Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality: A New Clinical Approach

by Joseph Nicolosi

Book Overview

This book explores a reparative psychotherapy based on an understanding of the development of gender identity, offering to help the non-gay homosexual, that is, one who is unhappy with his sexual orientation.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0876685459
• ISBN13: 9780876685457
• Release Date: September 1991
• Publisher: Jason Aronson
• Length: 374 Pages
• Weight: 1.41 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.8" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

A Book for our Nation

I found this book to be very interesting. I read it because I have a friend who is gay, and I've always wanted to have a deeper understanding of this issue. The book seemed to confirm many of my own feelings about why men have same sex attractions. The gay issue has been and still is being politicized in our country, which is very unfortunate for the people who struggle with this problem. It is my opinion, that much of the truth of the gay issue has been hidden and tucked away in order to promote a certain viewpoint in the media. The book goes into the failure of psychologists to recognize previous years of studies and their failure to offer real help to these men and women. It seems that instead of getting to the heart of why this problem came about, they instead try to help these men go on with their lives by telling them that there is nothing they can do about their homosexuality, except to accept it and live that lifestyle. But,I believe that many men struggle with their conscience and they find it very hard to feel good about the way they are living, as if this was okay with God. In order to live the gay lifestyle openly, it seems to me that you pretty much have to deny the existence of order in the universe. Trees bear fruit, animals bear offspring, people procreate. To say that living a lifestyle that defies nature, and to say that it is equally valid, is a lie. Anybody that actually believes that is just kidding themselves. To say that men are not capable of change, is also a lie. We are all changing, growing, people who are capable of overcoming difficulties if we aren't afraid to face them head on. This takes a lot of humility. This book is great, because it goes into the REASONS why men develop attractions to other men. It explains the defense mechanism that many boys use to protect their pysche from abusive, harsh, or withdrawn fathers, overprotective mothers, and not being able to bond with other boys. These boys tend to withdraw from their own identity, in that they reject the harshness of being a man. It seems to me that being bullied in school or not being accepted into a group of boys as a youth, can also have terrible consequences for boys. We live in a society that is falling apart for lack of enough good men. Boys are getting the impression that religion is feminine, that being in touch with oneself and feelings is also somehow feminine. It seems to me that in reality, many gay men are more of a man than those out there who would cover up their insecurities with sports. It's okay if men are not interested in sports or hunting. It's okay if a man's talent is in an area which may seem more feminine. It's time that we stopped seeing men in their "accepted careers" and gave them space to be what they want to be. They shouldn't have to feel any less masculine for being the man they want to be. But our society tells us that we need to fit into a certain box. Personal strength of character, is the thing that boys need to

Nicolosi assists where no other could possibly hope to!

I have read this book repeatedly and have also given it away as a gift to others struggling with same sex attractions who are unhappy with their state of mind and being. In each and every case the level of anxiety and distress was reduced after the reading of this book. The fact that our homosexuality is caused by a lack an intimate relationship with the same sex parent was critical in my understanding of self and homo-erotic tendencies. I will shout this books material from the roof tops whenever I hear from those blind individuals that there is no way to healing or that healing does not exist in this fashion. It does work if you have the desire to fight and be painfully honest with self. Brilliantly presented material in an easy to read fashion.

A bold voice of wisdom amidst the roar of popular opinion!

Nicolosi has written a fine work that speaks for countless homosexually-oriented men who do not choose to embrace the "gay life." This timely and greatly needed book represents those men who find themselves attracted to other men, yet know that their ultimate fulfillment and wholeness won't be found by "coming out." They're not confused. Rather, these men have chosen a decisively bold and courageous counter-cultural journey of inner-healing and healthy relating that has often left them ignored and unrecognized. That is, until now!

A Unique Voice in a Fraught Debate

I think Doctor Nicolosi is somewhat prejudiced (I hope I am not anti-gay in any way). He is also to some relgiously motivated (which raises my suspicions considerably). Nevertheless, I believe it is a unique resource for heterosexual men whose erotic life has been dominated by same sex attraction. It illustrates clearly why that previous sentence is not an utter contradiction in terms.Nicolosi expresses the nature of male-male attraction as it affects some men - including myself - in a more lucid and humane way than I have ever come across elsewhere. For a long time I have travelled alone with my view of why I spent all my teens and most of my twenties fetishising maleness and being very insecure in my own. This book and Nicolosi's 'Healing Homosexuality : Case Stories of Reparative Therapy' which contains very similar themes to this book, have been a revalation to me.Another reviewer here criticises the book as psychobabble. Nicolosi's book probably does read lik! e psychobabble if you don't know what it is like to be stuck with the dilemma that you prefer men, believe you are strong enough to come out, but just don't want to because you know something's not right. The reason why it's not right is because, for some men, there gayness is a symptom of the fact they never felt like other men and consciously or unconsciously craved to be men, but never knew how.That is my story. The great objection that might be raised, which Nicolosi deals with neatly, is that I have been conditioned to hate gays and hate gay-ness in myself by a society which does not accept nonconformity. That's where my self-hatred comes from. For me, that's psychobabble. Nicolosi also presents a clear critique of the virulence with which some gay men react to the notion that there may be those with similar desires to their own who believe they would like to change and can change to a fundamental heterosexual orientation. Like Nicolosi I think this smacks of the sa! me doctrinare and bigoted viewpoint which gay men - rightly! - feel they are too often faced with.

A must read.

Everyone should read this book to get the "other viewpoint." Homosexuals never had an opportunity for healing until Nicolosi and others like him began to take this subject "out of the closet" and give hope to people who know, deep down, that their homosexuality is a response to problems of identity.