Is Lesbianism A Sickness Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Is Lesbianism A Sickness - turn out ExampleCalling nighthing a mental illness has, ever since psychology became a respectable science, has conventional an effective tool for smearing idiosyncratic human beings with the label of deviant or abnormal. These diagnoses have, instead of promoting individual health and well-being, reinforced societys biases and promoted oppression. Unfortunately, these kinds of attitudes and folk psychological notions of mental illness still remain, which leads some people (particularly lesbians) to remain safely in the closet. However, doing so poses a great risk to the psychology of the lesbian in question. Nevertheless, as Nanette Gartrell1 points out, coming out of the closet is the only way to resolve many of the puzzle that afflict lesbians who feel that silence is necessary for their jobs, homes, economic security, families, friends, or their children.Gartrell surveys the history of lesbianism by looking at its history of psychological evaluation . Like male homosexuality, it was treated as an illness or as a matter of abnormal psychology. While it is clear today that there is no physical basis for such a scientific final stage, in previous times the science was made to reflect a value-based conclusion instead of a factual one. Freud, like in many of his examinations, created an elaborate explanation for lesbianism, using a series of his concepts. Likewise, Helene Deutsch explained lesbianism by looking at the phenomenon as a perversion, which is a patently anti-scientific inference. comment of this psychological methodology led to advances in the study of lesbianism from a psychological perspective, and thus a break-dance understanding of the phenomenon itself. No longer were lesbians categorically seen as perverse by researchers indifferent investigations could pursue the rightfulness about the place of lesbians relative to heterosexual women in the