Page "Conversion therapy" Paragraph 21

The Austrian-born psychoanalyst Melanie Klein moved to London in 1926.

Her seminal book The Psycho-Analysis of Children, based on lectures given to the British Psychoanalytic Society in the 1920s, was published in 1932.

Klein claimed that entry into the Oedipus Complex is based on mastery of primitive anxiety from the oral and anal stages.

If these tasks are not performed properly, developments in the Oedipal stage will be unstable.

Complete analysis of patients with such unstable developments would require uncovering these early concerns.

The analysis of homosexuality required dealing with paranoid trends based on the oral stage.

The Psycho-Analysis of Children ends with the analysis of Mr. B., a gay man.

Klein claimed that he illustrated pathologies that enter into all forms of homosexuality: a gay man idealizes “ the good penis ” of his partner to ally the fear of attack he feels due to having projected his paranoid hatred onto the imagined “ bad penis “ of his mother as an infant.

She stated that Mr. B .’ s homosexual behaviour diminished after he overcame his need to adore the “ good penis ” of an idealized man.

This was made possible by his recovering his belief in the good mother and his ability to sexually gratify her with his good penis and plentiful semen.