The Battle for Normality.

Gerard J.M. van den Aardweg, The Battle for Normality, A guide for (self-) therapy for homosexuality, San Francisco, Ignatius Press, 1997, 157 pages, paperback, U.S.$1 1.95

This is Dr. van den Aardweg's latest book on homosexuality. He is a Dutch psychologist who has treated hundreds of persons with homosexual tendencies and has cured many of them. He dedicates the book to "men and women tormented by homosexual emotions who do not want to live as homosexuals, who want constructive help and support, and who are forgotten, have no voice, and get no answers in our society, which recognizes only the emancipatory homosexual who wants to impose his ideology of normality' and 'unchangeability and thus discriminates aginst those who know or feel that that is a sad lie."

He tells persons with homosexual tendencies that they should get someone to help them, preferably a suitable psychiatrist. If none is available, he recommends getting a trusted friend with whom to apply the advice found in this book. A psychiatrist is suitable only if he recognizes that "the therapy of homosexuality is a psychological, spiritual, and moral affair." This book is self-therapy for a person with homosexual tendencies who can get the assistance of a suitable person who also uses the book.

Such a person can be helped, but only if he ("he" is used frequently in this review for "he or she") has a strong determination to be helped, and if he realizes that he must have a religious and moral basis for this determination.

Van den Aardweg says that the claim that homosexuality is normal is one of those statements that are "so foolish that only intellectuals could believe them." It is like saying that anorexia nervosa is healthy. And he denies that homesexuality is caused by the genes, or the structure of the brain; the evidence shows that it is acquired. Nor is it a necessary result of effeminacy; it is the child's "self-perception as masculine or feminine" that makes the difference. It is caused by pressure to develop an opposite-sex role. Often mothers do not view or treat their sons as "real men," and fathers do not view or treat their daughters as "real girls."

But children do not become homosexual in childhood, though a homosexual pre-disposition can be laid at that time. What is crucial is the adolescent years, and especially the attitude of peers. If an adolescent feels "different" fom his same-sex peers, he develops an inferiority complex, a conviction that he is sexually inferior to them. This not-belonging, this inferiority complex, produces loneliness and self-pity. When this leads to comforting oneself with the lust of romantic daydreams, masturbation, or erotic contacts, an addiction sets in, an obsession. Another person is not sought as a person but as the materialization of impossible wish fantasies. Indeed, homosexual "love" is not love but ego-satisfaction, and acting it out only deepens the void inside. That is why "the vast majority of active homosexuals are promiscuous, and much more so than promiscuous heterosexuals." The "fairy tale faithful homosexual 'union' is a propaganda item, to win privileges from the law and acceptance within Christian chu rches."

"No culture or time has considered homosexuality normal." And, in our own culture, "one to two percent of the adult population at most, including bisexuals, have homosexual feelings." Also, "seduction may strengthen an ongoing homosexual sexual development, and sometimes even endkindle homosexual desires in youngsters who are insecure in their gender...Some homosexuals would in all likelihood have been heterosexual if homosexual fantasy had not been aroused in them during the critical period of their emotionally unstable adolescence." Yet we find sexual education courses even in Catholic schools that strengthen homosexual tendencies even in young students.

The second half of this book deals with therapy. The person must answer many questions in order to gain self-knowlege. He must recognize the many signs of self-pity, of infantilism; he must make a moral inventory also. He must develop hope, a realistic hope; self-discipline; sincerity. He must fight nerotic self-pity, become able to laugh at his weaknesses. He must be patient and humble. He must struggle against homosexual temptations, homerotic imagery, masturbation. He must pray. A Catholic should go to Confession and Communion. He is recommended to join Courage, an organization for Catholics with homosexual problems.

Fr. Leonard Kennedy is a priest of the Congregation of St. Basil and professor-emeritus of philosophy. He is a frequent contributor to Catholic Insight.