PTS | Keynote in Lindau: Esther Hutfless advocates for a queer psychoanalysis beyond normative developmental frameworks

At the Psychotherapy Weeks Lindau 2026, Univ.-Prof.^*in Priv.-Doz.^*in Mag.^*a Dr.^*in Esther Hutfless addressed a fundamental question of psychoanalysis: How is the pathologisation of non-normative gender identities inscribed in its theories – and how can it be overcome? The Faculty of Psychotherapy Science is delighted that one of its lecturers and researchers gave a keynote speech at a renowned event and providing important food for thought for contemporary psychotherapeutic practice.

Keynote | Facets of gender and psychotherapy: Queer psychoanalysis beyond normative developmental logics

In this lecture, Esther Hutfless asks how the pathologisation of non-normative gender identities has inscribed itself into the basic theoretical structure of psychoanalysis – and how it can be overcome from there. Based on Paul B. Preciado’s critique of the power of psychoanalytic ideologies in relation to gender and identity, Hutfless discusses whether becoming a subject is necessarily tied to a binary gender identity and the assumption of castration.

With Jean Laplanche, Hutfless develops an alternative conception: gender does not emerge as the result of a normative developmental path, but rather in the unfinished process of translating enigmatic messages implanted by the first caregivers. Since the outcome of this translation work remains open in principle, non-normative, queer and fluid gender identities do not appear as failures of symbolisation, but as equal ways of assuming a gender. In conclusion, Hutfless links Laplanche’s concept of the sexual with Jacques Derrida’s différance and proposes the concept of a sexual différance – as a theoretical lever against the structural pathologisation of queer subject positions in psychoanalysis.

22 April 2026