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Chapter 4 (continued)
Same-Sex Ambivalence
The most basic way to conceptualize the homosexual condition is through the concept of “same-sex AMBIVALENCE.” This concept, which comes from Elizabeth Moberly, has two aspects. The first is “defensive detachment,” which means that the individual withdraws or separates himself from other males (specifically the father) in order to avoid pain or rejection that he has experienced with them. The second aspect is a “reparative drive,” or a desire to re-establish the very relationships that were disturbed by his detachment. Moberly refers to this as “an avoidance-approach conflict.”3(p6) Both aspects are described below.
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AMBIVALENCE: “the simultaneous existence of conflicting emotions, as love and hate, in one person toward another person or thing.”16(p56)