Socarides, Charles W. 1922–2005

(Charles William Socarides)

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born January 24, 1922, in Brockton, MA; died of heart failure, December 25, 2005, in New York, NY. Psychoanalyst and author. Socarides was best known for his long-held and steadfast position that homosexuality is a treatable mental illness. Deciding he wanted to be a psychoanalyst when he was a young boy and inspired by the writings of Sigmund Freud, he completed his undergraduate work at Harvard College in 1945. This was followed by an M.D. from New York Medical College in 1947 and psychoanalysis studies at Columbia University. Working for universities in New York and as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Defense, Socarides began publishing his views on homosexuality with The Overt Homosexual (1968; later revised as Homosexuality: Psychoanalytic Therapy in 1978). Here, Socarides asserted that homosexuals are often victims of a domineering mother and chronically absent father, a family situation that skews their sense of sexual identity. With therapy, he claimed that many homosexuals could be at least partially treated to become "nongay homosexuals." By the 1970s, however, Socarides's views were losing popularity among the scientific community. This culminated in 1973, when the American Psychiatric Association no longer listed homosexuality as an illness. Socarides maintained his position, however, and in the 1990s founded the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality to pursue his work. He continued to write many more books on this subject, as well as on other sexual issues, including The Pre-Oedipal Origin and Psychoanalytic Therapy of Sexual Perversions (1988), Homosexuality: A Freedom too Far (1995), and, with Loretta Loeb, The Mind of the Pedophile: Psycho-Analytic Perspectives (2003). Ironically, his own son was openly gay, a fact Socarides blamed on himself.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Los Angeles Times, December 31, 2005, p. B15.

New York Times, December 28, 2005, p. C18.

Washington Post, January 2, 2006, p. B5.