Newsfeed > Apology to the LGBTQ+ Community
The New Center for Psychoanalysis (NCP) proudly supports the American Psychoanalytic Association, as well as a number of other psychoanalytic institutes and associations, in their recent apologies to the LGBTQ+ community.
We acknowledge that the damage caused to LGBTQ+ people as a result of discrimination in our field has been serious, long lasting, and continues to this day. We take responsibility for the role that members of our institute played in pathologizing LGBTQ+ identities, which sadly led to negative views in the general public about LGBTQ+ people, as well as to clinical practices that reinforced the very shame and self-hatred that LGBTQ+ people sought treatment to relieve.
In recent years many members of our institute have worked hard to right the wrongs of the past by exploring various expressions of gender and sexuality with a tone of affirmation and creativity. We have made great progress, and yet there is still so far to go. In particular, much more work needs to be done in the area of gender, where transgender, gender non-binary, and other gender non-conforming people are severely stigmatized, both in society and within the field of mental health.
We are committed to counteracting the discrimination that is so harmful to the LGBTQ+ community. We hope that taking responsibility for our part in the practices of the past can make way for an era where psychoanalysts not only “don’t discriminate” against their LGBTQ+ patients, but where gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, gender non-binary, intersex, and all other people under this umbrella will be met with acceptance, understanding, and affirmation of who they are.
ApsAA apology: http://www.apsa.org/content/news-apsaa-issues-overdue-apology-lgbtq-community
Myra Pomerantz, PhD, NCP President
Paulene Popek, PhD, NCP President-Elect
Van Dyke DeGolia, MD, NCP Dean
Doryann Lebe, MD, NCP Dean
Michele Gomes, PsyD, Co-Chair, Committee on Diversities and Sociocultural Issues
Justin Shubert, PsyD, PhD, Co-Chair, Committee on Diversities and Sociocultural Issues
Joseph Verrone, LCSW, Co-Chair, Committee on Diversities and Sociocultural Issues
Mara Thorsen, PhD, President of the Clinical Associates Organization