Contemporary Perspectives on Psychotherapy with Lesbians and Gay Men

Book excerpt: 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.