Jack Drescher, MD
/Dr. Drescher’s pioneering award-winning work in the areas of gender and sexuality has brought innovation to psychoanalytic treatment and theory--specifically, major, critical re-thinking based on solid scientific evidence and what is actually known rather than outdated assumptions about gender and sexuality. His work has also demonstrated how cultural biases about human sexuality and gender are embedded in analytic theories. During the past decade Dr. Drescher has focused psychoanalytic theory and attention on harms done by efforts to change a person’s homosexual orientation and by de-pathologizing sexual orientation and gender identity.
Drescher’s scholarly work and media communications to the general public have had an international impact on changing both psychoanalytic attitudes and public policies towards gender and sexuality. His work has managed to shift psychoanalytic thinking about LGBTQ+ people and brought psychoanalytic sensibilities into conversations outside of psychoanalysis, fostering a sea change in psychoanalytic organizations’ perspectives on psychoanalysis. His work has also contributed to actions in 20 U.S. states and nearly 30 countries to ban conversion therapies for ‘gay’ clientele, and notably, his publications were cited by India’s Supreme Court in its decision to abolish laws making homosexuality illegal.
Dr. Drescher is a psychiatrist trained in psychoanalysis at the William Alanson White Institute (2003 Award Recipient). He is a Training and Supervising Analyst, a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Senior Psychoanalytic Consultant for Sexuality and Gender at Columbia University, and an Adjunct Professor at New York University’s Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis.