A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality (Paperback)

~ (Author), Linda Ames Nicolosi (Author) "At the very heart of the homosexual condition is conflict about gender..." (more)
Key Phrases: gender esteem, prehomosexual boy, homosexual outcome, Richard Wyler, American Psychiatric Association, Richard Fitzgibbons (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Homosexuality: is it learned, biological or both? The answer to this question deeply concerns parents. They want to know how they can best raise their children. A common belief today is that nothing can be done to foster the development of healthy heterosexual orientation in children. But the clinical experience and professional research of Dr. Nicolosi and others indicates otherwise. In this groundbreaking book Joseph and Linda Ames Nicolosi uncover the most significant factors that contribute to a child's healthy sense of self as male or female. Listening to moving recollections from ex-homosexual men and women who describe what was missing in their own childhoods, the Nicolosis provide clear insight for identifying potential developmental roadblocks and give practical advice to parents for helping their children securely identify with their gender. Replete with personal stories from parents, children and ex-homosexual strugglers, A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality offers compassion and hope for all those parents who seek to lay a foundation for a healthy heterosexual identity in their children. Features & Benefits

* draws from the clinical experience and professional research of Dr. Nicolosi and other psychologists

* engages the question of whether homosexuality is learned, biological or both

* uncovers significant factors that contribute to children's healthy self-identity

* includes personal stories from parents, children and ex-homosexual men and women

* guides parents to lay a healthy foundation for heterosexual identity for their children

From the Author

IVP: Many people think that homosexuality is part of a person's natural identity. Is homosexuality really something that can be prevented?

Joseph Nicolosi: Homosexuality is understood by the majority of mental health practitioners working in this field to result from the interaction of biological, social and psychological factors. The social and psychological factors can be modified. What parents can do to make a homosexual outcome unlikely is to lay the best possible foundation for their child's secure gender identity. IVP: Homosexuality as a developmental disorder has been taken out of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Why do you still say that it is a developmental disorder?

Linda Nicolosi: Psychiatry says a disorder is characterized by distress and disability. We see a lot of subjective distress in homosexually-oriented people which cannot be attributed solely to social discrimination. We also believe there is evidence of a "disability" in the homosexually-oriented person's feeling of not being comfortable with members of their own sex, of feeling "different" and inadequate, and of course, in not being able to function according to their biologically mandated sexual design.

There is a proven higher level of psychiatric disorders suffered by homosexually-oriented people, even in very gay-friendly countries like The Netherlands. This, including the high level of gay promiscuity and the interest in perverse practices--the search for what gay men call "sexual variety"--is suggestive, we believe, that nature's design is heterosexual. Furthermore, the gay world is very destructive to our communal understanding of healthy gender identity and gender roles, to the stability of the traditional family, and to our integrity as persons who are designed to live in accordance with our created natures.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 250 pages
• Publisher: InterVarsity Press (October 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0830823794
• ISBN-13: 978-0830823796
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (91 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #105,611 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

76 of 94 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Beware of BS that pretends to be science, April 12, 2009

By	Michael Tree - See all my reviews

This blurb says this book uses "clinical experience and professional research", but this book is based on nothing of the sort. It ignores mountains of actual research in favor of the author's unsubstantiated opinions. If you want to read the author's personal theories, by all means read this book, but be aware that it's just the opinions of one [...] with a political agenda, not the consensus of mental health professionals and researchers.

330 of 433 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A how-to guide for married misery, August 4, 2004

By	Bucky (KCMO, United States) - See all my reviews

First of all, I'm ashamed that so many of the one-star reviewers here don't seem to have actually read the book, but instead are relying on hearsay and name calling. I've read the book extensively, and it's quite easy to condemn on its own merits.

The bottom line of what Nicolosi theorizes: We are gay because of a disruption in our relationship with our same-sex parent, which causes a gender dysphoria and incomplete sense of maleness/femaleness.

And this is garbage. Yes, one might say my relationship with my father was not as warm and close as with my mother, and I did indeed turn out gay. Yet in the very same household, my sister was openly combative with my mother from an extremely young age, and she is a raging heterosexual.

Furthermore, my best male friend has a father who rarely, if ever spoke at the home, and spent 45 weeks a year out on the road as a traveling salesman. This friend turned out heterosexual, and maintains an excellent relationship with his very smart, with-it wife.

I know of very few men, gay or straight, who have warm'n'cuddly relationships with their fathers. Of all my friends, the two who have always been closest with their dads are both -- wait for it -- gay themselves.

Nicolosi has developed all his techniques with that unique subset of gay people who are so mentally anguished at their homosexuality that they would do anything to "get over" it. These self-selected subjects are in absolutely no way representative as a sample of the larger gay population.

This is the main reason his work is utterly invalid as science. You cannot develop a psychological treatment for such an amorphous condition as homosexuality, and you can't claim success when the people who came to you desperate for a treatment claim to be cured! There's no "gay test," and many prominent ex-gays have reverted back to their true nature. If the poster boys (John Paulk) can't keep on the straight and narrow, wouldn't you think this is darned good evidence that the "cure" doesn't work?

Who's to say your willowy, feminine son is going to be gay, or your tool-wielding daughter is going to turn out a lesbian?

The sleazy video booths and rest stops of this nation are crawling with homosexual men who have gotten married, then freaked out when they realize they're never going to have any of the physical components that every human being needs. They then go out for no-strings, anonymous gay sex...and often end up bringing bugs back home to the unsuspecting wife.

I went through Nicolosi-style treatment myself, which resulted in a 3-year marriage to a woman whom I genuinely did love intellectually...but who did nothing for me on a deep emotional and physical level. Luckily for me, my absolute inability to satisfy her physical needs led her to leave me. Yes, it was the most difficult time in my life, far worse than acknowledging my own homosexuality as a teenager. But it was the best thing that has ever happened to me.

You simply cannot imagine the feeling of being trapped in a sham marriage, especially when you actually have deep feelings for the woman you are binding to yourself.

Sorry, Mr. Nicolosi, but spending time playing football with your kid isn't going to help "fix" him. I skateboarded, rode BMX and climbed trees with the best of them when I was 7. Whatever caused it, it's still part of me, and this ridiculous "cure" isn't going to help.

131 of 174 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A 19th Century Attitude, December 16, 2002

By	David Gerrold "David" (Northridge, CA USA) - See all my reviews

Ten years ago, I adopted a little boy who had been abandoned and then abused in the foster care system. To be the kind of dad he needed, I had to do an enormous amount of research in parenting. Some of the things that we do to children "for their own good" are the psychological equivalent of dunking stools for witches. The polite word is "counter-productive."

So when a close friend of mine with two young sons asked me to read this book and let her know if I thought it useful, I actually had some experience -- but academic as well as hands-on -- against which to measure it. To be blunt, I found this book horrifying. Despite the author's pretentions of compassion, his attitudes seem to hark from the dark ages. What he writes in this book is fundamentally out of touch with modern mental health studies. It's worth noting that the Freud himself, once wrote to the mother of a homosexual that there was nothing wrong with her son, and that homosexuality is "no disgrace." Nicolosi apparently believes it is. So he apparently disregards Freud's opinion, and the opinions of the APA and everyone else who has done serious research into human sexual orientation.

Childhood is that time during which the child not only explores and discovers the world he lives in; it is also the time in which a child discovers himself and begins the tricky process of inventing his own identity. We know from dozens of studies that homosexuality occurs in the same percentage in all human populations, and even in animal populations as well. It is (apparently) a normal expression of human sexuality, with specific evolutionary value. Indeed, many cultures on this planet have recognzied and revered homosexuals as blessed.

In our society, however, we still carry the burden of inherited superstitions which have given us a subtext of shame about almost anything connected with sex. We pass this subtext onto our children and then wonder aloud what's wrong with the kids--why are there so many teen pregnancies, abandoned babies, STD's, and so on. And one of the sadder tragedies about how we treat our young people is that we deny them the opportunity to understand their own feelings in a caring and compassionate context; as a result, gay teens are afraid to talk to their parents, their counselors, their peers -- they pretend to be what they can't be and they suffer enormously. The level of suicide among gay teens is three times higher than that of heterosexual teens.

Now comes this book, a sucker punch for parents and teens alike, designed to increase the context of misunderstanding, confusion, denial, inhibition, frustration, and alienation. People who follow the advice in this book are going to wonder why their kids are so distant -- their kids haven't stopped being gay, they've just stopped trusting their parents.

Parents of teenage boys need to ask themselves if they are willing to accept a gay son? Many parents wonder why their adult children have so little to do with them, not realizing that it was their own implied disapproval that drove away their offspring.

It's profoundly important for parents to understand that you can't turn a gay child straight. But you can drive a gay teen away. You can even drive him to suicide by denying him your love, your understanding, and your compassion. This is a dangerous, deluded, and terribly misguided book. It's the kind of sexual propaganda that disrupts families.

There are many better books for parents about dealing with childrens' sexual issues. Please check them out.