I felt as if I had invented penicillin

Ask any therapist and they will tell you that no therapeutic technique or program can ever be expected to be 100% effective. But in the small sample of the 100 cases I treated or supervised before writing How to Fall Out of Love: evenly divided between male & female; college students to people in their late sixties; gay, straight, and bi-sexual, I had a 100% success rate. I couldn’t believe it, but it was true.

“It works, it works,” I shouted out loud. I was so happy. I thought “this is how Edison must have felt when his light bulb first glowed.”

I felt as if I had invented aspirin or penicillin. And I knew that I had to write a book about my program. I have never had an unsuccessful outcome with my How to Fall Out of Love clients. I do a two year follow-up and in a few cases, I’ve done some “touch-up,” usually for jealousy, the most stubborn of the emotions in unrequited love.

Yes, falling out of love is harder to do by yourself without the guidance and encouragement of a trained therapist. But if you are in enough pain, do the exercises, the program in this book will work for anybody who is in pain because their love is not returned or because they are in a dead end relationship.

Why do people think gays threaten society?

     The state of Washington just passed a new law allowing gay couples to marry, becoming the seventh state in America to legalize same-sex marriages. Governor Chris Gregoire said, “This is one of my proudest moments. Our same-sex couples will no longer be treated as separate but equal. (Opponents of gay marriage in Washington State hope to force a referendum on the issue.)

This has been a good year for gay rights, but gays are still being denied many of their rights in tax laws, wills, adoptions and social acceptance when they can’t marry.

What is the problem? I keep wondering why and how people who fear gays think that gays threaten society? The only thing wrong with homosexuality (besides the same abuses of sex that are found in heterosexuality) is SOCIETY and the way minorities are treated in our society. If there is a higher suicide rate among gays, it’s due to society’s denial of their humanity and their rights, their isolation and denigration by the bigots among us.

Back in 1948 and 1953, when people were much more reluctant to reveal anything about gay activity, Kinsey showed that 37% of males and 13% of females had a same-sex experience that led to orgasm.  While these figures keep changing and are disputed, what we do know is that there is a significant amount of same-sex activity in humans.  And we know that sexual preference is not a choice, it is a pre-natal trait that develops in the fetus in the fifth month of pregnancy.

Of course homosexuality isn’t just a human trait. Just about all male animals have bi-sexual behavior. It doesn’t seem as though any of them tilt exclusively one way or the other.  To paraphrase Woody Allen, they don’t limit the field.