Gershon Kaufman, PhD, is the author of several works on
the subject of shame including, Coming Out of Shame: Transforming
Gay and Lesbian Lives. He is a professor at Michigan State
University and lectures on shame and self-esteem.
Lev Raphael, PhD, is the author of several works
including a collection of short stories, Dancing on Tisha B’Av. He
teaches creative writing, popular literature, and Jewish American
literature at Michigan State University.
Psychologist and psychotherapist Kaufman (Shame: The Power of Caring, Shenckman, 1981) has been publishing on shame for two decades; Raphael, his life partner of ten years, is best known for his fiction (Winter Eyes, St. Martin's, 1992). Together they present the main features of shame theory based on the work of Silvan Tomkins; they then move on to examine how internalized shame and fear impact on self-esteem, identity, and intimacy, specifically in the life experiences of lesbians and gay men. Maintaining that the self is continuously evolving, the authors offer "reparenting" imagery to transform scenes in an attempt to help make patterns of emotion more visible and thus diminish shame in individuals and relationships, as well as facilitate resolution of such issues as sexual monogamy. The use of humor and examples from case studies help mitigate the text's redundancy. The technical terminology somewhat obscures the many insights in this book clearly intended for the sophisticated layperson. For public collections strong on gay issues.‘James E. Van Buskirk, San Francisco P.L.
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