ARTICLES, BOOKS, AND COMMENTS
Here are some writings I draw from, and brief comments on them:
Assaults to the Self: The Trauma of Growing Up Gay
Alan Blum and Van Pfetzing
Gay people can replicate the same aversion to themselves that they have been subjected to from an early age. Working with a therapist can yield insight and also compassion for the you who grew up gay – a gamechanger.
Working with Shame in Psychoanalytic Treatment
Andrew P. Morrison
Guilt brings material to the therapist, shame keeps it out. This can be so true for gay people. So here’s an opportunity now to see it, name it, and see beyond it to other happier places in your life.
The Overstimulation of Everyday Life: New Aspects of Male Homosexuality
Sidney H. Phillips
The inner world of longing can be touched off by the urban world around the gay man. What is an acceptable achievable reality for you now, at your current stage of life?
Sex Like You Can’t Even Imagine: Crystal, Crack and Gay Men
Jeffrey R. Guss
The magical deliverance for gay men from inhibition or inadequacy can be the drug/sex connection. A framework which therapist and client can understand to replace compensatory ‘magic’ with self-acceptance of being gay for an intact life.
On the Psychodynamics of Collecting
Peter Subkowski
Things can replace people, with no endpoint in sight, since compulsion has none. Working with the therapist to integrate collecting behavior as enrichment to a life with others, and in touch with self, achieves real completeness and real self-stabilization.
Narcissistic Pathology of Everyday Life: The Denial of Remorse and Gratitude
Nancy McWilliams and Stanley Lependorf
Inability to apologize or thank goes along with rejecting the validity of others and demanding more from them, and by denying responsibility for any mistake in judgment. All the energy going into this narrative can be channeled by therapist and client into a richer alternative.
Perverse Relationships: The Perspective of the Perpetrator
Sandra Filippini
It’s an attitude, not a behavior, not gay, not straight, but one of devaluation, acting as if nothing good or sacred can be in the world. Non-consensual demeaning behavior takes many forms, all eroding personality. A cautionary tale for therapist and client.
The Wings of Icarus: Illusion and the Problem of Narcissism
Stephen A. Mitchell
There can be healthy narcissism (“I am someone”). There can be healthy gay narcissism. But there can also be a committed devotion to illusions. Constructive questioning by client and therapist invites a realistic approach to self and others, beyond idealization and devaluation.
Forms of Relatedness: Self-Preservation and the Schizoid Continuum
Mark J. Gehrie
Optimal distance varies with each of us – how much proximity can you bear? What relatedness can you tolerate before anxiety kicks in? We learn to accept ourselves and work with what we have.
Drama of the Gifted Child
Alice Miller
Who is your true self? Can you recognize it? The therapist can help this process. Each child begins genuinely alive – access to true feelings must be found again, and can be.
The Artist’s Way
Julia Cameron
Making your life your masterpiece. Creativity every day and everyday creativity. What a serene life of love and success can look like. For therapist and client!
