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This book consists of 14 chapters, most of which emphasize the psycho-analytically oriented treatment of severely impaired men. The single chapter on women is also restricted to those who are globally impaired. The contributors vary in clinical experience. Many have not specialized in the treatment of homosexual patients.
Some of the authors do not generalize about all homosexual individuals as a result of their clinical experience with symptomatic patients. Others do, however, including the senior editor Charles Socarides.
The patients that are presented in this volume are not representative of homosexual patients in clinical practice. Almost all have severe character pathology and a limitation of the volume is that patients are not systematically diagnosed. Character pathology and sexual orientation unfold along different developmental lines. Empirical research has demonstrated that homosexual people are no more likely than heterosexual people to manifest severe global psychopathology. This poses a problem for clinical theoreticians that is not addressed in this volume. The impression that the reader is given is that the same influences that cause numerous symptoms and syndromes also lead to homosexuality. Surprisingly, the topic of anti-homosexual bias receives scant attention from any of the clinicians. Anti-homosexual internalizations are probably the most important common influence on symptom formation in homosexual patients.