Coping with HIV Infection

"I'm like a whirling leaf in the wind," said one of Dr. Lena Nilsson SchOnnesson' s patients, and another "I'm in the claws of HIV." Their voices and those of other HIV-positive patients frame the humanistic and scholarly discussion in this impor tant book. Dr. SchOnnesson, a Fulbright scholar at the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies, Columbia University in 1995, has unusually extensive clinical experience in counseling HIV-positive gay men. Her work with 38 such patients treated between 1986 and 1995 is discussed in the pages that follow. Dr. SchOnnesson's longitudinal approach to clinical data is extremely unusual in the psychotherapy literature generally, and in the literature on counseling HIV positive men in particular. Building upon the experience of such recent scholar clinicians as Klitzman, Isay, Schaffner, and others, Dr. SchOnnesson adds some thing unique by analyzing her ongoing detailed notes of the psychotherapeutic process in a systematic quantitative as well as qualitative manner. The analysis of her data is further informed by her coauthor, Dr. Michael Ross, a therapist and investigator whose contribution to the clinical and research literature on the psychotherapeutic treatment of gay men has already been substantial.

Texte du rabat

This volume is the first long-term study of how gay men adjust to and cope with HIV disease. It examines the adjustment and existential issues which arise over the stages of the illness. The longitudinal character of the clinical data presented makes it possible to examine long-term HIV adaptation, the inner psychological experiences and existential experiences and processes. The first half of the volume focuses on HIV-related psychological, social, and sexual issues and their impact on psychological functioning and quality of life. The second half of the volume focuses on the psychological landscapes within the existential, adaptational and self contexts. This volume will be of interest to health care professionals working with HIV-positive populations or people with HIV, particularly psychologists, psychiatrists, counsellors, and social workers.

Contenu

1. Living on the Boundaries.- Structure of the Book.- Methodology.- Time and Boundaries.- References.- I The HIV Scenario.- 2. The Impact of Chronic and Terminal. Illness.- 3. HIV Testing and Its Impact.- 4. HIV-Related Threats.- 5. The Insidious Persecutory Drama of HIV.- 6. The Impact of HIV Infection on Psychological Functioning and Quality of Life.- II Psychological Landscapes.- 7. The Existential. Context.- 8. HIV Adaptation Processes.- 9. The Shattered Self with Dr. Kerstin Fugl-Meyer.- 10. Autonomy, Boundaries, Control, and Death.- Methodology.- The Sample.- Quantitative and Qualitative Analyses.- Reference.