November 28, 2023 • 70 mins
Tyson talks with Sally Bjorklund about a psychoanalytic understanding of sexuality and gender identity, tracing the evolution of theories about sex and gender from Freud through to Contemporary Relational analytic theory. Their conversation touches on the uses of sex and gender, polymorphus perversity, and exploding dice.
Sally is a psychoanalyst practicing in Seattle. She works with adults and couples and provides clinical consultation for therapists. She was co-founder and faculty of Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy Seattle (RPPS). She is a clinical supervisor for the National Training Program of the National Institute for the Psychotherapies, is on the editorial board of the journal Psychoanalytic Perspectives, and teaches locally in various programs. She was a contributor to "Clinical Implications of the Psychoanalyst's Life Experience:When the Personal Becomes Professional” and has written and presented on various topics including sex and gender, adoption, aging, working with hard to reach patients and erotic transference.
https://www.sallybjorklund.com/
Further Learning:
Sexuality, Intimacy, Power by Muriel Dimen
Gender in Psychoanalytic Space edited by Muriel Dimen
Assuming a Body by Gayle Salaman
Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
Gender as Soft Assembly by Adrienne Harris
Gender Born, Gender Made by Diane Ehrensaft
Please Select Your Gender by Patricia Gherovici
Podcast interview with Avgi Saketopoulou on her new book co-authored with Ann Pelligrini, Sexuality Beyond Consent.
© Relational Psych 2023
W: www.relationalpsych.group
E: hello@relationalpsych.group
P: (206) 589-1018
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tyson Conner (00:11):
Do you want to learn about psychological growth
without sorting through thejargon? You're in the right
place. This is the RelationalPsych podcast. I'm your host
licensed therapist Tyson Connor.
On this show, we learn about theprocesses and theories behind
personal growth and experience alittle bit of it ourselves. This
is season two, where we'll focuson the practice of relational
psychotherapy, and exploreconcepts and theories that
(00:32):
consider psychology from arelational lens. And please keep
in mind that this podcast doesnot constitute therapeutic
advice, but we might help youAnd my guest for this episode is
Sally Bjorklund. Sally is afind some.
psychoanalyst practicing inSeattle. She works with adults
(00:54):
and couples and providesclinical consultation for
therapists. She was co founderand faculty of Relational
Psychoanalysis and PsychotherapySeattle. She is a clinical
supervisor in the NationalTraining Program at the National
Institute for Psychotherapy,she's is on the editorial board
of the Journal of PsychoanalyticPerspectives and teaches locally
in various programs. She was acontributor to clinical
(01:14):
implications of thepsychoanalyst life experience,
when the personal becomesprofessional, and has written
and presented on various topics,including sex and gender,
adoption, aging, working withhard to reach patients, and
erotic transference. Sally,thank you for coming on the show
and today we are going to beanswering the question or
(01:35):
beginning to answer the questionbecause might take longer than
an hour. What is thepsychoanalytic understanding of
sex and gender? So, Sally,what's a psychoanalytic
understanding of sex and gender?
Sally Bjorklund (01:53):
Well, I guess we have to, we have to start
with Freud where psychoanalysisstarts. Freud is in some words
in the culture, in the languagewe use that we don't necessarily
know came from Freud. But Freudactually upset the whole
(02:14):
Victorian society with his ideasabout sexuality, talking about
how our sexuality ispolymorphusly perverse, and that
his idea that we have this threepart structure of the ID, ego
and the super ego was the nextpart of his theory - that
(02:39):
because the sexual instinct isso unruly, that we have to use
our ego to control it, to makeit work in the proper
directions. Which according tohim, are that sex should be
about reproduction, it should beheterosexual. And his, his three
(03:07):
parts of the way that were puttogether psychologically, are
the ID, ego and the super ego.
So the ID is the home of thesexual instinct. It's what
drives us. And this is when youhear about Freud and drive
(03:27):
theory - that drive is a sexualinstinct. And it's the ego's
job, to control the drives, tomake them work in collaboration
with the demands of society. Thesuper ego then is also our
conscience, our moral advisorthat's formed by our parents and
(03:51):
social regulations and controlsus through anxiety, mostly
through anxiety, and guilt. SoFreud compared the ego in
relationship to the rider andthe horse. So if you think of
(04:17):
the horse as the unruly sexualdrive, then the ego is the rider
who has to keep things incontrol. So Freud also thought
that repressed sexual desireswere at the root of all
symptoms.
Tyson Conner (04:39):
I feel like our Listeners might have, depending
on their familiarity with Freud,the one thing that they'll most
quickly go to in their mind ishe's the guy who talks about sex
all the time. He's the sex guy.
And even in kind of pop cultureor conversations on the
internet. Anytime Freud comesup, one of the first things
people will point out was Wow,that guy was constantly thinking
(04:59):
about sex all the time. And whatI'm hearing you say is that at
Freud's time in -- for itssocial context, people weren't
really talking overtly about sexand sexuality. It was a pretty
highly repressed social contextthat he was in, there were clear
rules about these things, and wedidn't really talk about it. And
(05:23):
Freud's -- or that was maybe theacademic culture. And part of
what Freud did that was sovaluable, was he did start
talking about it. And he madesense of human behavior through
this, and a human mind, withsexuality as pretty central to
(05:45):
it. You describe this three partperson idea, which, every time I
hear about it from Freud, Ithink about I think it was
Aristotle also had a three partperson idea, but he called it
the appetite, the reason andspirit. And his analogy was of a
charioteer, where reason was thecharioteer, and then appetite
(06:09):
and spirit, were these two wildhorses that wanted to go
different directions. And itsounds like Freud had a pretty,
pretty similar concept of theego being the self, and that
kind of negotiates in some waysbetween the ID that wants things
and the super ego that says,Well, this is how you behave
(06:30):
appropriately to be acceptable-- something like that.
Sally Bjorklund (06:37):
Exactly. And that's an interesting comparison
with Aristotle, I think. Butwhat it got me thinking of is
something that Michel Foucaulthas written about in his book,
The History of Sexuality, VolumeI is that in the late 1800s, the
(06:57):
sexologists at the time, evenbefore Freud, were creating sex
as a psychological phenomena,that before that sex was just
something people did. So theidea that it it then becomes a
sin or a psychological drive isa new idea. It's trying to
(07:18):
connect the body with the mindin a new way. So when the
sexologist start categorizingdifferent types of sexualities,
so Foucault would say that,before the sexologists people
(07:40):
who had same sex sex, were justdoing something. And after the
sexologist, it became anidentity category. So it was who
you were not what you did.
Tyson Conner (07:52):
Interesting, interesting. So that kind of
cultural social shift washappening. Pretty concurrent,
maybe a little bit before Freud,he jumped on that wave at a time
where that was happening in, inconversations where people were
curious about sex and also abouthuman identity.
Sally Bjorklund (08:11):
Exactly. So the idea of categorizing things
of... that something becomes whoyou are, and not just what you
do, I think was a significanthistorical change. Also the
Victorian sensibility about thebody was if you were wealthy, if
(08:33):
you were upper class Victorian,the focus on not talking about
the body as this kind of dirtything you don't want to think
about versus the averagepeasant, who's very much in
their body. Living with all thebodily functions in the kingdom,
(08:59):
there's no indoor plumbing.
People sleep all in the sameroom. So the children are seeing
their parents have intervourseand this is part of the
background which Freud iswriting about sex in a kind of
new way, where he's saying thatthis is normal. We're all born
polymorphously perverse.
Tyson Conner (09:21):
So what does that mean? Polymorphously perversely,
Sally Bjorklund (09:26):
It means anything can be an object, that
our sexuality isn't tied to whathe later called the aim. And the
proper aim and object, Isuppose, include animals or same
sex, incest, or, that anythingcan be a target because we're
(09:52):
driven by this sexual impulse,the instinct of the aim.
Tyson Conner (09:56):
So when Freud says we're all polymorphously
perverse, and that's scandalousthing to say. It's because at
the time, there was the ideathat among the upper crust, the
people who were a little moredisconnected from their bodies
we'll say, at least in how theythought about folks and how they
felt about being. There was anidea that sex is a thing that
you do. That's also becoming anidentity category, but it's for
(10:20):
procreation, and it's betweenadult men and adult women, and
it's between adult men and theirwives. That's the category of
what sex is. And Freud showed upand said, well, actually, inside
of a person's mind, yoursexuality isn't just constrained
to that specific context. Itkind of can go to lots of
(10:42):
different places, and inside ofyour mind, even if you're not
acting on it, is that is thatkind of what he's getting?
Sally Bjorklund (10:48):
I'm not sure.
upperclass Victorian societywas, I think, on the surface,
they were very prudish, andapplied to women were very
prudish. But I think that sexwas just what it always is. I
don't know if you've seenBridgerton, or those kinds of
recreations of
Tyson Conner (11:10):
Throughout history, although cultures are
different. People are stillpeople and people tend to have
sex.
Sally Bjorklund (11:15):
So I think what I was trying to say about Freud
is that he did two kind ofopposite things. He said,
sexuality is normally unruly,and perverse. And that what's
required as we developpsychologically, is that we
become proper riders of thehorse or steering the chariot.
(11:36):
And the other thing he believedwas that repressed sexuality was
at the root of all psychologicalsymptoms.
Tyson Conner (11:45):
So he really was all about sex - depression,
anxiety, obsessive compulsivedisorder, psychosis, all of it,
Sally Bjorklund (11:52):
everything had to do with some kind of
repressed sexuality. And well,and then there's two kinds, then
there's the, the two kinds ofunconscious are the Repressed,
which is something that you'vethought about. And then because
(12:18):
it's unacceptable, you deny itor put it out of your mind. And
then there's the drive of ourID, our beast, that's
unconscious to us. From thebeginning, we were never aware
of our, of our ID drives.
Tyson Conner (12:29):
So in terms of parts of human sexuality, that
Freud thought caused trouble,there was the stuff that came in
that we chased out of ourawareness. And then there was
the stuff that never was in ourawareness in the first place.
And each of those could causetrouble in their own separate
ways.
Sally Bjorklund (12:47):
If the drive can't be, managed by your ego
and your super ego, it's gonnaget you into trouble.
Tyson Conner (12:56):
Oh, that makes sense.
Sally Bjorklund (12:57):
And the other things that... well the example
that fried gave from one of hispatients was this woman had all
these weird symptoms, she had aparapheasas and contractures -
that an arm would get stuck insome weird position, you
(13:22):
couldn't move it, she sometimesspoke in a foreign language for
no apparent reason. And what hediscovered through analysis was
that she had been sexuallyattracted to her sister's
fiance. And as soon as that cameout, her symptoms went away. So
that's kind of Freud's basis ofsaying these weird, unexplained
(13:46):
symptoms all have some kind ofrepressed sexual reason. And so
the job then of psychoanalysisis to uncover the repressed
desires. That's basic Freudianpsychoanalysis.
Tyson Conner (14:05):
So the image that I'm hearing or that's developing
in my mind is that tosignificantly oversimplify
Freud's theory of sexuality,there was an aim or purpose of
sexuality, which is to createmore human beings - very
(14:26):
biological basis, and it'sheterosexual and it's with a
person who can reproduce andthat's healthy. That's what
we're aiming for. That's whatwe're trying to become. And if
that's where our sexuality isaimed, then we are
psychologically well, but at thesame time, that human beings'
(14:48):
experience of their sexuality isincredibly varied and that
everyone has sexual drives andexperiences and attractions
outside of that aim. And so thenwas his understanding that the
goal of wellness, essentiallywas to no longer feel those
(15:11):
other attractions or to be awareof them or?
Sally Bjorklund (15:16):
Let me just back up because he talked about
the instinct, aim and theobject. So those are the things
that have to line up. So youhave your instinct is something
you're kind of stuck withdealing with. Your ego needs to
be in charge of having theproper aim, which is
reproduction and the properobject which is the opposite
(15:38):
sex, adult partner. I think theother thing that he really
focuses on is symptoms having todo with repressed sexual
desires. So that's differentthan ID drives are what Stephen
(16:04):
Mitchell later - one of thefounders of relational
psychoanalysis - came to callthe beast. Which by the way,
Stephen Mitchell rejectedFreud's idea of sex as the thing
that drives human behavior. So,but just sticking to Freud, I
(16:29):
think he thought society was incharge of regulating certain
amount of people's behavior, butpsychological health or treating
people with symptoms meant beingable to discover what their
repressed sexual desires were.
Tyson Conner (16:50):
And would those things be... so the category of
instinct aim and object -instinct is I want to have sex.
Aim is I want to have sex forthis purpose. An object is I
want to have sex with thatperson or thing.
Sally Bjorklund (17:06):
Well, that's the holding the reins is the
instinct, okay? And aim and theobject are the proper harnessing
of the drive,
Tyson Conner (17:19):
I see. And okay, so this is for its
conceptualization, which ispretty well tied to the time
that Freud was around, andattitudes about human sexuality.
And we haven't even talked aboutgender yet. Maybe we won't get
there today, maybe that'll be aseparate conversation, but
(17:41):
attitudes about human sexualityhave changed, a fair bit
societally, since Freud. How haspsychoanalysis and its attitude
towards -- you made mention ofStephen Mitchell, one of these
founders of this modernrelational, contemporary,
psychoanalytic turn movement,school, whatever it is, he
(18:04):
rejected Freud's idea of thecentrality of sexuality. So how
did he think about sex?
Sally Bjorklund (18:10):
Well as to back up a little bit, this is early
Freud. So Freud, later, partlyinfluenced by what he saw, the
horrible stuff that went on andWorld War One introduced the
idea of the death drive. SoFreud's idea is that we are
(18:32):
driven by these two drives,which sometimes work against
each other of the sex drive,which is a life instinct, and a
death drive. So then along comeswell, there were some things in
between, but Stephen Mitchell,in the 1980s, and other people
(18:55):
that were instrumental. Therewasn't really a founder of
relational psychoanalysis. Therewere a group of people. But he,
he and Dave Greenberg wrote thebook that kind of started the
whole relational revolution. Andone thing Steve was pretty
adamant about was rejecting thesexual instinct as the major
(19:20):
motive of human behavior. Hereferred to Freud's sex instinct
as the beast. And he believes hewas influenced by Fairburn and
other psychoanalytic thinkers tofeel that a need for connection
(19:42):
and attachment was a much morefundamental motivator of human
beings. So the whole drivetheory I think, has really been
displaced by an idea thatattachment needs something...
(20:03):
Everybody knows about that. Andit's read books. So they know
their attachment style.
Tyson Conner (20:10):
So attachment became more of the central, if
there's a motivator, if there'sa drive involved, it's probably
more modern relational thinkingwould probably turn to
attachment sooner than it turnedto sex.
Sally Bjorklund (20:26):
Well, absolutely. And if anything, I
think later relational thinkershave been a little critical of
Mitchell's downplaying of sex asa drive, like taming the beast
(20:48):
too much. So there is more of aemphasis on the importance of
the body, and sexuality alongwith the need for for connection
and attachment. Andre Green kindof famously complained that
relational thinking had takensex out of psychoanalysis. Of
(21:14):
course, it's a drastic, givenits beginnings, it's a drastic
thing to take out.
Tyson Conner (21:21):
I'm thinking about how much of this conversation is
about culture. We're talkingabout the culture that Freud
grew up in. And we're alsotalking about the culture of
psychoanalysis, and howpsychoanalysis talks about a
sex. And how we choose to talkabout it as, as a group, like
(21:43):
Freud's talking about sex, in away, was very disruptive for the
time and a way for him to speakdirectly to what he was seeing.
And it almost feels like there'sa, I don't know, a pendulum
swing, or a push pull happening,where Mitchell and others are
(22:04):
kind of de emphasizing thesexual side of things, in a way
to try to expand it and to say,well, maybe there's other things
going on. Maybe there's otherthings to think about. And also,
maybe thinking aboutpsychoanalysis as placed in, in
society in the 80s and 90s.
Maybe there's some motivation totry to make it a little bit less
(22:25):
weird, and more acceptable tobroader culture, saying, if
everyone thinks of us as thepeople talking about sex all the
time, I don't know, I don'tknow. That's just me playing
with ideas. But it's, it'sinteresting, how much of this
becomes a dialogue about how arewe going to talk about this? And
(22:48):
what does that mean for us as acommunity? How do we talk and
think about sex? And is it thething at the center? And do we
have normative expectations ofthis is how a person is supposed
to be? I don't know.
Sally Bjorklund (23:06):
Well, I think that's a good point. I think
there's a number of reasons thatpsychoanalysis which was kind of
in its heyday, probably in the60s when it was the dominant
form of treatment andpsychoanalysts were highly
respected. And was complicated,because it really wasn't until
(23:27):
the development of antipsychoticmedications and then
antidepressants, that psychiatrywas considered a respected
profession, that becausepsychiatrist really couldn't do
anything without those, thekinds of medicines that we have
now, especially for people withsevere mental disorders there
(23:49):
was no treatment. So psychiatrybecame a much more respectable
and probably better paidprofession, once antipsychotics
were developed, and thenantidepressants. So
psychoanalysis didn't have a lotof competition for other forms
(24:11):
of treatment and then for somepeople like in the Woody Allen
kind of parody or version ofpsychoanalysis that there are
certain people that that wasjust normal, everybody went to
psychoanalysis. So I have hadpatients from Argentina who
(24:32):
said, everybody in Argentina isin psychoanalysis from when
they're children. So, butespecially on the West Coast
that's not a big part of ourculture at all. And I think
though, along with thedevelopment of antidepressants
and other kinds of -- also,insurance companies didn't want
(24:55):
to pay for psychoanalysisanymore and cultural changes in
the 60s and 70s, attitudes aboutsexuality drastically changed.
So I think it stopped beingrelevant.
Tyson Conner (25:09):
So how does psychoanalysis catch up? Like
Steven Mitchell refers to it asthe beast. And in some ways, I'm
hearing that now as this is thebeast, in Freud's understanding
this is the beast that needstaming inside of every person.
And maybe Mitchell's alsosaying, this is also the beast
(25:30):
in our theory that we've got tofigure out how to tame so that
we can...
Sally Bjorklund (25:35):
I just think theory, Mitchell's great gift
was to read everything insteadof what often happens is people
who identify with a certaintheory then become siloed in
that theory, and don't readanything else. He read
(25:57):
everything, and he put togetherthings that he thought were
useful from lots of differenttheoretical orientations. And so
one thing that replaced DriveTheory was a look at how we
develop - how we develop incontext of our family. So when
(26:17):
it comes to sex, and gender,what do we get taught about
sexuality in our family? If yougrew up in a religious family,
what kind of messages did youget? I actually remember, my
family hosted this -- Wesometimes hosted exchange
(26:41):
students but this was a girl,teenage girl - I grew up in
Chicago - from Minnesota whowas... everything was mysterious
about her. And I found out yearslater that she was pregnant. And
that she got sense if we werestaying with her that she was
going to go to some home forunwed mothers that had to be far
(27:04):
away from home. So there's somecover story for why she wasn't
in Minnesota. That if you grewup in a family where that kind
of -- it made a big impressionand be like, Oh, my God, if you
get pregnant, that's going tobe... they're going to send you
away somewhere. Which that'sstill happens for that matter.
Tyson Conner (27:29):
Yeah
Sally Bjorklund (27:30):
I think that the Wallingford... The Good
Shepherd Center used to be ahome for unwed girls.
Tyson Conner (27:44):
Oh, wow.
Sally Bjorklund (27:48):
It's that's part of our history, as well. So
if you grew up in a family witha lot of shame about sex, or
prudishness, or if you grew upin a family where there's none
of that, and there's noboundaries, and maybe there's
sexual abuse - you're going tohave... that's going to affect
(28:09):
your development as a sexualbeing, your relationship to
sexuality. So relational theorywas much more interested in
thinking about what actuallyreally happens to us, not some
kind of ID drive. But what do weexperience growing up? How does
that affect our relationship toour bodies, our sense of
(28:35):
ourselves as sexual beings? Isthere trauma that's going to
change things? How much isaccepted in terms of
experimenting or trying thingsout? Or, certainly as a
clinician, that a huge number ofpeople who seek us out for help,
(28:58):
or people who have experiencedsome kind of sexual trauma? That
changes how we develop as sexualbeings. So anyway, Mitchell's
point is that what reallyhappens, actually, is what
determines our relationshiptowards sexuality. And of
(29:19):
course, I think it's also truethat what's happening in the
culture affects us. If you grewup in the late 60s and early 70s
There's both the free love butthere was also the Feminist
Revolution, and Stonewall andall those things that were
really changing the subsequentsocial messages about sexuality.
(29:43):
And of course those that relapseinto trying to control
everybody's sexuality with thefall of Roe... I mean, that's...
Don't get me started.
Tyson Conner (29:59):
Different podcast, ha. Yes. So part of what I'm
hearing you describe sounds tome like moving away from a way
of thinking about sexuality thathad a preconceived - this is
what's inside of every person.
And this is what it's supposedto be shaped into. And in a way
(30:20):
from that, and into, Well, whoknows what's inside of a person
to begin with. But their earlyexperiences growing up, heavily
impact and maybe even fullydefined how they engage with and
experience their own sexualityinternally, it was the shift
(30:41):
from well, there's a defaultthing that's in there to, who
knows what you get started with.
But whatever you end up with, isprobably determined by a
combination of the culture yougrew up in, and the subculture
you grew up in of your family,and then also just your
(31:02):
experiences of sexuality and ofyour own sexual self.
Sally Bjorklund (31:08):
Well, and I think also bringing back the
body into the question, not justof attachment and developmental
experiences, but ourrelationships to our bodies of
how do we relate to our bodies?
What's it like to be in myparticular body? And is it okay
for me to touch myself incertain pleasurable ways? Or
(31:29):
that I get the message that I'llgo blind If I do that? Or
whatever the message is aboutthat. I don't think there's any
denying that there's some kindof fundamental urge that almost
everybody has -- remember beinga teenager, surely, that how you
(31:49):
respond to that, and yourself,your bodily inclinations, then I
think interfaces with messagesfrom your family, but if you've
had trauma, what your personalexperiences... and people use
sex for all different kinds ofreasons - sex can be deployed
(32:12):
for all kinds of psychologicalneeds of -- classic example is
if a girl has experienced nothaving friends or being
unpopular, all of a sudden, shediscovers that boys are really
interested in her sexually, andthat she can get into trouble by
(32:33):
deploying her sexuality as a wayto get positive recognition,
without understanding what couldbe the negative outcome of that.
But we deploy sex in all kindsof - I mean, that's not news
that, stories of having to sleepwith the boss to get a
(32:54):
promotion? Or? I don't know, youcould probably think of any
example.
Tyson Conner (33:01):
I work with adolescents, I hear lots of
stories about ways that sex isdeployed. And it sounds like
part of what... there's kind oflike an expanding and
expansiveness, or broadening ofwhat sex could be for, and could
mean. That the Freudian conceptof these instinct, aim object
(33:26):
categories are kind of like --this is a very silly analogy,
but I play a lot of tabletoprole playing games, where you
roll dice, and they tell youwhat to do. And sometimes dice
explode, where if you roll acertain number, like a six, then
you get to roll even more dice,and the number goes up and up
and up and up. And so that's amechanic that some people use
(33:47):
when they're designing theirgames. I'm so sorry, Listener,
this is a very nerdy tangent.
But the image I got in my headis that this shift of thinking
about sexuality a little bitdifferently, kind of explodes it
a little bit, all of a sudden,the permutations of what sex can
mean for a person is far morebroad. And it sounds like there
is less of a implicit judgmenton it. And more of a complex
(34:13):
curiosity about it. Okay, youused sex in this moment for this
thing, and that isn't thereforeperverse or isn't therefore a
problem that needs fixing. Itmight be, but even a moment ago,
when you said, we were talkingabout the inherent, the
(34:33):
instinct, and if that's inpeople, and you said the word
almost - you said almosteverybody. That in and of itself
feels like a pretty significantthing to say. Because to
acknowledge even that there aresome people who don't, asexual
people exist, even acknowledgingthat kind of radically
challenges some of thefoundations of psychoanalysis.
(34:56):
So to have a theory that makesroom for that feels important
but also challenging.
Sally Bjorklund (35:04):
That's right.
And again, because we have somany identity categories now,
because there's an identitycategory for people who are
asexual, that I think thecategories again, get us into
trouble with the 'this is who Iam not what I do' and
understanding how are peopleusing or not using their bodies
(35:26):
and their sexuality and why.
This is what I hope happens intherapy that each individual
gets to have a personalconnection with an understanding
of how they use their ownsexuality, how they experience
it, what feels good, whatdoesn't feel good, what they
(35:49):
want, what they don't want. Ithink that Freud's system seemed
like it had a lot of rules to itof that, but I think that was...
I'm maybe giving him too muchcredit. But I think that was
also his trying to acquiesce toVictorian society by not being
(36:15):
too radical, because he wasgiving lectures, public
lectures, and when talking aboutpolymorphous perversity, which
is shocking, in 1890s. I thinkit's important for relational
psychoanalysis to get away frompathologizing, being the arbiter
(36:40):
of what's normative, when itcomes to sexuality and what's
pathological. Because it's notthat long ago, the DSM had
pathologizing diagnoses forcertain kinds of sexuality,
Tyson Conner (36:58):
Listener to define some terms a little bit, but to
pathologize something is to talkabout a thing as if it's
inherently a problem. Apathology is a sickness or
illness. To pathologizesomething is to talk about
something as if it's an illness.
So an example that's likelycoming to many of our listeners'
minds is homosexuality beingconsidered a mental disorder.
(37:19):
The DSM is the DiagnosticStatistical Manual. There are on
the fifth one, they're workingon the sixth edition now. And
it's the shared document thatthe medical system in the US and
a few other countries, althoughthere's some international
(37:40):
alternatives that we all use tocommunicate to one another. We
have these codes, and we havethese diagnoses. And so then if
you have a client chart, thatclient then moves to Florida,
their doctor in Florida can readit and can understand, oh, this
person was given this code, thatmeans they have arthritis or
whatever. And the DSMspecifically is for the mental
(38:03):
health related disorders, butit's part of that broader
system. And the thing that Itell my clients is that it's
mostly useful for communicatingwith insurance companies. But
Sally Bjorklund (38:16):
I think that's it's main function. I have no
other use for it.
Tyson Conner (38:20):
Haha. Maybe it didn't used to be, maybe there
used to be other functions forit, but doesn't seem like that's
likely. And up until, what wasit the DSM three, there was the
big controversy? There was areally great radio lab episode
about this, Listener. I'll linkto it in the show notes. But it
was kind of a big deal whenhomosexuality was removed from
(38:45):
the DSM, because it had been inthere a long time. And it was
staying in there a long time.
Sally Bjorklund (38:51):
I think that was in the... well, the American
Psychological Associationdecriminalized or
de-pathologized, took it out inI think it was 1971? But there's
still... the AmericanPsychoanalytic Association
(39:18):
didn't really start admittingcandidates to train in analysis
until the early 1990s. And thatwas under threat of a lawsuit.
So there still was a lot ofyears in at least in
psychoanalysis, wherehomosexuality was considered a
(39:40):
developmental problem that youneeded to go back to analysis to
undo and then once you werecured of your homosexuality,
then you could get into analytictraining,
Tyson Conner (39:53):
Which is something that sounds pretty absurd to me.
Sally Bjorklund (39:57):
Well, there were a couple of famous people
like Ralph throat and RichardIsay, who some people will
recognize those names who werenot practicing their gayness
when they got in, but thenstarted practicing after they
(40:18):
were already in, which is howthey got in. And we're very
influential withinpsychoanalysis of speaking out
about that, and making adifference.
Tyson Conner (40:34):
There's a couple of directions that I kind of
want this conversation to go,but I'm guessing we have to pick
one. But I'm hearing this, thisdevelopment within the theory,
from a kind of pathologizing ofwhat's not normative. And by
normative, Listener, thatdoesn't mean... It's kind of
like normal, but not quite.
Normative is when you say, thisis the way it ought to be. So
(40:56):
psychoanalysis had thisnormative idea of sexuality,
this is how sexuality ought tobe. And in the past 20-30 years,
there was a movement away fromthat, away from saying this is
how sexuality ought to be intosomething a little bit more
(41:16):
descriptive, maybe? And curious- this is how sexuality seems to
be working in people, and a kindof openness to more kinds of
difference, that don't indicatepathology or wellness one way or
the other, just kind of a factof being a person.
Sally Bjorklund (41:38):
Well said, I think that the idea that -- I'm
not wild about the expression,your authentic self, because I
don't know what the wordauthentic means, really. But
there was so much suffering thatwas clearly caused by people who
were having to be in the closet,and whose lives were
(42:04):
significantly impacted byhomophobia that I think that
recognition that creating thesenormative standards and saying
it's not okay to be you werereally, really destructive. So I
think we have shifted to --Well, first of all, I think
(42:27):
homosexuality withinpsychoanalysis is a non event
now. That's completely accepted.
And I think that the ideas ofgender dysphoria and how gender
develops has dramaticallychanged, as culture has demanded
(42:48):
that it changed as well. But tobe... psychoanalysis,
psychology, in general, has hada normative advising function to
say this is what normal peopleare. And if you aren't that
you're deviant. So to take thatresponsibility seriously, and
(43:09):
decide that, that needs to notbe our job because we're seeing
now this reversal, where thereare people in the in extreme
religious right to want toreimpose all those kinds of
normative advising. restrictionson who people can be.
Tyson Conner (43:36):
And I've also... I work with a lot of trans people.
That's, that's a lot of thefolks who I see, and I'm very
aware of the controversy withinthe trans community around the
category of gender dysphoriabecause it's inherently
(43:59):
pathologizing. And it's adiagnosis that you need to have
on your chart to receive thisparticular medical care. So I
give people that diagnosis, inpart so that they can get
treatments that will let, in thesame way that antidepressants
(44:21):
can save people's lives,hormones save people's lives,
and I've seen it happen. But forthem to do that, I need to give
them this diagnosis, which isinherently pathologizing. But
then there's also this -- sorry,I'm thinking out loud. There's
this tension that I'm hearing inwhen talking about sexuality,
(44:44):
and maybe it applies to acertain degree to gender as
well. Where these categories canbe really limiting when we want
to think about a person and howa person works, and these
identity categories are reallyimportant for us to create
community and have community andfind community, they seem to be
(45:04):
really important on a societallevel to be able to say, these
are my people. And thoseidentity categories can
sometimes limit people's abilityto engage with all of the
different parts of themselves.
Sally Bjorklund (45:20):
It's making me think about Judith Butler's
work. In particular, her idea ofwhat do you have to be to be a
recognizable subject to society?
To be able to -- so you'retalking about community, but
there's also a way that I needto have my subjectivity
(45:41):
validated and recognized in theway that I'm expressing it or
living it? And so there areforces, political forces now
that want to say that's not aviable subjectivity.
Tyson Conner (45:59):
And the conversation around it even is
to call... to say that to betrans is to be mentally ill.
That's the argument. And from myexperience in psychoanalytic
spaces, there are some peoplewho I've tried to talk to about
some of my trans clients. Andit's impossible to have a
conversation that doesn't talkabout psychosis. Because the
(46:20):
fact that I'm talking aboutsomeone who's identified gender
identity is different than thanthe one that they were assigned
at birth. Their mind this, thisperson, who I have had
conversations with, their mindimmediately goes to psychosis,
because it's in their brain.
Well, the gender you're bornwith is your gender. And if you
think you're a different one,then you're psychotic. That's
just the theory that they'reworking with.
Sally Bjorklund (46:43):
I can't imagine that there isn't anybody who
hasn't had some feeling of anout of gender experience at some
time in their life. I think menhave a version of it, or -- just
think about my own thinkingabout this. There's really fun
(47:07):
pictures from when I'm five andwith my best friend, Larry
Crawford, and he's got thisreally cool Hawaiian print
swimming trunks. And I havethese kind of goofy shorts, and
neither of us have any top on.
And we're in this swimming pool,having a great time. And I
really remember what my mothersaid, You can't not wear a shirt
anymore. Why? I look exactlylike Larry Crawford from a top
(47:30):
up. Feeling like that's justinsane. I didn't mind being a
girl, but I minded that theroles are different. for girls.
And that happened a lot. BecauseI was a kid before title nine.
So there were a lot of - as thebest pitcher in the baseball
team that let me pitch forLittle League, but I couldn't
(47:54):
play in the games because it wasa girl - why? So my own
experience was, I don't want tobe a boy. But I don't want this
definition. But being a girl isright, so that. And conversely,
I had the experience of walkinginto a coffee shop and I was
(48:15):
dressed kinda fancy and they,you know a nice, dressy blouse
and some white pants I happen tohave on Doc Martens. And this
woman has got on this reallytight fitting top with lots of
cleavage sticking out and a veryshort tight skirt and high
heels. And she walked in thedoor in front of me and I
(48:38):
thought, are we've this from thesame species? The same group?
Not so much that I felt like Iwas failing at my gender
performance as a female. But Ijust looked at her and I
thought, she is as alien to me -dressing up like that is so
(49:00):
alien to my experience that Ican't imagine that. But I've
also had patients who'veliterally said - male patients -
have said, You're not veryfeminine, are you? I mean, they
weren't the most technicalpatients, but in essence were
saying you're not doing a verygood job of performing your
(49:22):
gender correctly. But I thinkprobably men have that if they
are moved to tears at somemoment when they're not supposed
to cry, or...
Tyson Conner (49:36):
Well, I am remembering. I was on a mission
trip. There was a time in mylife where that was going to be
a big part of my life. Andthat's no longer the case.
Sally Bjorklund (49:52):
Not a mission to another planet?
Tyson Conner (49:54):
No, no, it was a mission. Well, it might as well
have been Southeast Asia. Ohboy. But we were on this mission
trip and we were kayaking. Forsome reason. I don't know why,
what that had to do --
Sally Bjorklund (50:06):
Kayaking for the Lord. Haha
Tyson Conner (50:07):
Yes, kayaking for Jesus, thank you - ha! He
enjoyed our kayaking triplikely. And I was in this area
where these two people I waspaired up with one of the
leaders of the group. And wewere paddling along, and I was
We know what happened to thatplace.
just about to go off to Seattleto go to school. And she was
talking to me about, well, whatchurch are you going to go to?
(50:31):
And what are you going to do?
And somehow our conversationmoved to where I felt I fit in
in the group and in the socialcircles that I run in, because
this group was mostly women. Andthere was me and one other guy
on this trip. And I said, justthinking out loud to her as its
18 year old. I was like, I don'tknow, I think there's a lot of
(50:54):
ways where I'm, I'm just morefeminine. And, she she reacted
like she was offended. She was,no, no, no, no, no, not
feminine, sensitive, maybe, butyou're still a man. And I
remember that phrase 'sensitive,maybe, but you're still a man.'
And it was like, for me to say,Toxic masculinity is what
happened in that place on anI don't know, I feel kind of
(51:15):
feminine, was a threat orsomething. It was emasculating.
Which is not how I -- actuallyshe actually recommended I go to
Mars Hill, the church.
epic scale. So I'm glad I didn'tlisten to her. That's not true.
(51:39):
I went to Mars Hill a coupletimes. And then I did what most
college students did, and Istopped going to church because
there are more fun things to doon my Sunday mornings, like
sleep.
Sally Bjorklund (51:48):
So you really were on a mission to Mars?
Tyson Conner (51:50):
I was Oh, absolutely. That's funny. But I
think part of what I'm curiousabout is when talking about
gender, did psychoanalysis havea similar kind of development?
(52:11):
Along as we talked about, withsexuality, whether there was
this normative prescriptive,this is how it ought to be. And
then more recently, a movementtowards a more open, gender is a
part of a person's mind butisn't predetermined to be one
thing or another?
Sally Bjorklund (52:31):
Well, I think psychoanalysis was dominated by
men forever male voices. Andeven women analysts had to kind
of act like men to be in theclub. But the beginning of
relational psychoanalysisbrought in voices from all
different disciplines of likeJessica Benjamin, who comes from
(52:58):
critical theory and socialtheory. Adrienne Harris, who
comes from developmental theory,Merrill Dimon who came from
anthropology, and all thisreally strong feminist
backgrounds. And Steve Mitchellwas really open to... wanted
(53:19):
them included from the verybeginning in the small groups to
get together to talk that sortof invented this new way of
thinking. And feminism was ahuge part of that. So I think
the, the kind of questioning ofthe underlying assumptions that
(53:42):
were never questioned aboutgender by psychoanalysis, were
suddenly now saying, society hasa huge impact on how we all
develop in terms of ourgenderness -- that's making me
(54:03):
think of what you said beforeabout gender dysphoria. Virginia
Goldener wrote a wonderfularticle about trans things where
she pointed out that if a womanlike Kim Kardashian, for
example, wants to go have buttimplants and breasts modified
(54:29):
and all kinds of plasticsurgery, she doesn't have to go
have a psychiatric evaluationfirst. So it's okay to, to go
from being femme to more femme.
But if you want to cross thenyou have to get permission in a
psychiatric interview that...
(54:51):
it's a weird paradox. Because ofcourse, some people use plastic
surgery to make themselves looklike they're from another
planets.
Tyson Conner (55:03):
Well, I'm thinking about the idea of thinking about
sexuality in terms of how we useit, and what it's used for, and
how I think gender is oftensomething that we use. We use it
for lots of different things.
I've known people who used theirgender to protect themselves.
And I've known people who usedtheir gender to be provocative
and challenging. And people whohave used their gender to move
(55:27):
up in their careers and peoplewho have you who have minimized
their gender so that they couldmove up in their careers.
Sally Bjorklund (55:33):
And that reminds me of this wonderful,
remarkable patient I saw yearsago who had come out of a really
abusive childhood and escapedhome, but lived on the streets
and passed as a boy, for adecade. She figured out it'd be
(55:57):
a way to avoid... So there'ssome obvious things like that,
but in my work with transpeople, I feel I'm a little
reluctant about the places thatare just 100%. If you think that
you're trans, we'll doeverything we can to facilitate
your next steps. And I won't dothose evaluations, because I'm
(56:22):
so opposed to the whole idea.
That I think that's wrong tohave to give people a
psychiatric disorder. But peopleneed it, so good that you're
willing to do it. But it hasbeen my experience that people
use their gender for lots ofcomplicated reasons and
(56:44):
sometimes have had theexperience that somebody who did
work with somebody who wasfacilitated to very easy, smooth
- Oh, so you're trans? Here,I'll help you do this without
really asking very manyquestions - that in working more
(57:06):
closely with this person, itreally seemed like they needed a
new way to start. Their sense ofthemselves as a person as a
subject had just felt like itwas failing. And so it was
either kind of suicide, or thenthe idea that, Oh, I could, I
could transition and have a newstart and had, a whole fantasy
(57:29):
imagination about this personthat they could become that was
fixing a different problem. Andwhat we discovered was they went
through the transition process,but they still had the thing
that they had before. How do Ihave, because they still didn't
(57:53):
really have a viable sense ofbeing somebody to themselves
they can be in the world, notjust to other people. So
sometimes people are too quickto facilitate. Oh, this will fix
the problem without reallylooking more deeply at what does
(58:13):
the person need that they'reusing gender to try to achieve -
not that there's anything wrongwith transitioning, but maybe
it's missing the point of what aperson actually really needs? Or
is trying to figure out how tohave a viable sense of subject
to themselves.
Tyson Conner (58:35):
I feel there's a parallel here with, I made the
comment before, in the same waythat that antidepressants can
save lives, I've seen hormonesbe able to save lives. And
similarly to how antidepressantsare really effective at reducing
the symptoms, but don't always,well, they don't get to the
underlying cause. Sometimes theunderlying cause of depression
(58:58):
appears to be purely, biologicalimbalance of chemicals in the
brain and okay, and I've metpeople who they take their meds,
and then things are better, andthey're just I'm good. That's
their experience, and I'm notgoing to take that away from
them. And I've also met an awfullot more people who take their
(59:20):
meds and that helps a lot. Andthere's also something that that
depression was coming from.
There's something that spurnedthe symptom, that there's some
benefit in being curious aboutand trying to make sense of, or
engage with or make contact withlots of different words, for
some version of look at it andthink about it. And I'm hearing
(59:41):
you suggest that maybe there'ssomething similar going on with
gender. Where yeah, transitionis a powerful, important
significant part of a transperson's experience. And that if
we think of gender as this thingthat just is in a person one way
or another, then we we mightmiss out on a lot of the ways
(01:00:06):
that we use gender and the waysthat gender evolves in developed
in person exactly that thecuriosity isn't so that we can
gate keep it better, but so thatwe can help people understand
themselves better and more fully
Sally Bjorklund (01:00:21):
And in some ways trans can reify the gender
right.
binary, so that non binary isthis whole other thing that, I
mean, in some ways, it's kind ofexciting, because it seems like
it's trying to undo - gonna behard to get rid of. Because in
(01:00:42):
part, then we have to choosefrom the gendered performances
to create a non binary thing. Sowe're stuck in this circular
thing of how do you get outsideof the gender binary, but I
(01:01:03):
think there's... I rememberworking with this man who was,
he was really, really handsome,he dressed impeccably, he was
financially successful, he had alot of money. And he had a
tremendous amount of guilt - ohand he's white - for his while
(01:01:25):
male privilege and everything hehad in life. And so he tended to
date women of color, who didn'thave very much money and helped
them out financially. And he wasseriously thinking about trying
to figure out how to be nonbinary. As a way, I think, to
(01:01:46):
try to solve his problem withfeeling guilty for all of his
male white privilege - a way totry to say, I want to find the
community of, like you weresaying before about importance
of community is, a community ofI don't want to belong to this
club that I kind of fell into,but I don't like being in this
(01:02:11):
club. And I thought that wasreally interesting that he was
seriously thinking about tryingto perform his gender
differently as both to escapesomething in himself, but also
to identify differently withother folks.
Tyson Conner (01:02:27):
That is fascinating. I think there -- in
the outline that we're workingoff of, you included a Judith
Butler quote that I hadn't seenbefore, and I want to read it,
because it's coming to mind now.
So thank you. But the idea that'gender is an imitation for
which there is no original.'
Sally Bjorklund (01:02:48):
Exactly
Tyson Conner (01:02:49):
That concept is - I'm sure there are some
Listeners who are like, Tysonthat's basic feminism. I'm
sorry, I went to an evangelicalundergrad I didn't I wasn't
exposed to a lot of basicfeminists have
Sally Bjorklund (01:03:01):
Not everybody's read Judith Butler.
Tyson Conner (01:03:03):
Including me. So but now you've heard that quote,
and I think I'm aware of time,and I want to respect your time
and wrap us up. And, again, tooversimplify a lot of what we
talked about, the thing that I'mhearing you say is in answer to
the question, what's thepsychoanalytic understanding of
sex and gender? Part of theanswer is, it's complex. And
(01:03:31):
it's curious about what peopleare up to, in their use of an
engagement with their sexuality,and gender, both as they are
things that are done. And asthey are things that we are,
both in terms of gender identityand action. And it sounds like
(01:03:51):
if there's an invitation in whatyou're describing, it's an
invitation to usepsychoanalysis, or an analytic
psychotherapy, or whatever thatspace as a space to be able to
be curious about the ways thatyou don't fit into the
categories. There are some waysthat in general conversation,
(01:04:13):
we've all accepted certaincategories. And we all share
them, and we don't questionthem. And I present myself as a
cis man in the world. And aswe've already talked about, I
Yes, I have had experiences thatare outside of my gender. And a
psychotherapy or psychoanalysisis a space to be curious about
those other parts, to be able tosay, hey, there are parts of me
(01:04:36):
that don't fit the categoriesthat I adhere to kind of rigidly
outside of here, to be a littleless rigid about it to be a
little more curious about it,and maybe discover new parts of
yourself and maybe understandoneself a little bit more, maybe
find some conflicts that can beresolved or something I don't
know.
Sally Bjorklund (01:04:56):
We just have a better sense of kind of
claiming... a sense of owningwho you are and how you want to
perform or express yourselfthat, in addition to the all the
developmental things we talkedabout, there's also Francisco
(01:05:19):
Gonzalez and others haveintroduced the idea of this
social unconscious and, yes,Freud's unconscious, but the way
that we are interfacing all thetime with not just psychological
norms, but with pressure fromsociety from how to be, or how
to look or how to act. And Ithink that analysis can be
(01:05:42):
enormously helpful in trying tohelp a person find what... how
they're put together, whatmatters to them, what it would
mean to them to livepassionately. And with as much
(01:06:04):
self awareness as possible, asopposed to just following trends
or trying to either avoid or getsome benefits. I think those of
us who do this work, believe andhave a passion for self
awareness as a path tofulfillment. That was the
(01:06:28):
commercial for ya.
Tyson Conner (01:06:32):
All right, well, I'm sold. Anything that you
would like to plug or oradvertise? I mean, if people are
hearing this conversation, andthey want to find you, where can
you be? Where would you like tobe found?
Sally Bjorklund (01:06:50):
Well, I do have a website! I could be found on
the interweb. Read JudithButler. Read Michel Foucault,
study history, because historyis repeating itself right now.
(01:07:11):
And Milan Kundera said man'sstruggle with power is the
struggle of memory againstforgetting. My might have gotten
that not exactly right. Thatseems really important right
now. To be able to rememberwhere we've been. And to not
(01:07:35):
forget what we know from thepast.
Tyson Conner (01:07:40):
That does feel really important and relevant to
the things that we're discussingtoday. Because they often come
for queer people first,controlling normatizing systems.
Thank you so much for coming onthe show. We appreciate it
Sally Bjorklund (01:07:55):
It was fun.
Tyson Conner (01:07:56):
I'm glad.
Special thanks to SallyBjorklund for coming onto this
episode of the podcast. Sallycan be found at her website,
Sallybjorklund.com. Sally hasalso provided us with quite the
extensive further learning listof resources. The booklets that
Sally provided could serve asthe reading list for a course,
(01:08:20):
an introductory course on apsychoanalytic understanding of
sex and gender. So, Listener, ifanything that we talked about
today really caught yourattention or sparked your
curiosity, I highly encourageyou to check out that book list
in the further learning section.
There's a lot of ways into thistopic. And a lot of those books
are a lovely starting point. Foran experiment this episode, we
really just have a couple ofquestions that we'd love you to
(01:08:43):
ponder, Listener. The firstquestion is, when were you first
aware of your gender? And thefollow up question to that. When
have you felt like you weren'tdoing your gender right? Or
misaligned with your gender ormis attuned with it? My hope is
(01:09:04):
that these two questions mightget you thinking about your own
gender identity development andways that maybe you haven't
thought about before. And alsoabout how you use your gender in
the way that Sally and I talkedabout in this episode, and some
of the same questions can beapplied to sexuality as well.
How do you use your sexuality?
(01:09:28):
When did you first become awareof your sexuality? When did you
feel misaligned with yoursexuality? So that's the
experiment. Just think about it,see what comes up. And if you're
in therapy, and are interested,talk to your therapist about it.
Because if your therapist isanything like me, they will be
(01:09:48):
very curious to hear.
The Relational Psych Podcast isa production of Relational
Psych, a mental health clinicproviding depth oriented
psychotherapy and psychologicaltesting in person in Seattle and
virtually throughout Washingtonstate. If you're interested in
psychotherapy or psychologicaltesting for yourself or a family
member, links to our contactinformation are in the show
(01:10:09):
notes. If you are apsychotherapist and would like
to be a guest on the show or alistener with a suggestion for
someone you'd like us tointerview, you can contact me at
podcast@relationalpsych.group.
The Relational Psych podcast ishosted and produced by me, Tyson
Conner. Sam Claney is ourexecutive producer with
technical support by Ally Rayeand the team at VirtualAlly.
Carly Claney is our CEO. Ourmusic is by Ben Lewis. We love
(01:10:31):
you buddy.
Do you want to learn about psychological growth
without sorting through thejargon? You're in the right
place. This is the RelationalPsych podcast. I'm your host
licensed therapist Tyson Connor.
On this show, we learn about theprocesses and theories behind
personal growth and experience alittle bit of it ourselves. This
is season two, where we'll focuson the practice of relational
psychotherapy, and exploreconcepts and theories that
(00:32):
consider psychology from arelational lens. And please keep
in mind that this podcast doesnot constitute therapeutic
advice, but we might help youAnd my guest for this episode is
Sally Bjorklund. Sally is afind some.
psychoanalyst practicing inSeattle. She works with adults
(00:54):
and couples and providesclinical consultation for
therapists. She was co founderand faculty of Relational
Psychoanalysis and PsychotherapySeattle. She is a clinical
supervisor in the NationalTraining Program at the National
Institute for Psychotherapy,she's is on the editorial board
of the Journal of PsychoanalyticPerspectives and teaches locally
in various programs. She was acontributor to clinical
(01:14):
implications of thepsychoanalyst life experience,
when the personal becomesprofessional, and has written
and presented on various topics,including sex and gender,
adoption, aging, working withhard to reach patients, and
erotic transference. Sally,thank you for coming on the show
and today we are going to beanswering the question or
(01:35):
beginning to answer the questionbecause might take longer than
an hour. What is thepsychoanalytic understanding of
sex and gender? So, Sally,what's a psychoanalytic
understanding of sex and gender?
Sally Bjorklund (01:53):
Well, I guess we have to, we have to start
with Freud where psychoanalysisstarts. Freud is in some words
in the culture, in the languagewe use that we don't necessarily
know came from Freud. But Freudactually upset the whole
(02:14):
Victorian society with his ideasabout sexuality, talking about
how our sexuality ispolymorphusly perverse, and that
his idea that we have this threepart structure of the ID, ego
and the super ego was the nextpart of his theory - that
(02:39):
because the sexual instinct isso unruly, that we have to use
our ego to control it, to makeit work in the proper
directions. Which according tohim, are that sex should be
about reproduction, it should beheterosexual. And his, his three
(03:07):
parts of the way that were puttogether psychologically, are
the ID, ego and the super ego.
So the ID is the home of thesexual instinct. It's what
drives us. And this is when youhear about Freud and drive
(03:27):
theory - that drive is a sexualinstinct. And it's the ego's
job, to control the drives, tomake them work in collaboration
with the demands of society. Thesuper ego then is also our
conscience, our moral advisorthat's formed by our parents and
(03:51):
social regulations and controlsus through anxiety, mostly
through anxiety, and guilt. SoFreud compared the ego in
relationship to the rider andthe horse. So if you think of
(04:17):
the horse as the unruly sexualdrive, then the ego is the rider
who has to keep things incontrol. So Freud also thought
that repressed sexual desireswere at the root of all
symptoms.
Tyson Conner (04:39):
I feel like our Listeners might have, depending
on their familiarity with Freud,the one thing that they'll most
quickly go to in their mind ishe's the guy who talks about sex
all the time. He's the sex guy.
And even in kind of pop cultureor conversations on the
internet. Anytime Freud comesup, one of the first things
people will point out was Wow,that guy was constantly thinking
(04:59):
about sex all the time. And whatI'm hearing you say is that at
Freud's time in -- for itssocial context, people weren't
really talking overtly about sexand sexuality. It was a pretty
highly repressed social contextthat he was in, there were clear
rules about these things, and wedidn't really talk about it. And
(05:23):
Freud's -- or that was maybe theacademic culture. And part of
what Freud did that was sovaluable, was he did start
talking about it. And he madesense of human behavior through
this, and a human mind, withsexuality as pretty central to
(05:45):
it. You describe this three partperson idea, which, every time I
hear about it from Freud, Ithink about I think it was
Aristotle also had a three partperson idea, but he called it
the appetite, the reason andspirit. And his analogy was of a
charioteer, where reason was thecharioteer, and then appetite
(06:09):
and spirit, were these two wildhorses that wanted to go
different directions. And itsounds like Freud had a pretty,
pretty similar concept of theego being the self, and that
kind of negotiates in some waysbetween the ID that wants things
and the super ego that says,Well, this is how you behave
(06:30):
appropriately to be acceptable-- something like that.
Sally Bjorklund (06:37):
Exactly. And that's an interesting comparison
with Aristotle, I think. Butwhat it got me thinking of is
something that Michel Foucaulthas written about in his book,
The History of Sexuality, VolumeI is that in the late 1800s, the
(06:57):
sexologists at the time, evenbefore Freud, were creating sex
as a psychological phenomena,that before that sex was just
something people did. So theidea that it it then becomes a
sin or a psychological drive isa new idea. It's trying to
(07:18):
connect the body with the mindin a new way. So when the
sexologist start categorizingdifferent types of sexualities,
so Foucault would say that,before the sexologists people
(07:40):
who had same sex sex, were justdoing something. And after the
sexologist, it became anidentity category. So it was who
you were not what you did.
Tyson Conner (07:52):
Interesting, interesting. So that kind of
cultural social shift washappening. Pretty concurrent,
maybe a little bit before Freud,he jumped on that wave at a time
where that was happening in, inconversations where people were
curious about sex and also abouthuman identity.
Sally Bjorklund (08:11):
Exactly. So the idea of categorizing things
of... that something becomes whoyou are, and not just what you
do, I think was a significanthistorical change. Also the
Victorian sensibility about thebody was if you were wealthy, if
(08:33):
you were upper class Victorian,the focus on not talking about
the body as this kind of dirtything you don't want to think
about versus the averagepeasant, who's very much in
their body. Living with all thebodily functions in the kingdom,
(08:59):
there's no indoor plumbing.
People sleep all in the sameroom. So the children are seeing
their parents have intervourseand this is part of the
background which Freud iswriting about sex in a kind of
new way, where he's saying thatthis is normal. We're all born
polymorphously perverse.
Tyson Conner (09:21):
So what does that mean? Polymorphously perversely,
Sally Bjorklund (09:26):
It means anything can be an object, that
our sexuality isn't tied to whathe later called the aim. And the
proper aim and object, Isuppose, include animals or same
sex, incest, or, that anythingcan be a target because we're
(09:52):
driven by this sexual impulse,the instinct of the aim.
Tyson Conner (09:56):
So when Freud says we're all polymorphously
perverse, and that's scandalousthing to say. It's because at
the time, there was the ideathat among the upper crust, the
people who were a little moredisconnected from their bodies
we'll say, at least in how theythought about folks and how they
felt about being. There was anidea that sex is a thing that
you do. That's also becoming anidentity category, but it's for
(10:20):
procreation, and it's betweenadult men and adult women, and
it's between adult men and theirwives. That's the category of
what sex is. And Freud showed upand said, well, actually, inside
of a person's mind, yoursexuality isn't just constrained
to that specific context. Itkind of can go to lots of
(10:42):
different places, and inside ofyour mind, even if you're not
acting on it, is that is thatkind of what he's getting?
Sally Bjorklund (10:48):
I'm not sure.
upperclass Victorian societywas, I think, on the surface,
they were very prudish, andapplied to women were very
prudish. But I think that sexwas just what it always is. I
don't know if you've seenBridgerton, or those kinds of
recreations of
Tyson Conner (11:10):
Throughout history, although cultures are
different. People are stillpeople and people tend to have
sex.
Sally Bjorklund (11:15):
So I think what I was trying to say about Freud
is that he did two kind ofopposite things. He said,
sexuality is normally unruly,and perverse. And that what's
required as we developpsychologically, is that we
become proper riders of thehorse or steering the chariot.
(11:36):
And the other thing he believedwas that repressed sexuality was
at the root of all psychologicalsymptoms.
Tyson Conner (11:45):
So he really was all about sex - depression,
anxiety, obsessive compulsivedisorder, psychosis, all of it,
Sally Bjorklund (11:52):
everything had to do with some kind of
repressed sexuality. And well,and then there's two kinds, then
there's the, the two kinds ofunconscious are the Repressed,
which is something that you'vethought about. And then because
(12:18):
it's unacceptable, you deny itor put it out of your mind. And
then there's the drive of ourID, our beast, that's
unconscious to us. From thebeginning, we were never aware
of our, of our ID drives.
Tyson Conner (12:29):
So in terms of parts of human sexuality, that
Freud thought caused trouble,there was the stuff that came in
that we chased out of ourawareness. And then there was
the stuff that never was in ourawareness in the first place.
And each of those could causetrouble in their own separate
ways.
Sally Bjorklund (12:47):
If the drive can't be, managed by your ego
and your super ego, it's gonnaget you into trouble.
Tyson Conner (12:56):
Oh, that makes sense.
Sally Bjorklund (12:57):
And the other things that... well the example
that fried gave from one of hispatients was this woman had all
these weird symptoms, she had aparapheasas and contractures -
that an arm would get stuck insome weird position, you
(13:22):
couldn't move it, she sometimesspoke in a foreign language for
no apparent reason. And what hediscovered through analysis was
that she had been sexuallyattracted to her sister's
fiance. And as soon as that cameout, her symptoms went away. So
that's kind of Freud's basis ofsaying these weird, unexplained
(13:46):
symptoms all have some kind ofrepressed sexual reason. And so
the job then of psychoanalysisis to uncover the repressed
desires. That's basic Freudianpsychoanalysis.
Tyson Conner (14:05):
So the image that I'm hearing or that's developing
in my mind is that tosignificantly oversimplify
Freud's theory of sexuality,there was an aim or purpose of
sexuality, which is to createmore human beings - very
(14:26):
biological basis, and it'sheterosexual and it's with a
person who can reproduce andthat's healthy. That's what
we're aiming for. That's whatwe're trying to become. And if
that's where our sexuality isaimed, then we are
psychologically well, but at thesame time, that human beings'
(14:48):
experience of their sexuality isincredibly varied and that
everyone has sexual drives andexperiences and attractions
outside of that aim. And so thenwas his understanding that the
goal of wellness, essentiallywas to no longer feel those
(15:11):
other attractions or to be awareof them or?
Sally Bjorklund (15:16):
Let me just back up because he talked about
the instinct, aim and theobject. So those are the things
that have to line up. So youhave your instinct is something
you're kind of stuck withdealing with. Your ego needs to
be in charge of having theproper aim, which is
reproduction and the properobject which is the opposite
(15:38):
sex, adult partner. I think theother thing that he really
focuses on is symptoms having todo with repressed sexual
desires. So that's differentthan ID drives are what Stephen
(16:04):
Mitchell later - one of thefounders of relational
psychoanalysis - came to callthe beast. Which by the way,
Stephen Mitchell rejectedFreud's idea of sex as the thing
that drives human behavior. So,but just sticking to Freud, I
(16:29):
think he thought society was incharge of regulating certain
amount of people's behavior, butpsychological health or treating
people with symptoms meant beingable to discover what their
repressed sexual desires were.
Tyson Conner (16:50):
And would those things be... so the category of
instinct aim and object -instinct is I want to have sex.
Aim is I want to have sex forthis purpose. An object is I
want to have sex with thatperson or thing.
Sally Bjorklund (17:06):
Well, that's the holding the reins is the
instinct, okay? And aim and theobject are the proper harnessing
of the drive,
Tyson Conner (17:19):
I see. And okay, so this is for its
conceptualization, which ispretty well tied to the time
that Freud was around, andattitudes about human sexuality.
And we haven't even talked aboutgender yet. Maybe we won't get
there today, maybe that'll be aseparate conversation, but
(17:41):
attitudes about human sexualityhave changed, a fair bit
societally, since Freud. How haspsychoanalysis and its attitude
towards -- you made mention ofStephen Mitchell, one of these
founders of this modernrelational, contemporary,
psychoanalytic turn movement,school, whatever it is, he
(18:04):
rejected Freud's idea of thecentrality of sexuality. So how
did he think about sex?
Sally Bjorklund (18:10):
Well as to back up a little bit, this is early
Freud. So Freud, later, partlyinfluenced by what he saw, the
horrible stuff that went on andWorld War One introduced the
idea of the death drive. SoFreud's idea is that we are
(18:32):
driven by these two drives,which sometimes work against
each other of the sex drive,which is a life instinct, and a
death drive. So then along comeswell, there were some things in
between, but Stephen Mitchell,in the 1980s, and other people
(18:55):
that were instrumental. Therewasn't really a founder of
relational psychoanalysis. Therewere a group of people. But he,
he and Dave Greenberg wrote thebook that kind of started the
whole relational revolution. Andone thing Steve was pretty
adamant about was rejecting thesexual instinct as the major
(19:20):
motive of human behavior. Hereferred to Freud's sex instinct
as the beast. And he believes hewas influenced by Fairburn and
other psychoanalytic thinkers tofeel that a need for connection
(19:42):
and attachment was a much morefundamental motivator of human
beings. So the whole drivetheory I think, has really been
displaced by an idea thatattachment needs something...
(20:03):
Everybody knows about that. Andit's read books. So they know
their attachment style.
Tyson Conner (20:10):
So attachment became more of the central, if
there's a motivator, if there'sa drive involved, it's probably
more modern relational thinkingwould probably turn to
attachment sooner than it turnedto sex.
Sally Bjorklund (20:26):
Well, absolutely. And if anything, I
think later relational thinkershave been a little critical of
Mitchell's downplaying of sex asa drive, like taming the beast
(20:48):
too much. So there is more of aemphasis on the importance of
the body, and sexuality alongwith the need for for connection
and attachment. Andre Green kindof famously complained that
relational thinking had takensex out of psychoanalysis. Of
(21:14):
course, it's a drastic, givenits beginnings, it's a drastic
thing to take out.
Tyson Conner (21:21):
I'm thinking about how much of this conversation is
about culture. We're talkingabout the culture that Freud
grew up in. And we're alsotalking about the culture of
psychoanalysis, and howpsychoanalysis talks about a
sex. And how we choose to talkabout it as, as a group, like
(21:43):
Freud's talking about sex, in away, was very disruptive for the
time and a way for him to speakdirectly to what he was seeing.
And it almost feels like there'sa, I don't know, a pendulum
swing, or a push pull happening,where Mitchell and others are
(22:04):
kind of de emphasizing thesexual side of things, in a way
to try to expand it and to say,well, maybe there's other things
going on. Maybe there's otherthings to think about. And also,
maybe thinking aboutpsychoanalysis as placed in, in
society in the 80s and 90s.
Maybe there's some motivation totry to make it a little bit less
(22:25):
weird, and more acceptable tobroader culture, saying, if
everyone thinks of us as thepeople talking about sex all the
time, I don't know, I don'tknow. That's just me playing
with ideas. But it's, it'sinteresting, how much of this
becomes a dialogue about how arewe going to talk about this? And
(22:48):
what does that mean for us as acommunity? How do we talk and
think about sex? And is it thething at the center? And do we
have normative expectations ofthis is how a person is supposed
to be? I don't know.
Sally Bjorklund (23:06):
Well, I think that's a good point. I think
there's a number of reasons thatpsychoanalysis which was kind of
in its heyday, probably in the60s when it was the dominant
form of treatment andpsychoanalysts were highly
respected. And was complicated,because it really wasn't until
(23:27):
the development of antipsychoticmedications and then
antidepressants, that psychiatrywas considered a respected
profession, that becausepsychiatrist really couldn't do
anything without those, thekinds of medicines that we have
now, especially for people withsevere mental disorders there
(23:49):
was no treatment. So psychiatrybecame a much more respectable
and probably better paidprofession, once antipsychotics
were developed, and thenantidepressants. So
psychoanalysis didn't have a lotof competition for other forms
(24:11):
of treatment and then for somepeople like in the Woody Allen
kind of parody or version ofpsychoanalysis that there are
certain people that that wasjust normal, everybody went to
psychoanalysis. So I have hadpatients from Argentina who
(24:32):
said, everybody in Argentina isin psychoanalysis from when
they're children. So, butespecially on the West Coast
that's not a big part of ourculture at all. And I think
though, along with thedevelopment of antidepressants
and other kinds of -- also,insurance companies didn't want
(24:55):
to pay for psychoanalysisanymore and cultural changes in
the 60s and 70s, attitudes aboutsexuality drastically changed.
So I think it stopped beingrelevant.
Tyson Conner (25:09):
So how does psychoanalysis catch up? Like
Steven Mitchell refers to it asthe beast. And in some ways, I'm
hearing that now as this is thebeast, in Freud's understanding
this is the beast that needstaming inside of every person.
And maybe Mitchell's alsosaying, this is also the beast
(25:30):
in our theory that we've got tofigure out how to tame so that
we can...
Sally Bjorklund (25:35):
I just think theory, Mitchell's great gift
was to read everything insteadof what often happens is people
who identify with a certaintheory then become siloed in
that theory, and don't readanything else. He read
(25:57):
everything, and he put togetherthings that he thought were
useful from lots of differenttheoretical orientations. And so
one thing that replaced DriveTheory was a look at how we
develop - how we develop incontext of our family. So when
(26:17):
it comes to sex, and gender,what do we get taught about
sexuality in our family? If yougrew up in a religious family,
what kind of messages did youget? I actually remember, my
family hosted this -- Wesometimes hosted exchange
(26:41):
students but this was a girl,teenage girl - I grew up in
Chicago - from Minnesota whowas... everything was mysterious
about her. And I found out yearslater that she was pregnant. And
that she got sense if we werestaying with her that she was
going to go to some home forunwed mothers that had to be far
(27:04):
away from home. So there's somecover story for why she wasn't
in Minnesota. That if you grewup in a family where that kind
of -- it made a big impressionand be like, Oh, my God, if you
get pregnant, that's going tobe... they're going to send you
away somewhere. Which that'sstill happens for that matter.
Tyson Conner (27:29):
Yeah
Sally Bjorklund (27:30):
I think that the Wallingford... The Good
Shepherd Center used to be ahome for unwed girls.
Tyson Conner (27:44):
Oh, wow.
Sally Bjorklund (27:48):
It's that's part of our history, as well. So
if you grew up in a family witha lot of shame about sex, or
prudishness, or if you grew upin a family where there's none
of that, and there's noboundaries, and maybe there's
sexual abuse - you're going tohave... that's going to affect
(28:09):
your development as a sexualbeing, your relationship to
sexuality. So relational theorywas much more interested in
thinking about what actuallyreally happens to us, not some
kind of ID drive. But what do weexperience growing up? How does
that affect our relationship toour bodies, our sense of
(28:35):
ourselves as sexual beings? Isthere trauma that's going to
change things? How much isaccepted in terms of
experimenting or trying thingsout? Or, certainly as a
clinician, that a huge number ofpeople who seek us out for help,
(28:58):
or people who have experiencedsome kind of sexual trauma? That
changes how we develop as sexualbeings. So anyway, Mitchell's
point is that what reallyhappens, actually, is what
determines our relationshiptowards sexuality. And of
(29:19):
course, I think it's also truethat what's happening in the
culture affects us. If you grewup in the late 60s and early 70s
There's both the free love butthere was also the Feminist
Revolution, and Stonewall andall those things that were
really changing the subsequentsocial messages about sexuality.
(29:43):
And of course those that relapseinto trying to control
everybody's sexuality with thefall of Roe... I mean, that's...
Don't get me started.
Tyson Conner (29:59):
Different podcast, ha. Yes. So part of what I'm
hearing you describe sounds tome like moving away from a way
of thinking about sexuality thathad a preconceived - this is
what's inside of every person.
And this is what it's supposedto be shaped into. And in a way
(30:20):
from that, and into, Well, whoknows what's inside of a person
to begin with. But their earlyexperiences growing up, heavily
impact and maybe even fullydefined how they engage with and
experience their own sexualityinternally, it was the shift
(30:41):
from well, there's a defaultthing that's in there to, who
knows what you get started with.
But whatever you end up with, isprobably determined by a
combination of the culture yougrew up in, and the subculture
you grew up in of your family,and then also just your
(31:02):
experiences of sexuality and ofyour own sexual self.
Sally Bjorklund (31:08):
Well, and I think also bringing back the
body into the question, not justof attachment and developmental
experiences, but ourrelationships to our bodies of
how do we relate to our bodies?
What's it like to be in myparticular body? And is it okay
for me to touch myself incertain pleasurable ways? Or
(31:29):
that I get the message that I'llgo blind If I do that? Or
whatever the message is aboutthat. I don't think there's any
denying that there's some kindof fundamental urge that almost
everybody has -- remember beinga teenager, surely, that how you
(31:49):
respond to that, and yourself,your bodily inclinations, then I
think interfaces with messagesfrom your family, but if you've
had trauma, what your personalexperiences... and people use
sex for all different kinds ofreasons - sex can be deployed
(32:12):
for all kinds of psychologicalneeds of -- classic example is
if a girl has experienced nothaving friends or being
unpopular, all of a sudden, shediscovers that boys are really
interested in her sexually, andthat she can get into trouble by
(32:33):
deploying her sexuality as a wayto get positive recognition,
without understanding what couldbe the negative outcome of that.
But we deploy sex in all kindsof - I mean, that's not news
that, stories of having to sleepwith the boss to get a
(32:54):
promotion? Or? I don't know, youcould probably think of any
example.
Tyson Conner (33:01):
I work with adolescents, I hear lots of
stories about ways that sex isdeployed. And it sounds like
part of what... there's kind oflike an expanding and
expansiveness, or broadening ofwhat sex could be for, and could
mean. That the Freudian conceptof these instinct, aim object
(33:26):
categories are kind of like --this is a very silly analogy,
but I play a lot of tabletoprole playing games, where you
roll dice, and they tell youwhat to do. And sometimes dice
explode, where if you roll acertain number, like a six, then
you get to roll even more dice,and the number goes up and up
and up and up. And so that's amechanic that some people use
(33:47):
when they're designing theirgames. I'm so sorry, Listener,
this is a very nerdy tangent.
But the image I got in my headis that this shift of thinking
about sexuality a little bitdifferently, kind of explodes it
a little bit, all of a sudden,the permutations of what sex can
mean for a person is far morebroad. And it sounds like there
is less of a implicit judgmenton it. And more of a complex
(34:13):
curiosity about it. Okay, youused sex in this moment for this
thing, and that isn't thereforeperverse or isn't therefore a
problem that needs fixing. Itmight be, but even a moment ago,
when you said, we were talkingabout the inherent, the
(34:33):
instinct, and if that's inpeople, and you said the word
almost - you said almosteverybody. That in and of itself
feels like a pretty significantthing to say. Because to
acknowledge even that there aresome people who don't, asexual
people exist, even acknowledgingthat kind of radically
challenges some of thefoundations of psychoanalysis.
(34:56):
So to have a theory that makesroom for that feels important
but also challenging.
Sally Bjorklund (35:04):
That's right.
And again, because we have somany identity categories now,
because there's an identitycategory for people who are
asexual, that I think thecategories again, get us into
trouble with the 'this is who Iam not what I do' and
understanding how are peopleusing or not using their bodies
(35:26):
and their sexuality and why.
This is what I hope happens intherapy that each individual
gets to have a personalconnection with an understanding
of how they use their ownsexuality, how they experience
it, what feels good, whatdoesn't feel good, what they
(35:49):
want, what they don't want. Ithink that Freud's system seemed
like it had a lot of rules to itof that, but I think that was...
I'm maybe giving him too muchcredit. But I think that was
also his trying to acquiesce toVictorian society by not being
(36:15):
too radical, because he wasgiving lectures, public
lectures, and when talking aboutpolymorphous perversity, which
is shocking, in 1890s. I thinkit's important for relational
psychoanalysis to get away frompathologizing, being the arbiter
(36:40):
of what's normative, when itcomes to sexuality and what's
pathological. Because it's notthat long ago, the DSM had
pathologizing diagnoses forcertain kinds of sexuality,
Tyson Conner (36:58):
Listener to define some terms a little bit, but to
pathologize something is to talkabout a thing as if it's
inherently a problem. Apathology is a sickness or
illness. To pathologizesomething is to talk about
something as if it's an illness.
So an example that's likelycoming to many of our listeners'
minds is homosexuality beingconsidered a mental disorder.
(37:19):
The DSM is the DiagnosticStatistical Manual. There are on
the fifth one, they're workingon the sixth edition now. And
it's the shared document thatthe medical system in the US and
a few other countries, althoughthere's some international
(37:40):
alternatives that we all use tocommunicate to one another. We
have these codes, and we havethese diagnoses. And so then if
you have a client chart, thatclient then moves to Florida,
their doctor in Florida can readit and can understand, oh, this
person was given this code, thatmeans they have arthritis or
whatever. And the DSMspecifically is for the mental
(38:03):
health related disorders, butit's part of that broader
system. And the thing that Itell my clients is that it's
mostly useful for communicatingwith insurance companies. But
Sally Bjorklund (38:16):
I think that's it's main function. I have no
other use for it.
Tyson Conner (38:20):
Haha. Maybe it didn't used to be, maybe there
used to be other functions forit, but doesn't seem like that's
likely. And up until, what wasit the DSM three, there was the
big controversy? There was areally great radio lab episode
about this, Listener. I'll linkto it in the show notes. But it
was kind of a big deal whenhomosexuality was removed from
(38:45):
the DSM, because it had been inthere a long time. And it was
staying in there a long time.
Sally Bjorklund (38:51):
I think that was in the... well, the American
Psychological Associationdecriminalized or
de-pathologized, took it out inI think it was 1971? But there's
still... the AmericanPsychoanalytic Association
(39:18):
didn't really start admittingcandidates to train in analysis
until the early 1990s. And thatwas under threat of a lawsuit.
So there still was a lot ofyears in at least in
psychoanalysis, wherehomosexuality was considered a
(39:40):
developmental problem that youneeded to go back to analysis to
undo and then once you werecured of your homosexuality,
then you could get into analytictraining,
Tyson Conner (39:53):
Which is something that sounds pretty absurd to me.
Sally Bjorklund (39:57):
Well, there were a couple of famous people
like Ralph throat and RichardIsay, who some people will
recognize those names who werenot practicing their gayness
when they got in, but thenstarted practicing after they
(40:18):
were already in, which is howthey got in. And we're very
influential withinpsychoanalysis of speaking out
about that, and making adifference.
Tyson Conner (40:34):
There's a couple of directions that I kind of
want this conversation to go,but I'm guessing we have to pick
one. But I'm hearing this, thisdevelopment within the theory,
from a kind of pathologizing ofwhat's not normative. And by
normative, Listener, thatdoesn't mean... It's kind of
like normal, but not quite.
Normative is when you say, thisis the way it ought to be. So
(40:56):
psychoanalysis had thisnormative idea of sexuality,
this is how sexuality ought tobe. And in the past 20-30 years,
there was a movement away fromthat, away from saying this is
how sexuality ought to be intosomething a little bit more
(41:16):
descriptive, maybe? And curious- this is how sexuality seems to
be working in people, and a kindof openness to more kinds of
difference, that don't indicatepathology or wellness one way or
the other, just kind of a factof being a person.
Sally Bjorklund (41:38):
Well said, I think that the idea that -- I'm
not wild about the expression,your authentic self, because I
don't know what the wordauthentic means, really. But
there was so much suffering thatwas clearly caused by people who
were having to be in the closet,and whose lives were
(42:04):
significantly impacted byhomophobia that I think that
recognition that creating thesenormative standards and saying
it's not okay to be you werereally, really destructive. So I
think we have shifted to --Well, first of all, I think
(42:27):
homosexuality withinpsychoanalysis is a non event
now. That's completely accepted.
And I think that the ideas ofgender dysphoria and how gender
develops has dramaticallychanged, as culture has demanded
(42:48):
that it changed as well. But tobe... psychoanalysis,
psychology, in general, has hada normative advising function to
say this is what normal peopleare. And if you aren't that
you're deviant. So to take thatresponsibility seriously, and
(43:09):
decide that, that needs to notbe our job because we're seeing
now this reversal, where thereare people in the in extreme
religious right to want toreimpose all those kinds of
normative advising. restrictionson who people can be.
Tyson Conner (43:36):
And I've also... I work with a lot of trans people.
That's, that's a lot of thefolks who I see, and I'm very
aware of the controversy withinthe trans community around the
category of gender dysphoriabecause it's inherently
(43:59):
pathologizing. And it's adiagnosis that you need to have
on your chart to receive thisparticular medical care. So I
give people that diagnosis, inpart so that they can get
treatments that will let, in thesame way that antidepressants
(44:21):
can save people's lives,hormones save people's lives,
and I've seen it happen. But forthem to do that, I need to give
them this diagnosis, which isinherently pathologizing. But
then there's also this -- sorry,I'm thinking out loud. There's
this tension that I'm hearing inwhen talking about sexuality,
(44:44):
and maybe it applies to acertain degree to gender as
well. Where these categories canbe really limiting when we want
to think about a person and howa person works, and these
identity categories are reallyimportant for us to create
community and have community andfind community, they seem to be
(45:04):
really important on a societallevel to be able to say, these
are my people. And thoseidentity categories can
sometimes limit people's abilityto engage with all of the
different parts of themselves.
Sally Bjorklund (45:20):
It's making me think about Judith Butler's
work. In particular, her idea ofwhat do you have to be to be a
recognizable subject to society?
To be able to -- so you'retalking about community, but
there's also a way that I needto have my subjectivity
(45:41):
validated and recognized in theway that I'm expressing it or
living it? And so there areforces, political forces now
that want to say that's not aviable subjectivity.
Tyson Conner (45:59):
And the conversation around it even is
to call... to say that to betrans is to be mentally ill.
That's the argument. And from myexperience in psychoanalytic
spaces, there are some peoplewho I've tried to talk to about
some of my trans clients. Andit's impossible to have a
conversation that doesn't talkabout psychosis. Because the
(46:20):
fact that I'm talking aboutsomeone who's identified gender
identity is different than thanthe one that they were assigned
at birth. Their mind this, thisperson, who I have had
conversations with, their mindimmediately goes to psychosis,
because it's in their brain.
Well, the gender you're bornwith is your gender. And if you
think you're a different one,then you're psychotic. That's
just the theory that they'reworking with.
Sally Bjorklund (46:43):
I can't imagine that there isn't anybody who
hasn't had some feeling of anout of gender experience at some
time in their life. I think menhave a version of it, or -- just
think about my own thinkingabout this. There's really fun
(47:07):
pictures from when I'm five andwith my best friend, Larry
Crawford, and he's got thisreally cool Hawaiian print
swimming trunks. And I havethese kind of goofy shorts, and
neither of us have any top on.
And we're in this swimming pool,having a great time. And I
really remember what my mothersaid, You can't not wear a shirt
anymore. Why? I look exactlylike Larry Crawford from a top
(47:30):
up. Feeling like that's justinsane. I didn't mind being a
girl, but I minded that theroles are different. for girls.
And that happened a lot. BecauseI was a kid before title nine.
So there were a lot of - as thebest pitcher in the baseball
team that let me pitch forLittle League, but I couldn't
(47:54):
play in the games because it wasa girl - why? So my own
experience was, I don't want tobe a boy. But I don't want this
definition. But being a girl isright, so that. And conversely,
I had the experience of walkinginto a coffee shop and I was
(48:15):
dressed kinda fancy and they,you know a nice, dressy blouse
and some white pants I happen tohave on Doc Martens. And this
woman has got on this reallytight fitting top with lots of
cleavage sticking out and a veryshort tight skirt and high
heels. And she walked in thedoor in front of me and I
(48:38):
thought, are we've this from thesame species? The same group?
Not so much that I felt like Iwas failing at my gender
performance as a female. But Ijust looked at her and I
thought, she is as alien to me -dressing up like that is so
(49:00):
alien to my experience that Ican't imagine that. But I've
also had patients who'veliterally said - male patients -
have said, You're not veryfeminine, are you? I mean, they
weren't the most technicalpatients, but in essence were
saying you're not doing a verygood job of performing your
(49:22):
gender correctly. But I thinkprobably men have that if they
are moved to tears at somemoment when they're not supposed
to cry, or...
Tyson Conner (49:36):
Well, I am remembering. I was on a mission
trip. There was a time in mylife where that was going to be
a big part of my life. Andthat's no longer the case.
Sally Bjorklund (49:52):
Not a mission to another planet?
Tyson Conner (49:54):
No, no, it was a mission. Well, it might as well
have been Southeast Asia. Ohboy. But we were on this mission
trip and we were kayaking. Forsome reason. I don't know why,
what that had to do --
Sally Bjorklund (50:06):
Kayaking for the Lord. Haha
Tyson Conner (50:07):
Yes, kayaking for Jesus, thank you - ha! He
enjoyed our kayaking triplikely. And I was in this area
where these two people I waspaired up with one of the
leaders of the group. And wewere paddling along, and I was
We know what happened to thatplace.
just about to go off to Seattleto go to school. And she was
talking to me about, well, whatchurch are you going to go to?
(50:31):
And what are you going to do?
And somehow our conversationmoved to where I felt I fit in
in the group and in the socialcircles that I run in, because
this group was mostly women. Andthere was me and one other guy
on this trip. And I said, justthinking out loud to her as its
18 year old. I was like, I don'tknow, I think there's a lot of
(50:54):
ways where I'm, I'm just morefeminine. And, she she reacted
like she was offended. She was,no, no, no, no, no, not
feminine, sensitive, maybe, butyou're still a man. And I
remember that phrase 'sensitive,maybe, but you're still a man.'
And it was like, for me to say,Toxic masculinity is what
happened in that place on anI don't know, I feel kind of
(51:15):
feminine, was a threat orsomething. It was emasculating.
Which is not how I -- actuallyshe actually recommended I go to
Mars Hill, the church.
epic scale. So I'm glad I didn'tlisten to her. That's not true.
(51:39):
I went to Mars Hill a coupletimes. And then I did what most
college students did, and Istopped going to church because
there are more fun things to doon my Sunday mornings, like
sleep.
Sally Bjorklund (51:48):
So you really were on a mission to Mars?
Tyson Conner (51:50):
I was Oh, absolutely. That's funny. But I
think part of what I'm curiousabout is when talking about
gender, did psychoanalysis havea similar kind of development?
(52:11):
Along as we talked about, withsexuality, whether there was
this normative prescriptive,this is how it ought to be. And
then more recently, a movementtowards a more open, gender is a
part of a person's mind butisn't predetermined to be one
thing or another?
Sally Bjorklund (52:31):
Well, I think psychoanalysis was dominated by
men forever male voices. Andeven women analysts had to kind
of act like men to be in theclub. But the beginning of
relational psychoanalysisbrought in voices from all
different disciplines of likeJessica Benjamin, who comes from
(52:58):
critical theory and socialtheory. Adrienne Harris, who
comes from developmental theory,Merrill Dimon who came from
anthropology, and all thisreally strong feminist
backgrounds. And Steve Mitchellwas really open to... wanted
(53:19):
them included from the verybeginning in the small groups to
get together to talk that sortof invented this new way of
thinking. And feminism was ahuge part of that. So I think
the, the kind of questioning ofthe underlying assumptions that
(53:42):
were never questioned aboutgender by psychoanalysis, were
suddenly now saying, society hasa huge impact on how we all
develop in terms of ourgenderness -- that's making me
(54:03):
think of what you said beforeabout gender dysphoria. Virginia
Goldener wrote a wonderfularticle about trans things where
she pointed out that if a womanlike Kim Kardashian, for
example, wants to go have buttimplants and breasts modified
(54:29):
and all kinds of plasticsurgery, she doesn't have to go
have a psychiatric evaluationfirst. So it's okay to, to go
from being femme to more femme.
But if you want to cross thenyou have to get permission in a
psychiatric interview that...
(54:51):
it's a weird paradox. Because ofcourse, some people use plastic
surgery to make themselves looklike they're from another
planets.
Tyson Conner (55:03):
Well, I'm thinking about the idea of thinking about
sexuality in terms of how we useit, and what it's used for, and
how I think gender is oftensomething that we use. We use it
for lots of different things.
I've known people who used theirgender to protect themselves.
And I've known people who usedtheir gender to be provocative
and challenging. And people whohave used their gender to move
(55:27):
up in their careers and peoplewho have you who have minimized
their gender so that they couldmove up in their careers.
Sally Bjorklund (55:33):
And that reminds me of this wonderful,
remarkable patient I saw yearsago who had come out of a really
abusive childhood and escapedhome, but lived on the streets
and passed as a boy, for adecade. She figured out it'd be
(55:57):
a way to avoid... So there'ssome obvious things like that,
but in my work with transpeople, I feel I'm a little
reluctant about the places thatare just 100%. If you think that
you're trans, we'll doeverything we can to facilitate
your next steps. And I won't dothose evaluations, because I'm
(56:22):
so opposed to the whole idea.
That I think that's wrong tohave to give people a
psychiatric disorder. But peopleneed it, so good that you're
willing to do it. But it hasbeen my experience that people
use their gender for lots ofcomplicated reasons and
(56:44):
sometimes have had theexperience that somebody who did
work with somebody who wasfacilitated to very easy, smooth
- Oh, so you're trans? Here,I'll help you do this without
really asking very manyquestions - that in working more
(57:06):
closely with this person, itreally seemed like they needed a
new way to start. Their sense ofthemselves as a person as a
subject had just felt like itwas failing. And so it was
either kind of suicide, or thenthe idea that, Oh, I could, I
could transition and have a newstart and had, a whole fantasy
(57:29):
imagination about this personthat they could become that was
fixing a different problem. Andwhat we discovered was they went
through the transition process,but they still had the thing
that they had before. How do Ihave, because they still didn't
(57:53):
really have a viable sense ofbeing somebody to themselves
they can be in the world, notjust to other people. So
sometimes people are too quickto facilitate. Oh, this will fix
the problem without reallylooking more deeply at what does
(58:13):
the person need that they'reusing gender to try to achieve -
not that there's anything wrongwith transitioning, but maybe
it's missing the point of what aperson actually really needs? Or
is trying to figure out how tohave a viable sense of subject
to themselves.
Tyson Conner (58:35):
I feel there's a parallel here with, I made the
comment before, in the same waythat that antidepressants can
save lives, I've seen hormonesbe able to save lives. And
similarly to how antidepressantsare really effective at reducing
the symptoms, but don't always,well, they don't get to the
underlying cause. Sometimes theunderlying cause of depression
(58:58):
appears to be purely, biologicalimbalance of chemicals in the
brain and okay, and I've metpeople who they take their meds,
and then things are better, andthey're just I'm good. That's
their experience, and I'm notgoing to take that away from
them. And I've also met an awfullot more people who take their
(59:20):
meds and that helps a lot. Andthere's also something that that
depression was coming from.
There's something that spurnedthe symptom, that there's some
benefit in being curious aboutand trying to make sense of, or
engage with or make contact withlots of different words, for
some version of look at it andthink about it. And I'm hearing
(59:41):
you suggest that maybe there'ssomething similar going on with
gender. Where yeah, transitionis a powerful, important
significant part of a transperson's experience. And that if
we think of gender as this thingthat just is in a person one way
or another, then we we mightmiss out on a lot of the ways
(01:00:06):
that we use gender and the waysthat gender evolves in developed
in person exactly that thecuriosity isn't so that we can
gate keep it better, but so thatwe can help people understand
themselves better and more fully
Sally Bjorklund (01:00:21):
And in some ways trans can reify the gender
right.
binary, so that non binary isthis whole other thing that, I
mean, in some ways, it's kind ofexciting, because it seems like
it's trying to undo - gonna behard to get rid of. Because in
(01:00:42):
part, then we have to choosefrom the gendered performances
to create a non binary thing. Sowe're stuck in this circular
thing of how do you get outsideof the gender binary, but I
(01:01:03):
think there's... I rememberworking with this man who was,
he was really, really handsome,he dressed impeccably, he was
financially successful, he had alot of money. And he had a
tremendous amount of guilt - ohand he's white - for his while
(01:01:25):
male privilege and everything hehad in life. And so he tended to
date women of color, who didn'thave very much money and helped
them out financially. And he wasseriously thinking about trying
to figure out how to be nonbinary. As a way, I think, to
(01:01:46):
try to solve his problem withfeeling guilty for all of his
male white privilege - a way totry to say, I want to find the
community of, like you weresaying before about importance
of community is, a community ofI don't want to belong to this
club that I kind of fell into,but I don't like being in this
(01:02:11):
club. And I thought that wasreally interesting that he was
seriously thinking about tryingto perform his gender
differently as both to escapesomething in himself, but also
to identify differently withother folks.
Tyson Conner (01:02:27):
That is fascinating. I think there -- in
the outline that we're workingoff of, you included a Judith
Butler quote that I hadn't seenbefore, and I want to read it,
because it's coming to mind now.
So thank you. But the idea that'gender is an imitation for
which there is no original.'
Sally Bjorklund (01:02:48):
Exactly
Tyson Conner (01:02:49):
That concept is - I'm sure there are some
Listeners who are like, Tysonthat's basic feminism. I'm
sorry, I went to an evangelicalundergrad I didn't I wasn't
exposed to a lot of basicfeminists have
Sally Bjorklund (01:03:01):
Not everybody's read Judith Butler.
Tyson Conner (01:03:03):
Including me. So but now you've heard that quote,
and I think I'm aware of time,and I want to respect your time
and wrap us up. And, again, tooversimplify a lot of what we
talked about, the thing that I'mhearing you say is in answer to
the question, what's thepsychoanalytic understanding of
sex and gender? Part of theanswer is, it's complex. And
(01:03:31):
it's curious about what peopleare up to, in their use of an
engagement with their sexuality,and gender, both as they are
things that are done. And asthey are things that we are,
both in terms of gender identityand action. And it sounds like
(01:03:51):
if there's an invitation in whatyou're describing, it's an
invitation to usepsychoanalysis, or an analytic
psychotherapy, or whatever thatspace as a space to be able to
be curious about the ways thatyou don't fit into the
categories. There are some waysthat in general conversation,
(01:04:13):
we've all accepted certaincategories. And we all share
them, and we don't questionthem. And I present myself as a
cis man in the world. And aswe've already talked about, I
Yes, I have had experiences thatare outside of my gender. And a
psychotherapy or psychoanalysisis a space to be curious about
those other parts, to be able tosay, hey, there are parts of me
(01:04:36):
that don't fit the categoriesthat I adhere to kind of rigidly
outside of here, to be a littleless rigid about it to be a
little more curious about it,and maybe discover new parts of
yourself and maybe understandoneself a little bit more, maybe
find some conflicts that can beresolved or something I don't
know.
Sally Bjorklund (01:04:56):
We just have a better sense of kind of
claiming... a sense of owningwho you are and how you want to
perform or express yourselfthat, in addition to the all the
developmental things we talkedabout, there's also Francisco
(01:05:19):
Gonzalez and others haveintroduced the idea of this
social unconscious and, yes,Freud's unconscious, but the way
that we are interfacing all thetime with not just psychological
norms, but with pressure fromsociety from how to be, or how
to look or how to act. And Ithink that analysis can be
(01:05:42):
enormously helpful in trying tohelp a person find what... how
they're put together, whatmatters to them, what it would
mean to them to livepassionately. And with as much
(01:06:04):
self awareness as possible, asopposed to just following trends
or trying to either avoid or getsome benefits. I think those of
us who do this work, believe andhave a passion for self
awareness as a path tofulfillment. That was the
(01:06:28):
commercial for ya.
Tyson Conner (01:06:32):
All right, well, I'm sold. Anything that you
would like to plug or oradvertise? I mean, if people are
hearing this conversation, andthey want to find you, where can
you be? Where would you like tobe found?
Sally Bjorklund (01:06:50):
Well, I do have a website! I could be found on
the interweb. Read JudithButler. Read Michel Foucault,
study history, because historyis repeating itself right now.
(01:07:11):
And Milan Kundera said man'sstruggle with power is the
struggle of memory againstforgetting. My might have gotten
that not exactly right. Thatseems really important right
now. To be able to rememberwhere we've been. And to not
(01:07:35):
forget what we know from thepast.
Tyson Conner (01:07:40):
That does feel really important and relevant to
the things that we're discussingtoday. Because they often come
for queer people first,controlling normatizing systems.
Thank you so much for coming onthe show. We appreciate it
Sally Bjorklund (01:07:55):
It was fun.
Tyson Conner (01:07:56):
I'm glad.
Special thanks to SallyBjorklund for coming onto this
episode of the podcast. Sallycan be found at her website,
Sallybjorklund.com. Sally hasalso provided us with quite the
extensive further learning listof resources. The booklets that
Sally provided could serve asthe reading list for a course,
(01:08:20):
an introductory course on apsychoanalytic understanding of
sex and gender. So, Listener, ifanything that we talked about
today really caught yourattention or sparked your
curiosity, I highly encourageyou to check out that book list
in the further learning section.
There's a lot of ways into thistopic. And a lot of those books
are a lovely starting point. Foran experiment this episode, we
really just have a couple ofquestions that we'd love you to
(01:08:43):
ponder, Listener. The firstquestion is, when were you first
aware of your gender? And thefollow up question to that. When
have you felt like you weren'tdoing your gender right? Or
misaligned with your gender ormis attuned with it? My hope is
(01:09:04):
that these two questions mightget you thinking about your own
gender identity development andways that maybe you haven't
thought about before. And alsoabout how you use your gender in
the way that Sally and I talkedabout in this episode, and some
of the same questions can beapplied to sexuality as well.
How do you use your sexuality?
(01:09:28):
When did you first become awareof your sexuality? When did you
feel misaligned with yoursexuality? So that's the
experiment. Just think about it,see what comes up. And if you're
in therapy, and are interested,talk to your therapist about it.
Because if your therapist isanything like me, they will be
(01:09:48):
very curious to hear.
The Relational Psych Podcast isa production of Relational
Psych, a mental health clinicproviding depth oriented
psychotherapy and psychologicaltesting in person in Seattle and
virtually throughout Washingtonstate. If you're interested in
psychotherapy or psychologicaltesting for yourself or a family
member, links to our contactinformation are in the show
(01:10:09):
notes. If you are apsychotherapist and would like
to be a guest on the show or alistener with a suggestion for
someone you'd like us tointerview, you can contact me at
podcast@relationalpsych.group.
The Relational Psych podcast ishosted and produced by me, Tyson
Conner. Sam Claney is ourexecutive producer with
technical support by Ally Rayeand the team at VirtualAlly.
Carly Claney is our CEO. Ourmusic is by Ben Lewis. We love
(01:10:31):
you buddy.
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