Growth and Intimacy for Gay Men


Book Description

Growth and Intimacy for Gay Men: A Workbook is an educational workbook for gay men that covers a variety of topics, including family of origin, addiction, self-image, dating and relationships, AIDS and multiple loss, and spirituality. Each chapter provides an overview of the mental health concerns of gay men, as well as exercises the reader can do to facilitate his personal understanding of the issues covered. While the book is written in nontechnical language, making it useful to the general public, its wide selection of workbook exercises makes it useful for psychotherapists and counselors working with gay men. Growth and Intimacy for Gay Men is written to the reader--with brief examples from the author’s work as a clinical psychologist helping gay men. A central goal of the book is to normalize the feelings and experiences the reader has, as many gay men feel like they’re the only ones with their feelings or experiences. The book’s problem-solving approach addresses: family of origin--provides exercises to identify and examine gay men’s role in the family, examine their childhood perceptions of being different, and help them map out family patterns and dynamics self-image--includes self-image assessment questionnaires and written exercises that challenge the reader to look at how they’re affected by societal perceptions addiction--explores why gay men are vulnerable to addictive behavior and offers strategies for change and self-assessment exercises dating and relationships--covers the unique challenges faced by gay men, with exercises for single as well as coupled men AIDS and mental health--provides exercises to help the reader examine the impact of AIDS on his own life and to assess the impact of multiple loss and prolonged grief Readers can do the workbook exercises on their own, or therapists can assign chapters and exercises as homework, with clients bringing the completed assignment to therapy for more in-depth exploration and discussion. By providing informative chapters and useful exercises, Growth and Intimacy for Gay Men becomes an avenue through which gay men can understand their identity, experiences, and goals.




Growth and Intimacy for Gay Men


Book Description

Growth and Intimacy for Gay Men: A Workbook is an educational workbook for gay men that covers a variety of topics, including family of origin, addiction, self-image, dating and relationships, AIDS and multiple loss, and spirituality. Each chapter provides an overview of the mental health concerns of gay men, as well as exercises the reader can do to facilitate his personal understanding of the issues covered. While the book is written in nontechnical language, making it useful to the general public, its wide selection of workbook exercises makes it useful for psychotherapists and counselors working with gay men. Growth and Intimacy for Gay Men is written to the reader--with brief examples from the author’s work as a clinical psychologist helping gay men. A central goal of the book is to normalize the feelings and experiences the reader has, as many gay men feel like they’re the only ones with their feelings or experiences. The book’s problem-solving approach addresses: family of origin--provides exercises to identify and examine gay men’s role in the family, examine their childhood perceptions of being different, and help them map out family patterns and dynamics self-image--includes self-image assessment questionnaires and written exercises that challenge the reader to look at how they’re affected by societal perceptions addiction--explores why gay men are vulnerable to addictive behavior and offers strategies for change and self-assessment exercises dating and relationships--covers the unique challenges faced by gay men, with exercises for single as well as coupled men AIDS and mental health--provides exercises to help the reader examine the impact of AIDS on his own life and to assess the impact of multiple loss and prolonged grief Readers can do the workbook exercises on their own, or therapists can assign chapters and exercises as homework, with clients bringing the completed assignment to therapy for more in-depth exploration and discussion. By providing informative chapters and useful exercises, Growth and Intimacy for Gay Men becomes an avenue through which gay men can understand their identity, experiences, and goals.




Couple Therapy with Gay Men


Book Description

"Written in an accessible, empathic style, and filled with evocative case material, this book belongs on the desks of family therapists, clinical and counseling psychologists, psychiatrists, and clinical social workers. Graduate-level students and residents in these areas will find it a timely and informative text."--BOOK JACKET.




Journey Toward Intimacy


Book Description




The Health of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People


Book Description

At a time when lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals-often referred to under the umbrella acronym LGBT-are becoming more visible in society and more socially acknowledged, clinicians and researchers are faced with incomplete information about their health status. While LGBT populations often are combined as a single entity for research and advocacy purposes, each is a distinct population group with its own specific health needs. Furthermore, the experiences of LGBT individuals are not uniform and are shaped by factors of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, geographical location, and age, any of which can have an effect on health-related concerns and needs. The Health of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People assesses the state of science on the health status of LGBT populations, identifies research gaps and opportunities, and outlines a research agenda for the National Institute of Health. The report examines the health status of these populations in three life stages: childhood and adolescence, early/middle adulthood, and later adulthood. At each life stage, the committee studied mental health, physical health, risks and protective factors, health services, and contextual influences. To advance understanding of the health needs of all LGBT individuals, the report finds that researchers need more data about the demographics of these populations, improved methods for collecting and analyzing data, and an increased participation of sexual and gender minorities in research. The Health of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People is a valuable resource for policymakers, federal agencies including the National Institute of Health (NIH), LGBT advocacy groups, clinicians, and service providers.




The Advocate


Book Description

The Advocate is a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) monthly newsmagazine. Established in 1967, it is the oldest continuing LGBT publication in the United States.




Contemporary Perspectives on Psychotherapy with Lesbians and Gay Men


Book Description

The psychiatric view of homosexuality has undergone a fascinating evo lution in recent years. This includes not only the change from viewing homosexuality as a diagnosable illness, as opposed to an alternative life style, but also the development of considerable professional concern for providing appropriate mental health services to this previously under served minority community. There has been an increasing recognition of the need for comprehensive services including, but not limited to, counseling, individual psychotherapy, and couples therapy. This book is written for the practicing clinician, and offers a compre hensive survey of the important clinical issues involved in the counsel ing and psychotherapy of gay men and lesbian women. It is an extraor dinarily practical book and its breadth and depth make it appropriate for both the novice and the experienced therapist. SHERWYN M. WOODS Series Editor ix Preface We hear our mentors but do not often heed them. Freud's supportive, nonjudgmental approach to homosexuality provided an ambience with in which discoveries could be made, that is, the discovery that homosex uality was not a disease of mental degeneration and that sexuality, in the sense of a fundamental human propensity to find pleasure in social and physical attachments, was at its root directed to both sexes. The ad herence to a nonjudgmental approach was short-lived, suffered repres sion by homophobic defenses, and scientific zeal was directed toward "cure" rather than comprehension of the homosexual state.




Issues In Therapy With Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual And Transgender Clients


Book Description

"A diverse and extremely useful set of chapters at the cutting edge of thinking on work with sexual minorities...An important and too often neglected aspect of therapist's and counsellor's training which this book does much to correct." - Susie Orbach, author of 'The Impossibility of Sex' "This book takes the reader inside the multiple worlds of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, and examines the different kinds of 'problems in living' that can confront counsellors working with clients from these groups. The book is humanistic, in the broad sense of representing and reinforcing the human capacity to relate, to choose, and to live in accordance with values. Issues are explored through the unfolding of personal and interpersonal dilemmas. 'Issues in therapy' is a welcome addition to the 'Pink Therapy' series edited by Dominic Davies and Charles Neal; they are essential reading for practitioners and trainees." - John McLeod, Professor of Counselling, University of Abertay Dundee "An excellent resource for trainees, trainers and practitioners. Readers will find coverage of a wide number of areas, not before easily accessible at all, and certainly not in a single volume. This book helps the reader think critically about many 'received notions' within the field of therapy. Irrespective of their theoretical approach, I believe this volume not only aids practitioners to work more effectively and ethically with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender clients but also makes a contribution to anti-oppressive practice generally." - Paul Hitchings, Chair BPS Counselling Psychology Division Many readers of Pink Therapy (1996 Open University Press) found the affirmative approaches and detailed discussions there of numerous issues of particular concern to lesbian, gay and bisexual clients invaluable. This volume has twelve further areas discussed in clear and informative style by practitioners from their own professional experience and offers guidelines for good practice as well as full references and further resources. With Pink Therapy and Therapeutic Perspectives on Working with Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Clients, from the same editors and publishers, professionals interested in treating clients from these minorities equitably will find a wealth of support, information and guidance not previously readily available.




The Velvet Rage


Book Description

The gay male world today is characterized by seductive beauty, artful creativity, flamboyant sexuality, and, encouragingly, unprecedented acceptability in society. Yet despite the progress of the recent past, gay men still find themselves asking, "Are we really better off?" The inevitable byproduct of growing up gay in a straight world continues to be the internalization of shame, a shame gay men may strive to obscure with a fa?ade of beauty, creativity, or material success. Drawing on contemporary psychological research, the author's own journey to be free of anger and of shame, as well as the stories of many of his friends and clients, The Velvet Rage outlines the three distinct stages to emotional well-being for gay men. Offering profoundly beneficial strategies to stop the insidious cycle of avoidance and self-defeating behavior, The Velvet Rage is an empowering book that will influence the public discourse on gay culture, and positively change the lives of gay men who read it.




Being Homosexual


Book Description

A compassionate and powerful resource for gay men—now revised and updated for the 21st century. Richard Isay was the first person to challenge the homophobia of the psychoanalytic community and prove, through his own story and those of his patients, that homosexuality is an innate characteristic rather than a learned pathology. Now revised and updated for the 21st-century, the groundbreaking Being Homosexual carries the reader through the main developmental stages in the gay male's life cycle from the initial awareness of same-sex impulses to coming out, forming friendships with other gay men, and a mature integration of one's sexual identity.