Over the decades various authors have documented successful outcomes of efforts aimed at changing clients' homosexual behaviors, attractions, identification, and/or feelings to various degrees of heterosexual adaptations, including exclusivity. Methods included psychoanalysis, hypnosis, behavior therapies, cognitive therapies, sex therapies, group therapies, pharmacology, combination therapies, and others. This book is the first of its kind revealing a comprehensive bibliographic review of the literature documenting success.

This open access book offers essential information on values-based practice (VBP): the clinical skills involved, teamwork and person-centered care, links between values and evidence, and the importance of partnerships in shared decision-making. Different cultures have different values; for example, partnership in decision-making looks very different, from the highly individualized perspective of European and North American cultures to the collective and family-oriented perspectives common in South East Asia. In turn, African cultures offer yet another perspective, one that falls between these two extremes (called batho pele). The book will benefit everyone concerned with the practical challenges of delivering mental health services. Accordingly, all contributions are developed on the basis of case vignettes, and cover a range of situations in which values underlie tensions or uncertainties regarding how to proceed in clinical practice. Examples include the patient’s autonomy and best interest, the physician’s commitment to establishing high standards of clinical governance, clinical versus community best interest, institutional versus clinical interests, patients insisting on medically unsound but legal treatments etc. Thus far, VBP publications have mainly dealt with clinical scenarios involving individual values (of clinicians and patients). Our objective with this book is to develop a model of VBP that is culturally much broader in scope. As such, it offers a vital resource for mental health stakeholders in an increasingly inter-connected world. It also offers opportunities for cross-learning in values-based practice between cultures with very different clinical care traditions.

Does present important and relevant data on homosexuality that will help sensible professionals and lay people alike refute the specious arguments of....radical right politicians and religious leaders. --Book Reviews "John C. Gonsiorek and James D. Weinrich are skillful in their application of research to public policy . . . . This book is exceptionally readable. . . . [they] are to be particularly commended for their editorial expertise." --Contemporary Psychology "Gonsiorek and Weinrich′s book is a gem! It provides the most up-to-date discussions of all the crucial issues that anyone who deals with gay and lesbian issues must understand--the myths, prejudices, and the knotty issues of policy and the scientific research relevant to them. Whether one needs to know about ′child molestation,′ ′choice,′ ′role models,′ or any other ′old chestnut,′ this book provides a clear and scholarly treatment of the controversy and the research relevant to it. It is indispensable!" --Clinton Anderson, Officer for Gay and Lesbian Concerns American Psychological Association "Gonsiorek and Weinrich assemble a most distinguished group of contributors who, in turn, examine the most important issues regarding the subject of homosexuality from the perspective of psychological research. This book is an invaluable resource for forensic psychologists, lawyers and law makers. It offers a thorough exploration of the research necessary to formulate public policy on these issues. In addition, mental health service providers, instructors, and students alike will find that this book covers the basic issues in the psychology of lesbians and gay men with competence and care. A powerhouse of a book!" --Kristin Hancock, Ph.D., Past Chair, Association of Lesbian & Gay Psychologists and Past President, APA Division #44 "There are so many outstanding contributions to this book and so many reasons to get it. This work flies in the face of hearsay and shatters psychological myth with research. It clearly has many uses in the education and training of psychotherapists. It is the sort of work which would also prove to be an invaluable resource to those who need well-documented, clearly written reviews of available research on gay men and lesbians--whatever the reason." --American Psychological Association, Division #44 Newsletter Despite scientific study and scholarly research, homosexuality continues as the subject of an intense, and often bitter, debate. Current and concise, Homosexuality summarizes what science knows about homosexuality and its relevance for public policy. The chapters here focus on concerns that have been most central to current public policy debates about homosexuality, including: the nature and causes of sexual orientations; the reasons why homosexuality is not an illness; the ethics of various mental health approaches to homosexuality; the effects of social and legal discrimination; newer biological and psychological understandings of homosexuality; homosexual people as couples and parents; and the implications of the AIDS epidemic. Because the contributors hail from a variety of disciplines (social, clinical, and counseling psychology; law; psychiatry; social work; biology; nursing; and anthropology), this volume offers a balanced approach to an important--and controversial--issue. This intriguing and timely volume encourages readers to become discerning consumers of the scientific discourses on homosexuality--past, present, and future. As such, students, scholars, and professionals in psychology, sociology, counseling, and social work will use this volume time and again.

Defenders and critics of the controversial Spitzer study analyze its methodologies and findings In 2001, Robert L. Spitzer, MD, presented his study on sexual conversion therapy with its controversial findings that some homosexuals can change their sexual orientation. The resulting media sensation and political firestorm enraged the study’s critics and emboldened its supporters. Ex-Gay Research: Analyzing the Spitzer Study and Its Relation to Science, Religion, Politics, and Culture presents leading experts examining Spitzer’s research methodology and findings to discern whether the study itself deserves deeper consideration or outright dismissal. Every facet of the study is reviewed to discuss the positive or negative aspects of the results, its significance in political and social terms, and the implications for the future. Dr. Spitzer himself was an instrumental figure in the American Psychiatric Association's decision in 1973 to remove homosexuality as a mental illness listing from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-III. His later study that states that in some individuals, homosexuality may be more fluid than previously thought stirred controversy in the psychiatric community and society at large. His study is presented here to allow the reader to evaluate and consider it for themselves. Leading experts then voice their own pro or con views on the methodology and findings. Ex-Gay Research: Analyzing the Spitzer Study and Its Relation to Science, Religion, Politics, and Culture fearlessly illustrates the sometimes fuzzy boundary between science and politics, courageously spotlighting the culture wars now dividing our society. Ex-Gay Research: Analyzing the Spitzer Study and Its Relation to Science, Religion, Politics, and Culture discusses: the ex-gay movement the nature of scientific inquiry the relationship between science and politics the results of sexual conversion therapies gay and lesbian rights Ex-Gay Research: Analyzing the Spitzer Study and Its Relation to Science, Religion, Politics, and Culture is essential reading for sex researchers, mental health professionals, pastoral counselors, political activists, and any person asking if one can truly “change” his or her homosexuality.

Though we often hear about the "gay problem" today, there is an even deeper problem in the church today--one that we often overlook. The call to follow Christ is a call to costly obedience for all, not just for gay Christians. Far too often, the church has elevated homosexuality above other sins and required a costly obedience from gays that it is unwilling to demand of others. And yet, the answer is not to weaken the demands of obedience. Instead, gay Christians who make the difficult choice to align their lives with the biblical view of sexuality are a gift to the church, reminding all of us that spiritual growth and maturity is costly. There is a price to pay in following Christ and devoting our lives to the call of the gospel, and it is one that we all must pay--gay and straight Christians alike. Through the stories and struggles of gay Christians who are reorienting their lives around the costly obedience required to follow Christ, Mark Yarhouse and Olya Zaporozhets call the church to reorient as well, leaving behind the casual morality that is widespread today to pursue the path of radical discipleship. Unlike any other book on homosexuality and the church, this is a call to examine your life and consider what God is asking you to lay down to take up your cross and follow him.

Hear the other side of the story on sexual conversion therapy! In their fervor to “fix” homosexuals, practitioners of sexual conversion therapies have often overlooked or completely dismissed the possible psychological and social side effects of such treatments. Sexual Conversion Therapy: Ethical, Clinical, and Research Perspectives works to counterbalance the clinical and ethical omissions of overzealous therapists who have focused on efficacy and outcome at the expense of their patients’self-esteem. Sexual Conversion Therapy features first-person accounts of patients and clinicians, including psychotherapists who themselves have undergone treatments ranging from psychoanalysis to religious faith healing to aversion behavior conditioning and even electroshock therapy. In addition to examining the history and ethics of conversion therapy, the book presents empirical data on current practice and recovery processes for survivors of failed conversion attempts. Sexual Conversion Therapy presents current perspectives on the harmful impact of sexual orientation interventions, including: “Cures: A Gay Man?s Odyssey” “Becoming Gay” “A Psychologist?s Journey Through the Ex-Gay Movement” “Therapeutic Antidotes: Gay and Bisexual Men Recover from Conversion Therapies” “I?m Your Handyman: A History of Reparative Therapies” Nearly 30 years after the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a small but dedicated group of mental health practitioners continues to diagnose and treat homosexuality as a mental illness. Sexual Conversion Therapy is an essential alternative to the bulk of published material that champions treatments that produce a handful of heterosexuals “cured” of their “illness,” while inflicting emotional and psychological damage on countless gay and lesbian patients who failed to convert.

Is love “blind” when it comes to gender? For women, it just might be. This unsettling and original book offers a radical new understanding of the context-dependent nature of female sexuality. Lisa M. Diamond argues that for some women, love and desire are not rigidly heterosexual or homosexual but fluid, changing as women move through the stages of life, various social groups, and, most important, different love relationships.This perspective clashes with traditional views of sexual orientation as a stable and fixed trait. But that view is based on research conducted almost entirely on men. Diamond is the first to study a large group of women over time. She has tracked one hundred women for more than ten years as they have emerged from adolescence into adulthood. She summarizes their experiences and reviews research ranging from the psychology of love to the biology of sex differences. Sexual Fluidity offers moving first-person accounts of women falling in and out of love with men or women at different times in their lives. For some, gender becomes irrelevant: “I fall in love with the person, not the gender,” say some respondents.Sexual Fluidity offers a new understanding of women’s sexuality—and of the central importance of love.