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Review of GATFTST on the Edge
“Awarded Honorable Mention by the 2009 AASECT Awards Committee.” —AASECT Awards
“[E]nlightening, instructive, and jam-packed with essential information for any straight clinician working with gay, lesbian, and transgendered clients. I am pleased to recommend it very highly.” — Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy
“This book, written in a highly accessible style, is suitable for both novice and experienced counsellors whose earlier training may have omitted lesbian and gay issues. It is essential reading for the straight therapist who has not explored his or her own prejudices and has little knowledge of the lesbian and gay world.” —Therapy Today
“Joe Kort’s book is a well written, well rounded and thoroughly researched text on how to treat gay couples. All therapists can benefit from this book. The case examples are perfect illustrations of the points he wants the reader to understand and the research is timely and up to date.” — Contemporary Sexuality
“It is hard not to be impressed by the author’s warmth, depth and almost evangelical enthusiasm for his subject….I would heartily recommend this text to any ‘straight clinicians’ working with gay or lesbian clients.” — Sexual and Relationship Therapy
“I encourage all
therapists worth their salt to read this brilliant
and important book, whether or not they treat gays
and lesbians. While it is theoretically sound and
clinically instructive, the chief value of this book
is its humanization of therapy, challenging us all
to face our demons and accept the fact of
difference. It is essentially about therapeutic
justice. I hope this book gets the visibility it
deserves.”
—Harville
Hendrix, PhD, cofounder of Imago Relationship
Therapy, and author of Receiving Love: Transform
Your Relationship By Letting Yourself Be Loved
“This book is the
essential guide for the straight therapist working
with gay and lesbian clients. Avoiding politically
correct sermonizing, Kort brings together clinically
relevant research while challenging the attitudes
and common myths that can get in the way of
effective therapy. Refreshingly direct and
clinically practical, this is one of the most
readable and nuanced books about therapy I’ve seen
in a long time.”
—Jette
Simon, Clinical Psychologist and Director,
The Washington D.C. Training Institute for Couples
Therapy
Joe Kort fills a huge gap in the training of
clinicians. In an informative and non-judgemental
way he covers the wide range of therapeutic
scenarios and guides the reader through the
subtleties of treating Gays and Lesbians. An
important read for therapists-in-training as well as
clinicians working with Gay and Lesbian clients.
—Laura
Berman, LCSW, PhD, author of
Passion Prescription: 10 weeks to your best sex
ever
From the WW Norton
Books Website
It has been over three decades since
the American Psychiatric Association removed
homosexuality as a category of deviant behavior from
the DSM. Same-sex marriage is recognized in certain
states, gay-straight alliances are springing up in
high schools across the country, and major religious
denominations are embracing gay clergy. Yet despite
the sea change of attitudes toward homosexuality,
many well-meaning straight therapists are still at a
loss as to how to effectively counsel their gay and
lesbian clients.
This book will offer straight therapists the tools
they need to counsel gay and lesbian clients
effectively.
This book presents principles of gay affirmative
therapy (GAT). GAT is not a specific system of doing
therapy but rather a framework for clinicians to
approach work with gay and lesbian clients. Some of
the fundamental principles of GAT include:
understanding and combating heterosexism;
recognizing heterosexual privilege where it
exists—institutionally, legally, and societally; and
understanding and combating your own homophobia—and
that of your clients. In general, GAT explores the
trauma, shame, alienation, isolation, and neglect
that occur to lesbians and gays as children.
This book also explains
what GAT is not. GAT does not mean that therapists
blame homophobia for everything and overlook mental
and emotional problems. It does not de-emphasize
emotional disorders and avoid examining any
pathology. It does not explain and eradicate all the
problems faced by gays and lesbians.
Does this seem confusing?
Then you’re on the right track! As therapists, your
responsibility is to be armed with all the
up-to-date information. Knowing all the ways
problems can arise, you can then assess with
clients—and with their help—what applies and what
doesn’t. This book provides concrete guidelines for
getting to the heart of the matter with clients. It
will help you examine your own imprinted
heterosexism and develop comfortable, appreciative
feelings about homosexuality so you can successfully
work with gay clients. It will help you screen
yourself for any covert homophobia and it will help
you approach your work with gay and lesbian clients
in a manner most likely to be successful.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1
Psychotherapy for Lesbians and Gays: Setting the Gay Record—Straight!
2. What Is Gay Affirmative Therapy?
3. Growing Up Lesbian or Gay
4. Covert Cultural Sexual Abuse
5. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder From
Growing Up Lesbian or Gay
6. Developmental Insults
7. Coming Out
8. Helping Families of Lesbians and Gays
9. Lesbian and Gay Sexuality
10. Working With Today’s Lesbian and Gay
Couples
11. The New Mixed Marriage: One Lesbian or
Gay Spouse and One Straight
12. Gay Affirmative Therapy Principles in
Clinical
13. Practice: Establishing a Differential
Diagnosis
