from Books & Reviews
-- 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.