Description
'Odets's warm and lyrical voice, his inspiring picture of how imaginative gay life can be, has sent me queuing for the couch.' Evening Standard 'A gay man could read this book as if his life depended on it - and perhaps it does' Andrew Holleran, author of Dancer from the Dance Even in our modern progressive world, it's not easy to be a gay man. While young men often come out more readily, even those from the most liberal of backgrounds still struggle to accept themselves and experience stigma, shame and difficulties with intimate relationships. They also suffer from ongoing trauma wrought by the AIDS epidemic, something that is all too often relegated to history. Drawing on a lifetime's work as a clinical psychologist, Walt Odets uses the stories of his patients as well as those of his own deep relationships with other gay men to illuminate how these difficulties may be overcome. From a 74-year-old who only felt able to come out after his wife had died, to the boy raised in a strict religious family who worked his way to San Francisco, to the middle-aged defence lawyer who left everything behind to embrace a new life, the experiences here explore everything from grief to survival, childhood pain to the definition of gay itself. Out of the Shadows shows us how a new way forward is possible through learning to accept ourselves and others as they are, and independently inventing our own lives.
About the Author
Walt Odets is a clinical psychologist in private practice who has worked with and written about the psychological, developmental and social lives of gay men for more than three decades.His seminal book, In the Shadow of the Epidemic: Being HIV-Negative in the Age of AIDS, which Duke University Press published in 1995, was selected by The New York Times as one of the “Notable Books of the Year.” The Advocate magazine reported that In the Shadow of the Epidemic was also the No. 1 bestselling book among gay men that fall. The following year, OUT magazine named Odets "one of The 100 most impressive, influential and controversial gay men and lesbians of 1996.”Odets’s recent work has focused on the psychological aftermath of the HIV epidemic, the long-standing childhood and adolescent stigmatization and trauma experienced by young gay men, and the conventional idea of “the homosexual” and its negative influences on gay identities, self-realization and relationships between men. This work has culminated in a new book, OUT OF THE SHADOWS: Reimagining Gay Men’s Lives, which examines the hopes and new possibilities for gay men today. The book will be released by both Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Penguin Random House (U.K.), in June 2019.Walt Odets earned his B.A. in Philosophy from Wesleyan University in 1969, and after two decades working as a photojournalist and pilot, a Ph.D. from San Francisco's Professional School of Psychology, in 1989. A public advocate, he has consulted for the Shanti Project of San Francisco and the Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) in New York City, and been a member of the AIDS Task Force of the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association (GLMA). He has also served as a clinical supervisor for the psychology intern program at Berkeley's Pacific Center, and as a member of the United States Congress, Office of Technology Assessment evaluation workshop on AIDS prevention.A seasoned and engaging public speaker, Odets has presented to a broad range of groups, including The Gay Men's Health Summit, the California Department of Health Services, the American Psychological Association, the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association (GLMA), the Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC), the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF), the National Gay and Lesbian Health Conference, the American Psychiatric Association, the San Francisco Department of Public Health, the State of New York Department of Health, the Yale University Institution for Social and Policy Studies, the Stanford Medical School and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).Walt Odets is the son of playwright Clifford Odets and stage actress Bette Grayson. He was born and raised in Los Angeles and New York, and presently lives in Berkeley, California, where he writes and maintains a private practice in psychotherapy.Website:www.waltodets.comFacebook: @waltodetsauthor
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