Couples of Mixed HIV Status: Clinical Issues and Interventions

Written by R. Dennis Shelby and Nancy L. Beckerman. Routledge. 2005.

Previous books on this subject—mostly written in the days when HIV/AIDS was considered a fatal rather than a chronic disease—focused on end-of-life issues. However, Couples of Mixed HIV Status: Clinical Issues and Interventions addresses the unique emotional challenges facing today’s couples of mixed HIV status and provides a conceptual framework for assessment and intervention. The book offers examples of how to apply emotionally focused couple therapy to help them work through issues including disclosure, the fear of HIV transmission, shifts in emotional intimacy, family planning, betrayal, mistrust, and uncertainty. This unique work, its knowledge base, and the interventions you'll find inside, are applicable to any practitioner who provides couple and family therapy—as well as any practitioner who counsels around issues of chronic illness.

Couples of Mixed HIV Status provides therapists with a range of theoretical approaches to help mixed HIV status couples deal with their issues and concerns. It includes applications of couple therapy approaches that have proved to be particularly effective as well as case studies that demonstrate how different relationship variables may affect therapy. The book presents the findings of a research study involving 44 mixed HIV status couples in the Northeast and is generously illustrated with tables that make complex research results easy to access and understand.

Topics covered in Couples of Mixed HIV Status include:

• various approaches to couples therapy
• the historical context of HIV/AIDS
• HIV transmission
• family planning and HIV/AIDS
• emotionally focused couple therapy
• disclosure issues
• attachment theory
• and much more!

Couples of Mixed HIV Status: Clinical Issues and Interventions is a valuable resource for therapists and other mental health counselors working with today’s couples of mixed HIV status as well as for students of counseling and health related services. Readers who may be in a mixed HIV status relationship or those who are friends and family members of couples living with HIV will also find this book helpful.

Growth and Intimacy for Gay Men: A Workbook

Written by John Dececco, PhD. and Christopher J. Alexander, PhD. Harrington Park Press. 1997.

Growth and Intimacy for Gay Men: A Workbook is an educational workbook for gay men that covers a variety of topics, including family of origin, addiction, self-image, dating and relationships, AIDS and multiple loss, and spirituality. Each chapter provides an overview of the mental health concerns of gay men, as well as exercises the reader can do to facilitate his personal understanding of the issues covered. While the book is written in nontechnical language, making it useful to the general public, its wide selection of workbook exercises makes it useful for psychotherapists and counselors working with gay men. 

Growth and Intimacy for Gay Men is written to the reader--with brief examples from the author’s work as a clinical psychologist helping gay men. A central goal of the book is to normalize the feelings and experiences the reader has, as many gay men feel like they’re the only ones with their feelings or experiences. The book’s problem-solving approach addresses:

• family of origin--provides exercises to identify and examine gay men’s role in the family, examine their childhood perceptions of being different, and help them map out family patterns and dynamics
• self-image--includes self-image assessment questionnaires and written exercises that challenge the reader to look at how they’re affected by societal perceptions
• addiction--explores why gay men are vulnerable to addictive behavior and offers strategies for change and self-assessment exercises
• dating and relationships--covers the unique challenges faced by gay men, with exercises for single as well as coupled men
• AIDS and mental health--provides exercises to help the reader examine the impact of AIDS on his own life and to assess the impact of multiple loss and prolonged grief
  
  Readers can do the workbook exercises on their own, or therapists can assign chapters and exercises as homework, with clients bringing the completed assignment to therapy for more in-depth exploration and discussion. By providing informative chapters and useful exercises, Growth and Intimacy for Gay Men becomes an avenue through which gay men can understand their identity, experiences, and goals.

Living Confidently with HIV - A Self-Help Book for People living with HIV

By Liz Shaw, Erasmo Tacconelli, Robert Watson, Dr Claudia Herbert Editor: Dr Claudia Herbert Blue Stallion Publications 2009

This book is an invaluable manual for those who have HIV or are close to someone who does. It explains with real clarity what the disease is and what it means for someone caught up by it. It sets out the medical responses, the relationships with doctors and the health care system, the ways in which you can be determined to live well, and perhaps above all the emotional strength that can come if you seek it. It's a book of self-help and self-understanding. It will provide comfort, guidance, courage, and confidence where they are very much needed. It is in a very real sense life-affirming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

POLICY CONSULTATION ON CONFIDENTIALITY AND DISCLOSURE OF PATIENT INFORMATION: HIV AND SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED INFECTION (STIs)

(Download PDF)

Provider fatalism reduces the likelihood of HIV-prevention counseling in primary care settings

(Download PDF)

Positively Risky?

An article for OUT Magazine where Dominic Davies suggests reasons why some men take risks with their health

(Download PDF)

The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Men

Bill Brent. Cleis Press, 2002

Key Elements: Provides illustrations on the parts of the body and the positions used for anal sex along with tips needed to have good anal sex. The book also has exercises for the reader to learn more anal sex, explore the topic from different points of views and to enjoy anal sex.

Chapter One - Not in My Ass: 12 Myths about Anal Sex for Men
The truth behind the twelve biggest myths about anal sex for men
Chapter Two - How It Works and How to Work It: Anatomy and Exercise
The workings of the anorectal anatomy with diagrams and explanations of the anus, the anal sphincter muscles, the perineal muscles, also has a description and summaries of the functions of the rectum , anal canal, prostate gland, the colon, the large intestines, with techniques and exercises on how to keep them in shape, with information on how to massage the prostate gland. The female G-spot and double penetration
Chapter Three - Self-Exploration and Self Play: Massage, Masturbation, and More
Self-exploration with fingers and tools
Chapter Four - Hygiene and Diet
Basic hygiene and diet, step by step advice and devices used for rinsing
Chapter Five - Communication
How to open verbal communication can increase the likelihood of satisfying anal sex (also includes discussing safer sex and degree of risk issues)
Chapter Six - Latex and Lube
Latex and polyurethane, condoms, and lubricants
Chapter Seven - Tools and Toys
Toys, and what makes a good anal sex toy (includes varieties of butt plugs, dildos, oral beads, and vibrators)
Chapter Eight - Tongue in Cheek: Analingus
The tongue and anal sex plus health risks to consider
Chapter Nine - Penetration
Suggestions for the insertive partner and suggestions for the receptive partner with illustrations on positions for anal sex
Chapter Ten - Fisting
Myths about fisting, information for the insertive partner, and the receptive partner
Chapter Eleven - Extreme Sex: S/M, Gender Play, Festishes, Piss Play, and Scat Play
S/M and anal play - how to negotiate, gender play, electrical play, piss play, and the health risk associated with them
Chapter Twelve - Recreational Drugs and Sex
Recreational drugs - alcohol, cocaine, ecstasy, marijuana, poppers, methamphetamine
Chapter Thirteen - Anal Health
Anal irritations, hemorrhoids, anal fissures, anal fistulas, STD, Chlamydia, epididymitis, prostatitis, gonorrhea, hepatitis, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, herpes, HIV, venereal warts, anal sex, pregnancy, and your anal health and well being
Chapter Fourteen - Resources
A list of books, magazines,videos, etc.