Abstract

This book provides comprehensive coverage of the initial interview with a gay male client. It first provides a transcript of the entire interview. It then covers in-depth a set of universal themes, and finally includes commentary on and analysis of the interview from a range of the most widely used theoretical perspectives.

It is designed to teach the foundations of conducting an initial interview and therapists in training, as well as experienced mental health workers will find it invaluable.

--Winner of the Distinguished Book Award, APA 2011--

• Editor is Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Human Identity
• Presents a realistic model of interviewing, and cautions the therapist in training not to grasp for the unreachable; perfection
• Every chapter in the book discusses the insights and mistakes by the psychologist conducting the interview

"For students in training to be psychotherapists, Silverstein, a psychologist who specializes in homosexuality, assembles US psychologists who present 15 chapters that examine interactions during Silverstein's initial interview with a 30-year-old gay man who seeks therapy after the death of his older brother, who was also gay, with the aim of promoting more humane interaction in psychotherapy. After a transcript of the interview, the contributors comment on aspects of the process from different therapeutic approaches. They address failures, such as over-identification and punishing the client, rescue fantasies, and inappropriate self-disclosure, and discuss counter-transference, psychoanalytic and attachment theories, cognitive-behavior and family systems therapies, psychodrama, sexual abuse, motivational interviewing, gay-affirmative psychotherapy, intake procedures in an institutional setting, death and bereavement, treatment progression, gender, sexual orientation, and the relationship between sex, drug use, and AIDS."--Reference and Research Book News