Reviews for Validation of a four-prototype model of attachment in a sample of gay men

The average rating for Validation of a four-prototype model of attachment in a sample of gay men based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-09-10 00:00:00 William Gibson I found this to be an enlightening and very informative discussion of the stages common to gay men at various points in the process of developing awareness and acceptance of their identity. As the book was published in 1994 some of the information is necessarily dated and I would be curious to know how the progress the LGBT community has made legally, politically and socially have affected the information contained herein. For instance, the authors discuss how because the gay community is denied the social constructs of marriage and parenthood open to the heterosexual community they have been free to create their own social norms and traditions. Now that marriage and parenthood are, thankfully, available choices for gay couples I wonder how that has affected the gay culture as presented in this book. That being said, however, I would imagine that much of the information in this book is still pertinent, as heterosexuality is still considered the "norm" by society at large, and certainly the process of acceptance must remain a complex one for many in the LGBT community.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-03-01 00:00:00 Kyle Burford I wanted to like this book way more than I did. Downs' broad premise - that gay culture is awash in deeply calcified narcissism - is a valid one, and bears the additional virture of being entirely true. However, like many readers, it became clear to me very early on that I did not fall into this book's target demographic, which has led me to wonder if its scope is much more narrow than many (including the author) realize. There is a white upper middle class American-centricity to Downs' approach, an outlook perhaps shaped by Downs' drawing most his interviews for this book from clients of his LA practice. While it's entirely possible that he uses a sliding scale, therapy is prohibitively expensive for most people and then usually not covered by health insurance. I imagine this may have skewed his samples sample somewhat, as the reader winds up being guided by Downs through a world of high-achieving, feminized, outsized personalities hosting fabulous dinner parties in Malibu, guided all throughout by the minorly irritating usage of the first person plural (you can only put up with so much of the word "we" if it's being consistently applied to experiences that lay very far outside your own). Not all gay men grow up to become Simon Doonan, who I presume to be a lovely individual. But not all gay men will struggle in the ways that Downs portrays here either (as many commentors have rightly pointed out). And it is also true (and probably most important to say) that many gay men will struggle mightily for reasons that go completely unaddressed by Downs throughout this book, and that one could easily imagine simply aren't perceived by many of the individuals whose personal lives he depicts. There are some diamonds in the rough here and there (the pathology of the need to conform, being validated for pretense, etc.) but there's a noticeable dearth of cultural competency here that undercuts the more critical insights Downs tries to make. An Amazon reviewer (not me) hit it on the head by saying, "if someone living in rural America or inner city America or Islamic America or Bible-belt America or outside of America is looking for some guidance in coping with the shame and low self-esteem and death threats that are weighing him down, he may want to look elsewhere."