From Psychoanalytic Bisexuality to Bisexual Psychoanalysis: Desiring in the Real

153 Pages·2019·2.87 MB·English

by  Esther Rapoport

FROM PSYCHOANALYTIC
BISEXUALITY TO BISEXUAL
PSYCHOANALYSIS
This is the first book to assess bisexuality through a range of psychoanalytic
and critical perspectives, highlighting both the issues faced by bisexual
people in contemporary society and the challenges that can be presented
by bisexual clients within a clinical setting.
Examining bisexuality through the lenses of Lacanian, Winnicottian
and Relational psychoanalytic theories, the book outlines the ways in
which the concept is at once both dated and tremendously important. It
includes case studies to explore the issue of widespread countertransference
responses in the clinical setting, in addition to using both bisexual theory
and empirical research on biphobia to comment on the social pressures
facing bisexual men and women, and the resultant psychological effects.
Bisexual identities and practices have become increasingly visible in
recent years, and this important book addresses the lack of critical reck-
oning with the topic within the psychoanalytic community. It will be of
great interest to practicing psychoanalysts and psychotherapists as well as
to researchers across the fields of psychoanalysis and gender and sexuality
studies.
Esther Rapoport, PsyD, is a clinical psychologist maintaining a full-
time practice in Tel Aviv. She is on the board of the Israeli Chapter of
IARPP (International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and
Psychotherapy) and is a candidate at the Academy for Clinical and Applied
Psychoanalysis in New Jersey.
“This book is refreshing in that it pointedly critiques the erasure of bisexual
desire in psychoanalytic texts and firmly inscribes bisexuality as an identity
and practice in clinical theory. Rapoport’s cogent theoretical formulations
and vivid clinical examples make it clear that psychoanalysis has not suc-
ceeded in theorizing bisexuals out of existence.”
Lynne Layton, Harvard Medical School,
past editor of Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society
“Rapoport eloquently asks us to consider the centrality of bisexuality to
our theoretical knowledges – and lived experiences – of the sexual, the
erotic, the intimate. Long misunderstood, bisexuality is both a potential
out of which narrower experiences of sexuality and gender are conditioned
and a particular form desire can take. What kind of healing may occur if
we recognize a bi-erotic subjectivity? Desiring will transform how we un-
derstand not just bisexuality but sex, sexuality, and gender.”
Jonathan Alexander, Chancellor’s Professor of English
and of Gender and Sexuality, UC, Irvine
“In this compelling book, Rapoport addresses the complicated meeting
point between sex, gender, identity and subjectivity through the question
of bisexuality. The book offers an important critique of identitarian
approaches to sexuality while also insisting on a discourse of bisexuality
that accounts for its subjective experience and representation. Rapoport
places bisexuality – a signifier for unknowability – at the centre of inter-
disciplinary discussion in ways that widen its clinical and theoretical scope
without settling its meaning.”
Oren Gozlan, PsyD, ABPP, author of Transsexuality and
the Art of Transitioning: A Lacanian Perspective
“An exciting and sophisticated reassessment of the foundational psychoan-
alytic concept of bisexuality. Rapoport opens up new horizons, theoretical
and clinical, of how psychoanalysis might revision bisexual subjectivity.
A necessary and timely contribution.”
Celia Brickman, PhD, author of Race in Psychoanalysis
FROM PSYCHOANALYTIC
BISEXUALITY
TO BISEXUAL
PSYCHOANALYSIS
Desiring in the Real
Esther Rapoport
First published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2019 Esther Rapoport
The right of Esther Rapoport to be identified as the author
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-0-367-22746-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-22750-0 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-27670-5 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by codeMantra
That fellow strikes me as god’s double,
Couched with you face to face,
delighting
In your warm manner, your,
amiable
Talk and inviting
Laughter - the revelation flutters
My ventricles, my sternum and
stomach.
Sappho, 7th-6th cent. BCE
This is taken out of a Penguin Classics book Sappho, Stung with Love: Poems and
Fragments.

CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction 1
1 Bisexuality: the undead (m)other of psychoanalysis 13
2 Which traditional psychoanalytic meanings of
bisexuality are worth keeping, and which had
better go? 28
3 Object choice: choosing objects of psychoanalytic
inquiry from among the different meanings of
bisexuality 38
4 Bisexual subjectivity through the lenses of Lacanian,
Object Relations and Relational theories 53
5 Epistemologies of the fence: meeting points between
bisexual and contemporary psychoanalytic
epistemologies 67
viii Contents
6 Bisexuality and Oedipus, a strained relationship:
anti-Oedipal, post-Oedipal and extra-Oedipal
bisexualities 75
7 Abjection in action: bisexual patient and transference-
countertransference dynamics 90
8 Women and men: overlapping experiences, different
pressures 105
9 Masters of transformation: bisexual and transgender
bodies, and the problem of death 116
Bibliography 123
Index 135
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost, my heart is filled with gratitude for my courageous and
inspiring patients, who generously allowed me to use sensitive material
from our sessions. I feel indebted to Cress Forester, Lynne Layton, Shaily
Wardimon, Celia Brickman, Atalia Israeli Nevo, Katya Zacharov Assaf,
Oren Gozlan, Maya Mukamel and Judy Roth for taking the time to read
and comment on various parts of this work at different stages of completion.
This book would never have seen the light were it not for Rachel Krause
(of Palgrave Macmillan) and Celia Brickman, who both suggested, around
the same time, that an article on bisexuality in psychoanalytic theory I had
previously published in Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society be developed into
a manuscript. My deepest gratitude goes to Jack Pula and Offer Maurer
for kindly permitting me to cite their unpublished work. I am grateful
to Offer Maurer, Amalia Ziv, Alon Zivoni, Yoav Antman and Udi Chen
and Atalia Israeli Nevo for inviting me to present my work-in-progress
at the “Gay-Friendly” Clinicians Forum in Tel Aviv, the Gender Studies
Department of the Ben Gurion University of the Negev, the Psychology
Department of the Tel Aviv University, the Clinical Evenings Program of
the Israeli Forum for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy and at
Festibi, Bisexual Community Conference, respectively. These presenta-
tions and conversations with the colleagues, fellow researchers, students
and activists who attended them helped me immensely in further refining
what I wished to accomplish in this book.