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: A Workbook is an avenue through which gay men can understand their identity, experiences, and goals. The book contains over 50 checklists, open-ended questions, and writing exercises the reader can do on his own, as part of a support or study group, or with the guidance of a psychotherapist to further his own personal insight into his life as a gay man.

"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.

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.

A moving exploration of how gay men construct their identities, fight to be themselves, and live authentically It goes without saying that even today, it’s not easy to be gay in America. While young gay men often come out more readily, even those from the most progressive of backgrounds still struggle with the legacy of early-life stigma and a deficit of self-acceptance, which can fuel doubt, regret, and, at worst, self-loathing. And this is to say nothing of the ongoing trauma wrought by AIDS, which is all too often relegated to history. Drawing on his work as a clinical psychologist during and in the aftermath of the epidemic, Walt Odets reflects on what it means to survive and figure out a way to live in a new, uncompromising future, both for the men who endured the upheaval of those years and for the younger men who have come of age since then, at a time when an HIV epidemic is still ravaging the gay community, especially among the most marginalized. Through moving stories—of friends and patients, and his own—Odets considers how experiences early in life launch men on trajectories aimed at futures that are not authentically theirs. He writes to help reconstruct how we think about gay life by considering everything from the misleading idea of “the homosexual,” to the diversity and richness of gay relationships, to the historical role of stigma and shame and the significance of youth and of aging. Crawling out from under the trauma of destructive early-life experience and the two epidemics, and into a century of shifting social values, provides an opportunity to explore possibilities rather than live with limitations imposed by others. Though it is drawn from decades of private practice, activism, and life in the gay community, Odets’s work achieves remarkable universality. At its core, Out of the Shadows is driven by his belief that it is time that we act based on who we are and not who others are or who they would want us to be. We—particularly the young—must construct our own paths through life. Out of the Shadows is a necessary, impassioned argument for how and why we must all take hold of our futures.

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

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.

Jennifer can’t believe it. Just married and pregnant, she discovers that her husband has been meeting Brad for sex. When confronted, Tom doesn’t deny it, but he insists it’s just “a thing” and he isn’t gay. Elsewhere, John’s wife, Karen, discovers that her husband likes to watch gay porn. John doesn’t understand his wife’s reaction. Why does she care what he watches if he’s not unfaithful? In couple’s therapy, Karen and Jennifer raise the same questions: Does this mean my husband is gay? Can my marriage survive? These and other stories illustrate the difficulties inherent when a wife or girlfriend finds out her man has had or wants to have sexual contact with other men. But many times, the man is not gay or even bisexual. Of course, some men with gay sexual interests are gay men in a process of self-discovery; they are “coming out.” These desires may only reflect a different side of a man’s sexuality or some response to childhood trauma or experiences they have not fully processed. Here Joe Kort and Alexander P. Morgan make the distinction between gay men and “straight men with gay interests” clearer to women who want to know how they can overcome these revelations. The authors explain the many reasons why straight men may be drawn to gay sex; how to tell whether a man is gay, straight, or bisexual; and what the various options are for these couples, who can often go on to have very fulfilling marriages. Is My Husband Gay, Straight or Bi? is intended to help couples understand how male sexuality can express itself in ways that may be difficult to understand. Many marriages have been hurriedly terminated when couples (and their therapists) have lacked the information they needed to understand their current situations. This book provides the clarity, describes the choices, and (in many cases) offers hope for relationships and marriages that have been brushed off as doomed.