Oct

31

Psychosocial Interventions in Persons with HIV-Associated Neuropsychiatric Compromise

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Psychotherapists working with people with HIV/AIDS must be prepared to assess and provide effective psychosocial interventions for individuals who exhibit symptoms of HIV-associated central nervous system involvement. Appropriate psychosocial interventions for these persons often differs from traditional psychotherapy and counseling and. For the nonmusical clinician, evaluating the extent to which presenting symptoms are due to […]

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Oct

31

Private Practice with Urban Gay Men: With a Subspecialty in HIV/AIDS

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I work out of the second bedroom in my Manhattan apartment. After spending 45 minutes on the Nordic Track early in the morning, I see my first client “B” who is a fifty year old fireman whose partner of 27 years died almost a year ago of Cancer. Neither he nor his partner were infected […]

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Oct

31

Physicians Living With HIV/AIDS

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“Once I was diagnosed with full blown AIDS, the administration of my hospital verbally and in an unsigned and undated document immediately forbade me to continue performing any surgical procedures, change dressings, draw blood, give injections, or do rectal exams. Any patient examinations I did I would have to wear gloves. I was told that if I […]

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Oct

31

The impact of the September 11 disaster on people living with HIV/AIDS

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On September 11th the world changed permanently and unalterably for all Americans. Watching the tragedy unfold, it soon became clear that our previous standards of what had been “normal” for all of us, were now obliterated and rendered obsolete. There are some parallels between the AIDS crisis and the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks […]

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Oct

31

Life in the Maelstrom: One Man’s Attempt to Survive

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“Grief is madness–ask anyone who’s been there. They will tell you it abates with time, but that’s a lie. What drowns you in the first year is a force of solitude and helplessness exactly equal in intensity to the love you had for the one who’s gone. Equally passionate, equally intimate. The spaces between the […]

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Oct

31

AIDS and Mental Health Practice: Clinical and Policy Issues

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In early 1982 a small group of gay men met in response to the fact that some of their friends were becoming ill from a mysterious new illness. At this meeting they formed what was to become Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC), the world’s first community based AIDS service organization. That summer I was asked […]

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Oct

31

Into the Third Decade of AIDS: Books on HIV and Mental Health

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(Editor’s Note) New York City-based social worker Michael Shernoff has been among the most prolific authors of practical handbooks on the mental health aspects of HIV/AIDS. A pioneer of the gay men’s health movement, Shernoff’s work as a counselor, author, and editor have covered the range of issues form chemical dependence to clinical practice to […]

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Oct

31

Integrating Safer-Sex Counseling Into Social Work Practice

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Most social workers have received little or no training in human sexuality or sexuality counseling. Consequently, as a group, clinical social workers/psychotherapists are often uncomfortable when discussing sexual matters with clients. Although the health crisis of AIDS challenges all clinicians, it especially challenges workers who serve people in the inner cities, intravenous (IV) drug users, […]

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Oct

31

Gay Men With AIDS in Rural America

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Some gay men spend their entire lives living in small towns or rural areas. Many more grow up there and emigrate to large cities, with some returning to the communities they grew up in when they become symptomatic with AIDS. Gay men living in rural areas face different obstacles than those living in large urban […]

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Oct

31

Gay Men and Unsafe Sex Beyond a Knee Jerk Reaction

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During the 1980s I coauthored one of the first efforts to help gay men eroticize safer sex. This sex-positive approach to stopping the sexual transmission of HIV combined with other efforts was so successful that, for many years, rates of sexually transmitted diseases, new HIV infections, and terror regarding the possibility of contracting HIV drastically […]

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