Charles C. Silverstein | |
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![]() Silverstein during a 2021 video conference | |
Born | Charles C. Silverstein [1] April 23, 1935 Brooklyn, New York, U.S. |
Died | January 30, 2023 87) Manhattan, New York, U.S. | (aged
Alma mater | |
Known for | |
Spouse | Bill Bartelt (m. 2017;div. 2019) |
Partner | William Bory (died 1993) [4] |
Awards |
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Scientific career | |
Fields | Psychology |
Institutions | |
Thesis | The Relationship of Attitude Change to the Complexity of the Environment, the Message, and Conceptual Structure [5] |
Doctoral advisor | Peter Suedfeld [6] |
Charles Silverstein (April 23, 1935 – January 30, 2023) was an American writer, therapist, and LGBT rights advocate. He was best known for his presentation as a graduate student before the American Psychiatric Association in 1973 that led to the removal of homosexuality as a mental illness from the organization's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual . [7] [8] [2] He was also the founding editor-in-chief of the Journal of Homosexuality. [9] [10]
Charles C. Silverstein was born at Beth-El Hospital to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York, on April 23, 1935. [10] [11] [12] His father was a newspaper deliveryman, and his mother was a homemaker. [13] He recalled his family experiencing antisemitism early in his life. [12] [14] The family attempted to move to Los Angeles in 1946. There his father was fired; he recalled that his father's co-workers had threatened strike action if the boss would not fire "that Jew". After this, the family moved back to Brooklyn. [12] Silverstein studied education at the State University of New York at New Paltz, receiving his degree in 1959. [2] He then became a teacher at Chatsworth Avenue School, an elementary school in Larchmont, for six years. [2] [12]
He attended high school at the School of Industrial Art in Manhattan. [11] He then studied at the City College of New York in clinical psychology for three years, but later became a student at Rutgers University. [2] [11] He joined the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) in 1972; he later remarked that it was "an organization that many people will tell you it saved their lives, and I think it did for me." [2] [8] He also led student protests against the Vietnam War. [12] In 1973, as a Rutgers University graduate student and member of the GAA, he provided a key testimony (in which he utilized satire) to the American Psychological Association opposing the classification of homosexuality as a mental illness. [10] [2] [8] Silverstein was one of several speakers who attended the panel: while he provided testimony from a psychologist's perspective, Jean O'Leary gave testimony at the same event from a commoner's perspective. [3] [13] [15] In a 2003 interview he said, "I threw back at them their diagnoses over the decades and how funny it all sounds now, and pointed out that their fun had hurt a lot of people." [16] [2] That same year, Silverstein came out as gay to his mother. [17]
He later earned his PhD in social psychology from Rutgers University in 1974. [10] [2] After graduating from Rutgers University, he opened a private psychology practice. [3] His essays and professional papers have been published widely in journals and anthologies. [9] In 1977, Silverstein and Edmund White co-authored The Joy of Gay Sex , described by The Advocate as a "landmark" sex manual that has "educated generations of gay men". [18] [19] In one of his last interviews, Silverstein told the LGBTQ&A podcast in 2021, "When Ed and I first sat down to talk about the book and we made a list of the entries, it was quite clear that a majority of the entries were not about sex, it was about community and it was about relating to each other. While most people think of all the dirty pictures, what we always thought our greatest contribution was, is trying to write something that we would've wanted when we were kids, and that would be something more than just sex. That would be about community." [20]
Silverstein was the founding director of the Institute for Human Identity, and the Identity House in New York City. [9] He was the founding editor of the Journal of Homosexuality. [9] He was a member of the American Psychological Association and was made a Fellow in 1987. [21] He was also a member of Division 44 of the APA (Society for the Psychological Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Issues), the New York State Psychological Association (NYSPA), and the Committee on Ethical Practices of NYSPA. [21] He was a frequent lecturer at conventions on both the state and national levels, author of eight books and many professional papers, and has received many awards from the American Psychological Association. [22] [23]
He advocated against conversion therapy, particularly aversion therapy. [24] In 1995, he discussed the prospect of a cure for homosexuality to The New York Times , saying: "At most, it allows a person to develop some kind of relationship with a woman that most of the time will end badly. Even if it doesn't, the gay man invariably feels like a failure." [25] In 2012, he told The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide that the "amount of damage that has been done by the psychological and psychiatry professions to help people change — I see it every day at my practice... I think aversion therapy is a form of torture. I think that psychiatrists of that period enjoyed setting up a sado-masochist relationship between them and their patients." [14]
Silverstein died at his home in Manhattan on January 30, 2023, at age 87; [26] [2] According to his executor Aron Berlinger, Silverstein had been diagnosed with lung cancer. [27] [13]
Silverstein received the Gold Medal Award for Life Achievement in the Practice of Psychology from the American Psychological Association in 2011, for "his 40-year career challenging the criteria of social morality as the basis for diagnosing sexual disorders", "his presentation before the American Psychiatric Association to eliminate homosexuality as a mental disorder", "his founding two counseling centers for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in order to deliver unbiased treatment", and "his founding of the Journal of Homosexuality ." [22] [23]
He was also featured in Cured, a documentary film detailing the history of declassifying homosexuality as a mental illness. [17] In 2017, he received an Achievement Award from GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBT Equality. [3] [28] In 2022, he received the Lifetime Achievement Social Justice Award from the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies. [8]
The Alliance for Therapeutic Choice and Scientific Integrity (ATCSI), which until 2014 was known as the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), also known as the NARTH Institute, is a US organization that promotes conversion therapy, a pseudoscientific practice used in attempts to change the sexual orientation of people with same-sex attraction. NARTH was founded in 1992 by Joseph Nicolosi, Benjamin Kaufman, and Charles Socarides. Its headquarters were in Encino, California, at its Thomas Aquinas Psychological Clinic. NARTH has not been recognized by any major United States-based professional association.
Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBTQ people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity.
Gay bashing is an attack, abuse, or assault committed against a person who is perceived by the aggressor to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or queer (LGBTQ+). It includes both violence against LGBT people and LGBT bullying. The term covers violence against and bullying of people who are LGBT, as well as non-LGBT people whom the attacker perceives to be LGBT.
The field of psychology has extensively studied homosexuality as a human sexual orientation. The American Psychiatric Association listed homosexuality in the DSM-I in 1952 as a "sociopathic personality disturbance," but that classification came under scrutiny in research funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. That research and subsequent studies consistently failed to produce any empirical or scientific basis for regarding homosexuality as anything other than a natural and normal sexual orientation that is a healthy and positive expression of human sexuality. As a result of this scientific research, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from the DSM-II in 1973. Upon a thorough review of the scientific data, the American Psychological Association followed in 1975 and also called on all mental health professionals to take the lead in "removing the stigma of mental illness that has long been associated" with homosexuality. In 1993, the National Association of Social Workers adopted the same position as the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association, in recognition of scientific evidence. The World Health Organization, which listed homosexuality in the ICD-9 in 1977, removed homosexuality from the ICD-10 which was endorsed by the 43rd World Health Assembly on 17 May 1990.
Societal attitudes toward homosexuality vary greatly across different cultures and historical periods, as do attitudes toward sexual desire, activity and relationships in general. All cultures have their own values regarding appropriate and inappropriate sexuality; some sanction same-sex love and sexuality, while others may disapprove of such activities in part. As with heterosexual behaviour, different sets of prescriptions and proscriptions may be given to individuals according to their gender, age, social status or social class.
Opposition to legal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ) people exists throughout the world. LGBT rights opponents may be opposed to the decriminalization of homosexuality; laws permitting civil unions or partnerships or supporting LGBT parenting and adoption, LGBT military members, access to assisted reproductive technology, and access to sex reassignment surgery and hormone replacement therapy for transgender individuals.
Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who identify or are perceived as being lesbian, gay or bisexual. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, hatred, or antipathy, may be based on irrational fear and may sometimes be attributed to religious beliefs.
Gay is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'.
Homosexuality is sexual attraction, romantic attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" exclusively to people of the same sex or gender. It "also refers to a person's sense of identity based on those attractions, related behaviors, and membership in a community of others who share those attractions."
Ego-dystonic sexual orientation is a highly controversial mental health diagnosis that was included in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) from 1980 to 1987 and in the World Health Organization's (WHO) International Classification of Diseases (ICD) from 1990 to 2019. Individuals could be diagnosed with ego-dystonic sexual orientation if their sexual orientation or attractions were at odds with their idealized self-image, causing anxiety and a desire to change their orientation or become more comfortable with it. It describes not innate sexual orientation itself, but a conflict between the sexual orientation a person wishes to have and their actual sexual orientation.
Same-sex parenting is the parenting of children by same-sex couples generally consisting of gays or lesbians who are often in civil partnerships, domestic partnerships, civil unions, or same-sex marriages.
Gay affirmative psychotherapy is a form of psychotherapy for non-heterosexual people, specifically gay and lesbian clients, which focuses on client comfort in working towards authenticity and self-acceptance regarding sexual orientation, and does not attempt to "change" them to heterosexual, or to "eliminate or diminish" same-sex "desires and behaviors". The American Psychological Association (APA) offers guidelines and materials for gay affirmative psychotherapy. Affirmative psychotherapy affirms that homosexuality or bisexuality is not a mental disorder, in accordance with global scientific consensus. In fact, embracing and affirming gay identity can be a key component to recovery from other mental illnesses or substance abuse. Clients whose religious beliefs are interpreted as teaching against homosexual behavior may require some other method of integration of their possibly conflicting religious and sexual selves.
Timeline of events related to sexual orientation and medicine
Research has found that attempted suicide rates and suicidal ideation among lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ) youth are significantly higher than among the general population.
Arlene Istar Lev is a North American clinical social worker, family therapist, and educator. She is an independent scholar, who has lectured internationally on topics related to sexual orientation and gender identity, sexuality, and LGBTQ families.
The following outline offers an overview and guide to LGBTQ topics:
LGBTQ psychology is a field of psychology of surrounding the lives of LGBTQ+ individuals, in the particular the diverse range of psychological perspectives and experiences of these individuals. It covers different aspects such as identity development including the coming out process, parenting and family practices and support for LGBTQ+ individuals, as well as issues of prejudice and discrimination involving the LGBTQ community.
Due to the increased vulnerability that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth face compared to their non-LGBT peers, there are notable differences in the mental and physical health risks tied to the social interactions of LGBT youth compared to the social interactions of heterosexual youth. Youth of the LGBT community experience greater encounters with not only health risks, but also violence and bullying, due to their sexual orientation, self-identification, and lack of support from institutions in society.
E. Kitch Childs was an American clinical psychologist and a lesbian activist known for her participation in the women's liberation movement in North America and for advocating for minority women, prostitutes, gays and lesbians. She was a founding member of the University of Chicago's Gay Liberation and the first African American woman to earn her doctorate degree in Human Development at the University of Chicago.
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