Conversations about Psychology and Sexual Orientation

Chapter 7: Bringing Psychology in from the Cold: Framing Psychological Theory and Research within a Social Constructionist Psychology Approach

Chapter 7 Bringing Psychology in from the Cold Framing Psychological Theory and Research within a Social Constructionist Psychology Approach Vivienne Cass Introduction In the last month I have counseled a number of people who appear to be oblivious to the sexual orientation categories that exist in our society. One of these, David, age 44, is a good example. Married for fifteen years with six children, he was having his first emotional and sexual relationship with another man. He described this as a “top-up” to the relationship with his wife, to whom he is close. Neither he nor his wife used the words “gay,”“heterosexual,” or “bisexual” to refer to his situation, nor did the conversation revolve around his “sexual orientation.” They simply described what was happening and discussed issues in their own relationship . No doubt my recent client list would leave many constructionists breathless with hope! Perhaps the concept of sexual orientation is becoming irrelevant to personal experience. Perhaps we really are beginning to understand relationships, emotions, and attractions without needing to label them as homosexual or heterosexual. However, for every David who comes to my office, I also see another ten individuals whose language is peppered with references to sexual orientation as they discuss sexualromantic attractions to people of a particular gender. Their psychological realities appear to be as “real” as those of David. Or are they? 106 An element of judgment, wafting through a great deal of constructionist writing, suggests that the lived “sexual orientation experiences” (attractions, identities, and struggles) of individuals are not a primary consideration, that the focus for theorists and researchers should be on sexual orientation as social construct and on the purposes such a concept has for society. I have never felt at ease with what I see as this sociologically driven brand of constructionism. As a psychologist, looking at the weight of the literature on cognitions, learned behaviors, motivations, social behavior, and so on and drawing on my clinical experience, I find the attention to the cultural and associated neglect of the psychological disturbing. Until recently, discussion about constructionist approaches to sexual orientation has nearly always been led by nonpsychologists. This concerns me, not because psychology missed out on the “debate” between essentialism and constructionism (I consider we were largely to blame for this), but because of what I see as the narrow sociocultural determinism that now governs our constructionist discourse on sexual orientation . Pervading the discussion is an assumption that the public messages provided by Western culture about sexual orientation are directly replicated or copied across into people’s private lives (the so-called cultural fax model of human behavior [D’Andrade, 1992; Strauss, 1992]).1 Supposedly , individuals become heterosexual, lesbian, gay, or bisexual because Western society teaches that these states of being are available. Yet it would seem that this approach merely replaces the biological fax model (i.e., people adopt sexual orientations because biological dispositions demand it). Little attempt is made by either approach to address the way sexual orientation as a public construct comes to be taken into the private realm, into people’s thoughts, actions, and feelings and sexual arousal patterns. While there can be no doubting the significance of adopting a constructionist approach to sexual orientation, its present superficial understanding of human behavior can only be disturbing to those cognizant of the complexity of behavioral change and development . That psychological reductionism and sociological models of human behavior dominate constructionist commentary is a result, I believe, of the psychological perspective being either absent from the discussion or so timidly presented as to be easily discounted. This in itself is not surprising , since psychologists are still trained in the paradigms of tradiBringing Psychology in from the Cold 107 tional (nonconstructionist and anticonstructionist) psychology. In addition , the constructionist psychology movement is still relatively unknown to the majority of psychologists, who are ignorant of its basic premises. It is therefore pleasing to see the authors of this book examining the meaning of social constructionist thinking in terms of its implications for psychological theory and research. We need to educate psychologists about constructionist thought and provide examples of how training in traditional psychological theory and research methods can unwittingly lead to conclusions that have more to do with socially constructed notions than any objective “truth.” Nevertheless, I must admit to wanting more. I don’t want us to be satisfied with simply tacking psychological issues onto the present reading...