The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
Many young Americans, married and marriageable, are turning to more traditional or fundamentalist religions. Religiosity and ultra-strict morality often leads to attitudes that alter decision-making in marriage, divorce, and the disposition of the children of divorce. Judgmental pastoral counseling may affect these decisions even more. This paper discusses these issues, emphasizing the need for forensic psychiatrists involved in the custody arena to be aware of the religious, spiritual, irreligious, or even anti-religious feelings of the battling partners.
Homosexual activist groups have targeted the Catholic Church and the American military as institutions especially in need of transformation. Associations of healthcare professionals are also under assault from homosexual activists. It is, nevertheless, appropriate for the Church and the military to defend themselves against this assault, to affirm that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian ethics and military service, and to help homosexuals free themselves from the vice of homosexuality. Arguments that homosexual reorientation therapy is unethical are unsound.
In his paper "The Catholic Church, the American Military, and Homosexual Reorientation Therapy," David W. Lutz ultimately concludes that it is "appropriate, and highly ethical" for the American military to offer reorientation therapy to help homosexuals overcome "the vice of sodomy." The major thrust of his paper, however, is to call for abandonment of the "Don't Ask/Don't Tell" policy currently in place in the military.
INTRODUCTION: Sexual health is an integral part of the multifaceted human experience that is driven both by biological factors and psychological facets. Religion may provide a moral code of conduct or a sexual compass as to sexual norms and behaviors. AIM: The aim of this study was to summarize the integration of sexuality and religion. METHOD: A review of published literature and religious texts was conducted. RESULTS: The integration of religion with country or state politics and laws is a complicated dilemma and will not be discussed in the scope of this article.
Positive psychologists have contributed to our understandings of how positive emotions and flexible cognition enhance resiliency. However, positive psychologists' research has been slow to address the relational resources and interactions that help nonheterosexual families overcome adversity. Addressing overlooked lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ) and systemic factors in positive psychology, this article draws on family resilience literature and LGBTQ literature to theorize a systemic positive psychology framework for working with nonheterosexual families.
A typology of styles of loving is applied to the search for partners among gay males, using a sample of advertisers in a gay newspaper. Characteristics of advertisers and of the partners they seek are analyzed. The impact of gay liberation ideology on gay male relationships is considered as a model of predicted changes in heterosexual male selection patterns.
Based on a design used in previous research with heterosexuals, this study assessed the permanent partner priorities of gay and straight men and women, as well as the perception of those priorities by each gender and sexual orientation. Heterosexuals and homosexuals did not differ in their rank-ordered priorities, but tended to misperceive the priorities of their own and the other groups studied. Differentials of misperception were explained by varying societal pressures experienced by homo- and heterosexual men and women.
With the help of clinical material obtained from two male patients in therapy at the same time, the concept of the loving father is examined. Both patients presented with a fear of being homosexual. It gradually became clear during the therapy that both of them were searching for a loving father.
A questionnaire study of 127 lesbians tested hypotheses from the social psychological literature about factors associated with relationship satisfaction. In general, lesbians in the sample reported fairly high levels of satisfaction and love in their current relationship. Results indicated that satisfaction was more strongly related to characteristics of the relationship itself than to the individual attitudes or background characteristics of individual partners. In particular, greater satisfaction was associated with equality of involvement and equality of power in the relationship.