You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
This is a well-organized and user-friendly book for gay-affirmative therapists who treat lesbian patients. The book begins with an introductory chapter which describes the developmental issues women encounter in the course of taking on a lesbian identity. Chapter two traces the
history of psychoanalytic theory in its approach to homosexuality in women. Chapter three is the heart of the book and describes the authors' own theoretical framework for clinical practice. The approach they recommend is relational, non-authoritarian, and usually combines a mixture of exploratory and supportive techniques.
Chapters four through eight illustrate how these principles are applied to different aspects of clinical work with lesbians, using numerous interesting case vignettes. The final chapter (Chapter 9) concerns experiences of the lesbian therapist.
Of the many publications describing a gay-affirmative approach to the treatment of gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, and transgendered (GLBT) individuals, this one is notable for its clarity, its effort to set out the principles of the work, and the excellent examples of its application. The authors are particularly helpful on the issue of self-disclosure of sexual orientation by the therapist. Like most gay-affirmative mental health professionals, they favor honesty in this regard and feel that it advances the therapeutic alliance, but they carefully consider when this should be done and describe many situations where self-disclosure is not advised because of the issues the patient is grappling with in the therapy at the time.
Most of the case examples feature a lesbian therapist. Only one or two present the work of a heterosexual female therapist and no work by male therapists are discussed. The book would have broader utility if it addressed in more detail the authors' views about therapists who are not lesbians treating lesbian patients. Do they feel this is undesirable? If they think that therapists who treat lesbian patients need not be