Ten Smart Things Gay Men Can Do to Improve Their Lives

Openly gay therapist Joe Kort provides 10 powerful and positive steps gay men can take to isolate and overcome self-defeating behavior patterns, and move in healthier and more rewarding directions:

Take Charge of Their Own Lives
Affirm Themselves by Coming Out
Resolve Differences With Parents and Relatives
"Graduate" From Delayed Adolescence
Avoid—or Overcome—Sexual Addiction
-Learn from Successful Mentors Who’ve Been There, Done That
Take Advantage of "Therapy Workouts"
Achieve—and Maintain—Rewarding Relationships
Understand the Stages of Loves
Commit to Their Partner

These solid and reliable "Top 10" life steps that have been most helpful to Joe Kort’s clients in his 16 years of working with hundreds of gay men, are presented in an engaging and easy-to-understand manner and are supplemented by case histories from his practice. These are time-tested, practical decisions gay men can make in their search for emotional, sexual and personal fulfillment.

Joe Kort, MA, MSW, ACSW, is a psychotherapist in private practice in Detroit. In addition, he is certified as an Imago therapist and leads two biannual workshop retreats, For Gay Men: The Retreat of a Lifetime, which helps gay men recover from being a stigmatized population, and Getting the Love You Want Couples’ Weekend, which helps couples communicate more effectively. He is a member of the National Association of Social Workers, the Institute for Imago Relationship Therapy and the National Council on Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity. His writings on gay and lesbian issues appear regularly in Between the Lines newspaper and the Detroit Free Press.