Commitment and Healing: Gay Men and the Need for Romantic Love

by Richard A. Isay

Overview

In his many years working with gay patients, psychiatrist Richard Isay has found that regardless of the original reasons they seek help, the majority of gay men eventually bring up their problems with romantic love. Some have difficulty falling in love and even more find it hard to sustain a loving, romantic relationship. If you experience these issues in your life, Commitment and Healing offers hope.

Filled with fascinating case histories drawn from Dr. Isay’s practice, this compassionate and inspiring book examines how parental rejection or a lack of empathy with the needs of a homosexual child may later on inhibit a gay man’s capacity to feel and express his need for love. Some gay men grow habituated to the means they have relied on to seek happiness without intimacy or intimacy without commitment. Many feel unworthy of romantic love or remain unaware of it until midlife.

In Commitment and Healing, Isay writes that a loving relationship over many years is the antidote for the loneliness and the rejection most gay men have experienced in their lives. While the book is a clear and empathetic exploration of the barriers many encounter, Isay shows that it is indeed possible for this generation of gay men to overcome their fear of commitment and learn how rewarding a loving, long-term relationship can be.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780471740490
Publisher:	Turner Publishing Company
Publication date:	05/01/2006
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	160
Product dimensions:	6.38(w) x 8.62(h) x 0.68(d)

About the Author

Richard A. Isay, M.D., is currently Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College, on the faculty of the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, and in private practice in New York City. He has served as chairman of the Committee on Gay and Lesbian Issues of the American Psychiatric Association, as vice president of the National Lesbian and Gay Health Association, and on the Board of the Hetrick Martin Institute for Gay and Lesbian Youth in New York. Dr. Isay is the author of two previous books: Being Homosexual: Gay Men and Their Development (1989) and Becoming Gay: The Journey to Self-Acceptance (1996).

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments.

Prologue.

1. The Problem of Romantic Love.

2. Why Is It Difficult to Need Love?

3. Love and Sex in Adult Gay Relationships.

4. Falling in Love.

5. Staying in Love.

6. How Therapy Works.

7. The Therapeutic Power of Love.

Epilogue.

Notes.

Index.

Editorial Reviews

"What's love got to do with it? Everything, according to Richard Isay's informed and illuminating look at the role of romance in modern gay life. I highly recommend this book for people of any generation and partnership status."
—Dean H. Hamer, Ph.D., author of The Science of Desire and The God Gene

"Richard Isay offers something far better than simple bromides and false hope. In this book, he challenges us with a provocative, illuminating, and ultimately hopeful look at ourselves and explains how those of us who yearn to love and be loved (and who doesn't?) can best find happiness and healing in a committed relationship."
—Eric Marcus, author of The Male Couple's Guide and Together Forever

"Many gay men (and others, too) are likely to find this book exceptionally interesting and helpful. In a series of vividly illuminating case histories and with a psychoanalyst's depth and clarity of insight, Richard Isay lucidly explains why gay men have particular difficulty in establishing and sustaining loving relationships and how they might sensibly improve their chances of doing so."
—Harry G. Frankfurt, Ph.D., author of On Bullshit and The Reasons of Love

"Richard Isay's portrayals of gay men's lives are likely to be controversial. Isay is not the stereotypical psychoanalyst who sits quietly while his patients ramble—and we're all the better for that. He has something to say and what he says is worth hearing. This provocative book should be read by anyone who yearns for but hasn't yet found real love."
—William Rubenstein, Founding Director of the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and former Director of the ACLU Lesbian & Gay Rights Project

"Based on Dr. Isay's three decades of experience working with gay men in therapy, this is a deeply thoughtful study of the difficulties gay men may experience with falling and staying in love. For a gay man, reading this book may cause him to revisit some dark places along his own life's journey, but it will also give him a glimpse of the self-affirmation and capacity for change that are the goals of gay-positive psychotherapy."
—Simon LeVay, Ph.D., author of Human Sexuality and Queer Science

"Indispensable insights from America's wisest observer of gay relationships."
—Charles Kaiser, author of The Gay Metropolis

"Gay people seek the freedom to marry for the same mix of reasons as non-gay people, and for most, love and commitment are central. Drawing on his exceptional expertise and decades of stories from his patients, Richard Isay explores the challenges and value of romantic love—how to overcome our pasts and enrich our present lives at home—as we build a future of greater equality and inclusion in society."
—Evan Wolfson, author of Why Marriage Matters

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