 15 to 18, were selected from a Pakistani organization aiding destitute and neglected children. Through semi-structured in-depth interviews, we aimed to explore the layers of their intrapersonal experiences, allowing their stories to illuminate the dark corners of their struggles. Applying Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), We meticulously transcribed and analyzed the interviews, revealing three overarching themes with associated subthemes. The narratives uncovered a poignant tale of loss and anguish, intertwined with experiences of social withdrawal. Participants, save one, grappled with a profound erosion of self-worth and a reluctance to disclose the abuse, manifesting in self-loathing. Incestuous abuse emerged not only as a breach of physical boundaries but also as a catalyst for mental and emotional turmoil. Participants recounted experiences of suicidal and homicidal ideations, loss of control, and relentless crying spells, with blame and self-harm serving as coping mechanisms. The participants expressed the dissociation towards the society, this highlighted a significant disruption in their social lives, characterized by withdrawal from interpersonal interactions, intensifying isolation, and severing crucial social connections. Another facet revealed a deep-seated despair about humanity, with participants expressing profound disillusionment, hopelessness, and despondency, fostering mistrust in the goodness of humanity. In reflecting on these narratives, it becomes evident that incestuous abuse transcends mere physical violations, leaving an indelible mark on one's being. The findings underscore the urgent need to address this pervasive issue within the societal framework of Pakistan, advocating for comprehensive support and intervention for affected adolescent girls.

The Psy-Disciplines have a longstanding history of pathologising queer and transgender identities, which resulted in harmful practices such as conversion treatments. Even today, mainstream mental health curricula/training in India carry traces of this pathologising impulse, and our mental health community has been complicit in perpetuating this stigma. Thus, there has arisen the need for Indian therapists to be trained in queer-affirmative practices. Our Queer Affirmative Counselling Practice (QACP) Course was built to teach therapists to address the distress of LGBTQ+ persons and promote their well-being. The creators and faculty of the Course are queer/trans-identified trained therapists, with a considerable amount of hours engaged in counselling practice, research, teaching and advocacy with the LGBTQI+ community. They occupy multiple identities within the world of mental health and gender-sexuality, making their contribution to the designing and teaching of this course significant given how historically pathologized and criminalised it has been.

As most students of the QACP Course tend to be cisgender-heterosexual, it could be considered audacious for a few queer/trans-identified therapists to come together in order to teach them. However, with the power of knowledge creation and sharing remaining in the hands of queer-trans faculty, we aim to avoid repeating mistakes from the past, such as the widespread pathologization of queer-trans people. We also aim to shed light on knowledge that has been historically overlooked.

Our students learn from the lived experience of our queer faculty, their family members, queer/trans guest speakers, and case studies based on real concerns of LGBTQ+ individuals. The Course embodies ‘learning from lived experience’ in its entirety. In this paper, through the QACP Course, we will explore the unique pedagogical concept of ‘teaching from the margins’, and the epistemological shift created when marginalised therapists teach mainstream therapists, instead of the other way around.

Keywords: Epistemological shift, teaching, margins, queer affirmative, LGBTQ+

The predominantly liberal-leaning institutions in the UK and US want to “move on” from the issue of homosexuality; indeed, this phrase was included in the title of the British Psychotherapy Council’s 2012 conference on sexuality. But the BPC’s recent failed attempt to issue an apology to LGBT people for past harms, and the refusal of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis to publish an article which acknowledged this harm, suggest that psychoanalytic institutions are still finding it difficult to recognise and learn from this painful history.

I use historic clinical vignettes to examine one of the ways in which queer sexuality was repressed by psychoanalysis in the clinic: the inabiity to work productively with erotic transference when both psychoanalyst and patient are female, which has identified as a particular psychoanalytic lacuna in respect of lesbian sexuality. Following Sarah Ahmed’s queering of phenomenology, I consider how psychoanalysts orient themselves towards queer sexuality, looking for “straight lines”, “straightening devices”, and “queer angles” in published vignettes about erotic transference between female analysts and patients from 1930 onwards. I discuss three exemplars. Helene Deutsch “straightened up” her description of a lesbian patient’s analysis in her 1944 book The Psychology of Women compared to a 1932 paper. After a four-decade silence, Eva Lester is the next female analyst to write about erotic transference with a female patient in the '80s, orienting herself towards queer female sexuality from a heteronormative frame. And finally, Florence Rosiello’s vignette from the early 2000s demonstrates the possibilities – and the risks – of finding space for queer angles in her clinical work with female patients. I hope to demonstrate the possibilities and limitations of this queer phenomenological method for learning from psychoanalysis' painful past, in the context of today’s increasingly polarised debates around non-normative gender and sexuality.