For almost forty years, Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, Sr. assisted hundreds of clients with their goal to reduce their same-sex attractions and explore their heterosexual potential.
He began this work in 1981 as the originator of reparative therapy®. His pioneering work ended when he passed away suddenly in March of 2017.
A licensed clinical psychologist, Dr. Nicolosi believed that our bodies tell us who we are, and that our bodies have made us for heterosexality. Dr. Nicolosi's research led him to conclude that homosexuality, is rooted in trauma; it is an attempt to "repair" a deep emotional wound that left the boy alienated from his own natural masculinity.
Many contemporary therapists view the client's gay feelings as unchangeable and biologically rooted. But the ethical therapist will always look below the surface and ask "why," rather than locking the client into an unwanted gay self-identity.
Dr. Nicolosi's clients often told him the following: "I know, on some deep level, that I'm a heterosexual man. But I'm troubled by these attractions that prevent me from being who I really am." Many of these men were victims of homosexual sexual abuse. Others felt alienated from their fathers and male peers, and grew up with an unfulfilled longing for male affection, attention and approval. That childhood deficit left them with attractions that they find compelling, but deeply problematic. Acting on their attractions interferes with their values, their marriages, and deeply held beliefs of who they really are. These men don't consider themselves "gay." They see themselves as heterosexual men with a homosexual problem.
This book contains chapters on the origins and meaning of same-sex attraction, and describes how the process of self-understanding can lead to self-acceptance, emphasizing that the client must first accept himself as he is, before change is possible. The book then delves into the role of childhood trauma; the origins of transgenderism; mother-son boundary violations in the childhoods of homosexual men; and the damage inflicted on a child by a narcissistic parent. Other chapters reveal the dark side of the gay movement, Freud's beliefs about homosexuality, and the perspective of a poet and philosopher who says homosexuality is "against art."
The Best of Joseph Nicolosi: Collected Articles by the Originator of Reparative Therapy, is the final book to come from the pen of a bold, original thinker. His work stands out as unique in this era of stifling "groupthink" within the psychological profession. Dr. Nicolosi's articles are supplemented here with a Foreword and two chapters by the author's widow, Linda A. Nicolosi, who also added two Case Stories by David Pickup, a distinguished therapist and successful practitioner of Nicolosi's Reparative Therapy. Mrs. Nicolosi worked for nearly four decades as Dr. Nicolosi's assistant and editor.