Get a unique insight into the attitudes of mental health professionals working outside the United States!

The Mental Health Professions and Homosexuality: International Perspectives examines historical and contemporary attitudes toward homosexuality in the theory and practice of mental health professionals working in Europe and Asia. Edited by two noted authors, educators, and practitioners, Drs. Vittorio Lingiardi and Jack Drescher, the book's unique insights are an important step in keeping pace with current international mental health literature about homosexuality. The Mental Health Professions and Homosexuality addresses the relationship between psychiatric institutions and homosexuality; the history of current theoretical frameworks for thinking about homosexuality; the emergence of an international gay, lesbian, and bisexual psychiatric movement; and how changes in psychoanalytic theory and practice both mirror and are influenced by the changing legal and societal status of homosexuality.

The Mental Health Professions and Homosexuality: International Perspectives asks three questions of practitioners working in China, India, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Finland, Norway, and the United Kingdom: 1) what are the prevailing theoretical models about homosexuality found in professional literature in your country; 2) what is known about the actual clinical experiences of gay and lesbian clients; and 3) what is the status of openly gay and lesbian mental health practitioners in your country? The responses reveal insights on a variety of topics, including:

• the changing views within British psychiatry


• a survey of German psychoanalytic institutes regarding their admission policies toward gay and lesbian applicants


• a detailed review of anti-homosexual biases in Italian scientific literature from 1930 to present


• the struggle for civil rights of the Chinese tongzhi community


• the emergence of gay and lesbian civil rights in India


• efforts to open the World Psychiatric Association and the International Psychoanalytical Association to gay and lesbian mental health professionals

The Mental Health Professions and Homosexuality: International Perspectives provides first-hand perspectives on how different cultures have created different ways to view homosexuality and different ways to include—or exclude—gays and lesbians from social and public health policy. The book is an essential resource for psychiatrists, psychologists, psychoanalysts, physicians, social workers, anthropologists, and historians.