Customer Reviews

Gay Children, Straight Parents: A Plan for Family Healing

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I am a licensed clinical psychologist (PhD) and work as a clinician, researcher, and professor. I believe I am well qualified to review this book (probably more qualified than Mr. Cohen was to write it). I am mainly writing this review for the people who might buy this book without being aware that it is not what they think it is.

First, please understand who Mr. Cohen is and is not. He is not a psychologist, psychiatrist, or any kind of legaly recognized mental health professional. He has never been licensed in any state and was booted out of the American Counseling Association for unethical practices/exploiting his patients. One of his most well-known therapeutic techniques involves holding his male patients on his lap. He has repeatedly demonstrated this on national television. His is an evangelical, fundamentalist member of the Unification Church. This church vehemently opposes homosexuality and has compared gay people to "dirty dung-eating dogs."

Second, please be aware that Mr. Cohen's explanation of the "causes" of homosexuality were popular in the 1950s and have since been disproven by a mountain of research. His "reparative therapy" has also been handily discredited and rejected as both ineffective and potentially harmful by the American Psychological Association, American Pychiatric Association, and by all mainstream mental health and medical organizations. Many of the statistics used in this book are outdated, taken out of context, or have been firmly discredited. It is inexscusable for Mr. Cohen to use this incorrect information and, on national television, even he has admitted that some of the information he used is incorrect and should be removed.

If your child has found the impressive courage to come out to you, please work to accept them for who they are. This might take time, but it's well worth it. I've seen many families become so much closer and stronger through this process. Please do not be misled by fringe misinformation and believe that your loved one can or should change. This can be incredibly damaging - I've seen it first-hand.

If you are a parent looking for a book to assist you in navigating this process, please consider Bernstein's book. And think about joining PFLAG (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays). Thanks so much for reading - I wish you all the best.

Cohen's book is deliberately confusingly titled, "Gay Children, Straight Parents." There is another book entitled "Straight Parents, Gay Children," by Robert A. Bernstein that is pretty much the polar opposite of this book.

Reading the amazon.com product descriptions makes the differences loud and clear, but a parent who gets a recommendation for Bernstein's book very well might end up with Cohen's instead because of an honest mistake on their part and an intentionally sleazy ytactic on the part of Cohen.

Bernstein's book: "shows the parents of gay children how to stop merely tolerating their kids and start being their heroes." Bernstein is an ardent supporter of P-FLAG, and amazon.com endorses his book with a positive review, as does Booklist.

Cohen's book: "a practical, helpful book for parents who want to understand why their kids are so angry and what they need to do to change." That's the back cover copy, not a review or endorsement by amazon.com, Booklist, Publisher's Weekly, or any other legit reviewers. Because, you know, gayness is caused by ANGER. Yup. The cover blurbs are all from other anti-gay 'counselors' with M.A. degrees (which we all know could be a master's in anything, and is not in and of itself a sign that anyone is a legitimately trained psychotherapist)and the phony LPC 'credential' (not recognized by the APA). It is published by Intervarsity Press, which is a fundamentalist Christian company.

Deliberate obfuscation is nefarious hatred, pure and simple.

The sad thing is that amazon shows that people who buy Bernstein's book often buy Cohen's book as well. This is clearly a deliberate attempt by Cohen to get parents who might otherwise be willing and able to accept a gay or bi child, sexual orientation and all, to doubt any impulses towards understanding and embracing a gay child for who s/he is.

And it gets worse: there are passages in this book that say race - yes, race, as in the color of your skin - is one of the ten possible causes of homosexuality. Cohen's website also mentions physical disability. There are unfounded 'statistics' based on 'research' by unlicensed psychologists claiming gay people are 40 times more likely to be pedophiles, whereas legit research shows that most sex offenders are married heterosexual men with children. This book was also distributed to, cited, and emphatically endorsed by the political groups in Uganda who tried to pass a law stipulating the death penalty for those caught having gay sex. This is NOT something anyone with a gay child should read. And really, do you really think your kid turned out gay because you didn't bond with him as a baby? Really? The 'blame the parent' theory for mental illness (which homosexuality is not - look in the DSM-IV; it isn't in there) went out with the 1960s.

I don't know Cohen's real story; he is entitled to say what he thinks it is. But the trouble with books like this, the "Pray-Away-the-Gay," is that they really are "Prey-Away-the-Gay, in that they tend to further victimize families who are struggling with understanding they have a Gay or Lesbian child.

It is a shame that the "Report Abuse" button is only available for comments, and not for the book itself. This book is an insidious attempt to mislead those seeking help into purchasing hateful propaganda. If Mr. Cohen wants to spread his blatant ignorance in text, he should at least have the decency to label it appropriately.

Amazon - Please take this book down until it at least is titled in such a way to mark it as an anti-gay work. No one looking for actual information on understanding and helping their LGBT child should be exposed to this drivel - it does real and demostrable harm, and is in no way on subject.

Richard Cohen is not a licensed therapist. Richard Cohen abhors his gayness and is choosing to be a straight person. I do not see how he could be impartial in his assessments of gay children. Additionally, the American Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Assocation, National Association of Social Workers, and American Counseling Assocation, for starters, do not endorse, and in fact, have deemed potentional harmfulness in these kinds of therapies that supposedly change someone from gay to straight. It does not happen. For all the outdated Freudian hype and non-substantiated stuff in his book, I bet there is abolultely no one here giving reviews, except possibly people who have money to make in this lucratic movement, who can undisputably confirm in thought, word, deed, and action that they are 100% straight.

For any person or parents/friends of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered individuals, get them the help they need to accept the magnificant person they are. Living a life in the closet is an invitation to depression, anxiety, a life of fear, deception, lost dreams, a gray/dull life, isolation, anger and pain, and, in a significant number of cases suicide or thoughts of suicide. Your gay son or daughter needs your acceptance, and not to be put through programs and various emotional torture to twist them into who they are not. The younger generation is so open, in general, to their gay peers and just accept it as a given. Help, not hurt your child, the gay person you know. I will never forget the loving comment of a mother decades ago. She said: I have eight children, and my youngest son is gay. I love and accept him just as much as my other children.

As a psychotherapist, I assure you that reparative therapy is not only an ineffective and unethical practice, but also damaging to the soul and self of your loved one. Acceptance is what you and your family needs. The American Psychological Association has deemed reparative therapy unethical practice, and the author of this book, provided he is utilizing this therapy with clients, could and should lose his license to practice. There are many other books available on Amazon.com that can help (What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality or Positively Gay: New Approaches to Gay and Lesbian Life), but this is not one of them!

Wow, finally a book that offers real help and real hope to parents and families of loved ones with unwanted same-sex attractions (SSA). Mr. Cohen gives solid ifnormation and then backs it up with experience and testimony that transends the politically correct confusion and goes sraight to the heart of the matter. Bravo!! I wish that my folks had had such a tremendous resource when I was struggling all alone with my SSA. I could have been spared all those years of torment and pain. However, now is the time to shout it from the rooftops, CHANGE IS POSSIBLE! Thank you Mr. Cohen for opening our minds, and your heart to the TRUTH in LOVE about such a personal and delicate issue of the soul. may many familes be restored and renewed by your faithfulness.

EVERYONE needs to be CORRECTLY INFORMED about homosexuality!
This topic has fastly become the root of highly & hotly debated issues in our society today.
Cohen's book has everything you need to know wrapped up in a most readable, correctoly informational, & understandable presentation.
The resource list that is provided is complete & invaluable!
GAYS & STRAIGHTS don't let another minute go by without reading this book. It is a life saver in more ways than one!
From very thankful parents.

Richard Cohen's new book was extremely helpful to my husband and I. It gave practical tools and information which not only helped us understand the meaning of our son's same-sex attraction but gave us specific 'how to's.' Because of this book my husband was able to know how to reach out to our son and good progress has been made in their relationship. With the media, political correctness, and society telling us that 'change is not possible,'many parents give up and join the pro-gay movement. They are brain-washed to believe that they are being loving and tolerant for accepting their child's same-sex attraction. It may appear that way until all the consequences and pain of living that life bear fruit. Saying that there is nothing wrong with having a same-sex attraction is like telling a diabetic that they can live a perfectly normal life withot insulin. Many of our children have unwanted same-sex attraction and this book gives families hope that there are other options. I so appreciated Richard's openess in sharing his own struggles as a parent and being vunerable.

Erika 2-21-05

I was devastated when my 15 year old son told my wife and I he had been having same sex attractions for the past ten years. He felt guilt, shame and had tried to make the attractions go away without success. Then we found Richard Cohens book and uncovered the real reasons for for these attractions -the wounds and hurts from years past- He now has hope that he can heal the hurts and live the life he has always wanted.