Your initial issue of the Ninth Street Center Journal is, to say the least, the result of a great deal of labor and love. Therefore, the following isn't meant to negate the fact that you've invested a great deal of energy.

I was most concerned re: . My basis for concern is that whoever wrote this "checklist" did not indicate his authority for "defining" a good therapist. Rick Shupper's is an attempt to define "therapy," and his definition is his right, for himself. However, he is far afield in attempting to set the criteria for "therapy." In addition, it would be wise for the author to define what is meant by the word "therapist." In this state a "therapist" need not be a medical doctor; neither need he/she be degreed. So, when the "checklist" mentions a "therapist" prescribing medication, it is incongruous in terms. There are many excellent people who work as therapists, who could not prescribe so much as an aspirin; and others who are medical doctors who may or may not prescribe medication, depending on the individual. Fee schedules do not determine the worth or lack of worth of a "therapist," and therefore should not be a determining factor in the quality of the individual therapist. The emotion of love can be used as a negative, as well as a positive, factor in "therapy." A therapist's sexuality can be an important part of therapy, or it can be meaningless if the "therapist" is doing a good (or not good) job of relating with the person in "therapy." The statements I have not commented on are also subject to discussion, but I see no need to pursue this much more.

My basic conclusion is that this "checklist" and the article following it, while perhaps well-meant, are as damaging to the gay community as many speeches and articles by known homophobics. Mr. Shupper et al. would do well to start over when attempting this kind of statement, and remember that they cannot, do not, and should not speak as THE authorities on this subject. Rather, they should state clearly and honestly that this is a subjective opinion based upon their own experience, and allow readers to approach the whole issue with a more critical eye.

Dear Bill,

All of us are authorities on defining a good therapist, because a good therapist is someone who is good for us in our own terms. You say the emotion of love can be used as a negative factor in therapy, but I wonder how deep this love you speak of goes. I'd rather not obscure the nature of love by admitting it can incorporate negative forces. Negative reactions are the miscarriages or defenses of love, not its expression. If loving the patient exposes the patient's inability to accept love or the therapist's need to care about his patient, it can become an instrument of the therapy itself.

You are right that a therapist's sexuality does not enter directly into the treatment, but the honesty with which he deals with it does. Heterosexual therapists have a greater stake in dishonesty at this level, and tend to be rather poor examples to their patients.

To claim that Rick's optimism about the constructive potential of honest therapy is damaging to the gay community is to say that the adjustments we have made in life should not be challenged, that flexibility in our relationships with others is doom, and exposes an anxiety about reaching out to life that may simply be the accumulated effect of years of disappointment with the lack of real interpersonal opportunity that exists in our world.

When someone says we can revolutionize our way of looking at things, he becomes a potentially threatening element to those who try to listen to him. He rocks the boat, and undermines the sureness of that critical eye you mention, by arousing their hope for a better world. But hope is always dangerous to the established order, because it makes people see how hollow what is called normalcy really is.

I myself am thrilled by Rick's vision of what therapy can become for people. I am glad you sensed the love that brought it into being.

Dean Hannotte