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from Books & Reviews
New Book on Fathers
-- Reviewed by Joseph Nicolosi
Psychoanalyst James Herzog of Harvard Medical School, the author of the insightful book
Father Hunger, has just written a sequel--Father Hunger: Explorations with Adults and
Children (2001, The Analytic Press). Sadly, however, Herzog misses a golden opportunity to apply his
clinical observations to the homosexual man's search for the emotionally absent father. He connects
father hunger to homosexuality in only the most indirect, pseudo-sort of manner. Addressing
homoerotic overtones as merely suggestive of the homosexual client's thoughts and feelings, Herzog
never directly connects the son's longing for his father's love to the later development of
same-sex attractions. Herzog comes so close--yet remains so far.
Why does he shy away from the obvious? It is as if homosexuality were a mere biologically
based phenomenon which was beyond his understanding. After twenty years of developing his concept
of father hunger--a theme so central to reparative therapy--he misses a golden opportunity to
apply and develop his important theory.
Updated: 3 September 2008
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