The Course of Gay and Lesbian Lives: Social and Psychoanalytic Perspectives (Worlds of Desire: The Chicago Series on Sexuality, Gender, and Culture)

"Drawing on a wealth of research, including their own clinical work with lesbians and gay men and a vast array of other pertinent studies, psychoanalysts Bertram J. Cohler and Robert M. Galatzer-Levy have written a ground-breaking work that examines how psychological development and clinical intervention as well as social and historical change across generations contribute to how we think about sexuality and sexual orientation. The authors argue that there is little support for assuming that homosexuality has a biological basis. Recognizing the many pathways that lead to same-gender sexual orientation, the authors conclude that the cause is much less important than understanding the meaning of being homosexual. They consider the destructive nature of an often intolerant society that fosters so-called conversion psychotherapy and stress the importance of helping to rebuild a sense of coherence and personal integrity among gay men and women subjected to prejudice from childhood onwards."--BOOK JACKET.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of LGBTQ+. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.