The first fruits of the literary career of St Augustine, the great theologian and Christian philosopher par excellence, are the dialogues he wrote at Cassiciacum in Italy following his famous conversion in Milan in AD 386. These four little books, largely neglected by scholars, take up the ancient philosophical project of identifying the principles and practices that heal human desires in order to attain happiness, renewing this philosophical endeavour with insights from Christian theology. Augustine's later books, such as the Confessions, would continue this project of healing desire, as would the writings of others including Boethius, Anselm, and Aquinas. Mark J. Boone's The Conversion and Therapy of Desire investigates the roots of thisproject at Cassiciacum, where Augustine is developing a Christian theology of desire, informed by Neoplatonism but transformed by Christian teaching and practices.

In Reason, Authority, and the Healing of Desire in the Writings of Augustine, Mark Boone explains the theology of desire developed in a cross-section of Augustine’s On the True Religion, On the Nature of Good, On Free Choice of the Will, On the Teacher, On the Usefulness of Believing, On the Good of Marriage, Enchiridion, and Confessions. Throughout his writings and in many ways, Augustine develops a Platonically informed, yet distinctively Christian, account of desire. Human desire should respond to the goodness inherent in things, loving the greatest good above all and great goods more than lesser goods. Above all, we should love God and souls. Sin, an inappropriate desire for lesser goods, is healed by the redemption of Christ.

In postapartheid Cape Town—Africa's gay capital—many Pentecostal men turned to "ex-gay" ministries in hopes of “curing” their homosexuality in order to conform to conservative Christian values and African social norms. In Desire Work Melissa Hackman traces the experiences of predominantly white ex-gay men as they attempt to forge a heterosexual masculinity and enter into heterosexual marriage through emotional, bodily, and religious work. These men subjected themselves to daily self-surveillance and followed prescribed behaviors such as changing how they talked and walked. Ex-gay men also saw themselves as participating in the redemption of the nation, because South African society was perceived as suffering from a crisis of masculinity in which the country lacked enough moral heterosexual men. By tying the experience of ex-gay men to the convergence of social movements and public debates surrounding race, violence, religion, and masculinity in South Africa, Hackman offers insights into the construction of personal identities in the context of sexuality and spirituality.

What would stoic ethics be like today if stoicism had survived as a systematic approach to ethical theory, if it had coped successfully with the challenges of modern philosophy and experimental science? A New Stoicism proposes an answer to that question, offered from within the stoic tradition but without the metaphysical and psychological assumptions that modern philosophy and science have abandoned. Lawrence Becker argues that a secular version of the stoic ethical project, based on contemporary cosmology and developmental psychology, provides the basis for a sophisticated form of ethical naturalism, in which virtually all the hard doctrines of the ancient Stoics can be clearly restated and defended. Becker argues, in keeping with the ancients, that virtue is one thing, not many; that it, and not happiness, is the proper end of all activity; that it alone is good, all other things being merely rank-ordered relative to each other for the sake of the good; and that virtue is sufficient for happiness. Moreover, he rejects the popular caricature of the stoic as a grave figure, emotionally detached and capable mainly of endurance, resignation, and coping with pain. To the contrary, he holds that while stoic sages are able to endure the extremes of human suffering, they do not have to sacrifice joy to have that ability, and he seeks to turn our attention from the familiar, therapeutic part of stoic moral training to a reconsideration of its theoretical foundations.

**Named One of Book Riot’s BEST QUEER BOOKS OF 2017** “Packed with story and drama … If Tennessee Williams’s ‘Suddenly Last Summer’ could be transposed to the 21st-century South, where queer liberation co-exists alongside the stubborn remains of fire and brimstone, it might read something like this juicy, moving hot mess of a novel.” –Tim Murphy, The Washington Post A searing debut novel centering around a gay-to-straight conversion camp in Mississippi and a man's reckoning with the trauma he faced there as a teen. Camp Levi, nestled in the Mississippi countryside, is designed to “cure” young teenage boys of their budding homosexuality. Will Dillard, a midwestern graduate student, spent a summer at the camp as a teenager, and has since tried to erase the experience from his mind. But when a fellow student alerts him that a slasher movie based on the camp is being released, he is forced to confront his troubled history and possible culpability in the death of a fellow camper. As past and present are woven together, Will recounts his “rehabilitation,” eventually returning to the abandoned campgrounds to solve the mysteries of that pivotal summer, and to reclaim his story from those who have stolen it. With a masterful confluence of sensibility and place, How to Survive a Summer is a searing, unforgettable novel that introduces an exciting new literary voice. “Clear and moving, revealing White’s talent in evoking the complexities of the rural South.” —Publishers Weekly

Why do people find it so difficult to talk openly about sex? In this original and ground-breaking book, Morris Nitsun argues that desire and sexuality are key components of human experience that have been marginalized in the group psychotherapy literature. Drawing on theory from psychoanalysis, developmental psychology and sociology, while keeping the group firmly in focus, he creates a picture of the potential in group therapy for the most intimate narrative. Highlighting current concerns about sexual identity, boundary transgression and what constitutes effective psychotherapy, detailed clinical illustrations cover areas such as: The erotic connection The dissociation of desire The group as witness Erotic transference and counter-transference Psychotherapists and all those interested in sexual development and diversity will value the challenging approach to sexuality this book offers.

Hear the other side of the story on sexual conversion therapy! In their fervor to “fix” homosexuals, practitioners of sexual conversion therapies have often overlooked or completely dismissed the possible psychological and social side effects of such treatments. Sexual Conversion Therapy: Ethical, Clinical, and Research Perspectives works to counterbalance the clinical and ethical omissions of overzealous therapists who have focused on efficacy and outcome at the expense of their patients’self-esteem. Sexual Conversion Therapy features first-person accounts of patients and clinicians, including psychotherapists who themselves have undergone treatments ranging from psychoanalysis to religious faith healing to aversion behavior conditioning and even electroshock therapy. In addition to examining the history and ethics of conversion therapy, the book presents empirical data on current practice and recovery processes for survivors of failed conversion attempts. Sexual Conversion Therapy presents current perspectives on the harmful impact of sexual orientation interventions, including: “Cures: A Gay Man?s Odyssey” “Becoming Gay” “A Psychologist?s Journey Through the Ex-Gay Movement” “Therapeutic Antidotes: Gay and Bisexual Men Recover from Conversion Therapies” “I?m Your Handyman: A History of Reparative Therapies” Nearly 30 years after the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a small but dedicated group of mental health practitioners continues to diagnose and treat homosexuality as a mental illness. Sexual Conversion Therapy is an essential alternative to the bulk of published material that champions treatments that produce a handful of heterosexuals “cured” of their “illness,” while inflicting emotional and psychological damage on countless gay and lesbian patients who failed to convert.

"Rosaria, by the standards of many, was living a very good life. She had a tenured position at a large university in a field for which she cared deeply. She owned two homes with her partner, in which they provided hospitality to students and activists that were looking to make a difference in the world. In the community, Rosaria was involved in volunteer work. At the university, she was a respected advisor of students and her department's curriculum. And then, in her late 30s, Rosaria encountered something that turned her world upside down -- the idea that Christianity, a religion that she had regarded as problematic and sometimes downright damaging, might be right about who God was. That idea seemed to fly in the face of the people and causes that she most loved. What follows is a story of what she describes as a train wreck at the hand of the supernatural. These are her secret thoughts about those events, written as only a reflective English professor could."--Back cover.

For over half a century, organizations and individuals promoting ex-gay, conversion and/ or reparative therapy have pushed the tenet that a person may be able to, and should, alter their sexual orientation. Their so-called treatments or therapies have taken various forms over the decades, ranging from medical (including psychiatric or psychological) rehabilitation approaches, to counselling, and religious healing. Gay Conversion Practices in Memoir, Film and Fiction provides an in-depth exploration of the disturbing phenomenon of gay conversion 'therapy' and its fictional and autobiographical representations across a broad range of films and books such as But I'm a Cheerleader! (1999), This is What Love in Action Looks Like (2011) and Boy Erased (2018). In doing so, the volume emphasizes the powerful role the arts and media play in communicating stories around conversion practices. Approaching the timely and urgent subject from an interdisciplinary perspective, contributors utilize film theory, queer theory, literary theory, mental health and social movement theory to discuss the medicalization and pathologizing of queer people, the power of institutions ranging from church, psychiatry and family (sometimes in alliance), and the real and fictional voices of survivors.

Challenging misconceptions on all sides of the homosexuality debate, Burk and Lambert show how a biblical view of same-sex orientation, temptation, and desire gives hope for profound personal change.