Practitioner Rose works from his experiences with a clinical population of gay men who have consistent difficulties with intimate relationships with other gay men. The men tend to have short-term relationships without much commitment and have difficulty expressing emotional needs with their partners, along with a plethora of other issues, and they report having felt different from other boys early in their lives. Rose finds their concerns stem from their perceptions of what it is to be male. He traces the evidence from the male figures in the lives of proto-gay boys, fathers' functions with pre-oedipal sons and the development of a sense of masculine identity, the critical importance of other boys, attachment theory and three dimensions of experience. In a series of intensive case studies and narratives he tests his theories and develops a range of unconscious fantasies linked to adolescence, which he considers the second individualization process. Annotation 2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
