The Battle for Normality: A Guide for (Self-)Therapy for Homosexuality [Paperback]

Gerard J. M. Van Den Aardweg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1997

This book is primarily for those persons drawn towards homosexuality and who seek practical advice in order to change, or, at least, to deal with it constructively and responsably.

Product Details

• Paperback: 157 pages
• Publisher: Ignatius Pr (March 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0898706149
• ISBN-13: 978-0898706147
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #296,420 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

266 of 288 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a tough love therapy, July 15, 2000

By 

fawwer - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Battle for Normality: A Guide for (Self-)Therapy for Homosexuality (Paperback)

Things change. When I read the first book of Van Den Aardweg many years ago, I revolted. Now I sincerely believe that his theory on the causes of homosexuality is the best one around: there is no doubt in my mind that fifty years from now, this book will be listed as the first comprehensive explanation model (it will take some time before that happens because of the ideological approach contemporary culture takes toward homosexuality: in the end, sound science always prevails, however).

So why did I change my mind? Back then, I just started therapy. I was depressed, afraid of aids, fed up with my endless relationships (the sex was good, but the rest quite unfulfilling) , and just looking for an exit out of my gay lifestyle without really believing that any exit existed. Not much happened till I found by chance the books of Van Den Aardweg. And believe me: even though, lukewarmingly, I wanted to change, I didn't like at all what I read: who likes to be called a neurotic little boy, filled with self-pity, and still complaining about the fact that he felt so lonely in adolescence and such a failure as a boy? I felt offended, rejected, and for months my mind just ground around to find counterarguments: no, it it is not selfpity, my loneliness was real, etc. But at the same time I was fascinated because about everything was recognizable: yeah, my mother had been dominating me in a suffocating way, and my father hadn't been much of a father to me, so that indeed I didn't get very well equipped to succeed as a boy among boys. Puberty had indeed been hell. Lonely, more or less friendless, feeling quite a failure, and taking refuge into the one thing I seemed good at, being intelligent. And I remembered how I had longed in endless daydreams for the friends I didn't have, how I had admired guys who were, in my perception, "real boys", and yeah, it were those basically sad feelings that somehow got sexualized and made me say by 18 "I am gay". In the months after reading Aardweg's book, I decided that it basically came down to this question: I either had been "different" since adolescence because I had been gay all the time, though without explictly knowing that (that was the solution that my "gay side" wanted to prove), or I had been "different", in the sense of lonely, feeling inferior in comparison to "real boys", and that had caused my gayness (Aardweg's position). I went up and down for a long time, but finally I guess the most objective part of my mind just admitted that Aardweg's position was right. That admission enabled me to break thru the shame and pain of having felt a "failure" and hiding it behind an overcompensation screen of intelligence. Subsequently I began to make big and remarkable emotional leaps, which would, over a period of some years, result in the fading away of most of my homosexual feelings (jump on it, gay refuters: I admit, there is still something left) and the emergence of more and more heterosexual feelings (please note: I never suppressed my homosexual feelings, I rather solved the emotional problems underneath them: suppressing would have been fully impossible). I agree by the way with the reviewer from Holland: in hindsight, what happened to me was not primarily a change from gay to heterosexual, but from immature and frustrated to (much more) mature, and emotionally balanced.

Some words to other reviewers. What is the talk about Aardweg saying that homosexuality is a "choice"? He rather states the opposite and considers it an emotional disorder, in many regards comparable to the emotional and neurotic problems many people, gay and straight, have, but clearly with some quite specific elements (as every neurosis has its specifics). Emotional disorders are, obviously, no choice but the result of psyco-social factors during one's education. This choice stuff reminds me by the way of Larry King, who always does as if there are only two possibilities: being gay is a choice (only some silly right wingers go for that, apparently thinking that if they say it is not a choice, they have to accept it as normal) or genetic (which somehow becomes then the equivalent of normal). Talking about choice: only in one sense, I guess, one can talk of choice, and that is with regard to the decision to look for an exit.

To potential gay readers of the book I just would like to say: this is a tough book, and your first reaction will probably be like mine: get angry, feel rejected again, and try to prove that this is just nonsense or right wing homophobia. Maybe the reviewer from Holland has by the way a point where he remarks that the tone of the book is slightly too tough (for me it worked out fine ultimately, others might need some more empathy). But remember, it is "tough" like in "tough love": don't focus too much on the tough side, see the love side. Try to be as objective-minded as possible: this is not about being offended or being rejected, it is about finding the best explanation for (your) homosexuality. And realize: in the end, it is not in the first place about becoming straight, but about becoming more mature, more whole and happier.

A last word to the gentleman from Holland whose review puzzled me a little bit. I don't get how he can say that he still agrees with the positions of the gay movement. Personally, I still feel lots of sympathy for gays: it was a messy and difficult period in my life, but I met some good guys who really were struggling, and, gosh, I had some fun as well. But I am really annoyed by the gay lobby. If I just tell my story, they label me a homophobe. Well, let them, I am a "big boy" by now. What really bothers me however, is the sheer intolerance, and its consequences: thanks to Aardweg's theory, it is by now - I really believe it - possible to help especially young people quite easily over their homosexual feelings before fully succumbing to the gay "lifestyle", and all the painful problems it entails. It is about time for a decent, tolerant discussion with more than one politically correct view dominating the discourse.

54 of 65 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Life Saver!, February 25, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Battle for Normality: A Guide for (Self-)Therapy for Homosexuality (Paperback)

Van dem Aardweg clearly explains (with substantial documentation of scientific literature) that no genetic factors determine a person's sexual orientation. On the contrary, such individuals developed such a neurosis from feeling isolated from their male peers as adolescents (either because they were not good in sports or the like) and then developing a chronic attitude of feeling sorry for oneself. In addition, van dem Aardweg explains in no uncertain terms the self-serving motives of the Gay Lobbiests, the unscientific studies which they promote, and the damage that they cause. The author also analyzes the reasons for the backsliding of many homosexuals who attempt to cure their homosexuality through Christianity. A truly profound book which bears reading and rereading.

Having struggled with homosexual thoughts for many years, I noticed a review of this book on the NARTH Web site last year. After internalizing the contents of this book and finding a psychologist (recommended by NARTH) with whom I explored this subject matter, my ulcers dissappeared, my depression dissipated, and I am more satisfied with my life than ever before.

43 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Killing me softly with his song!!, July 21, 2003

By 

M. Rand (Staten Island, New York United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Battle for Normality: A Guide for (Self-)Therapy for Homosexuality (Paperback)

Admittely, I had to be "ready" to read this book. I mean to say, first I had to accept homosexual acts as wrong, and then I had to accept the possibility of change.

What I like about this book is that even though he doesn't pull any punches, he explains why he says these things. I have to admit that page by page, he was talking about me, both in my environmental circumstances and in my behavior. I could say, "Yes he's right on target!"

If you are already thinking that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality, then this book is hardly for you. This is not a "gay affirming" book, but if you feel like, as I do, that there are other things in your life that you couldn't understand, then this book may help explain it.

It's not an easy book to read, but I felt so much better after I read it. It makes a lot of sense. The man has had extensive work in the field, so he is hardly coming from left field in his observations.