Reviews : Psychological and Psychiatric Problems in Men Joan Gomez Routledge, 1991; pp 131; £25.00 hbk
| Published date | 01 October 1993 |
| Author | Vic Hayman |
| Date | 01 October 1993 |
| DOI | 10.1177/026455059304000311 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
certainty expressed about gender
differences here becomes a little
disconcerting and a pattern that continues
REVI
WS
E
in the rest of the book begins to emerge
of the author making many assertions
unsupported by references.
In the same chapter Gomez informs
us that:
’A boy raised in an all female
environment, for instance, a women’s
refuge, where men are disapproved of
or denigrated, may become insecure,
conciliatory and shy, or depressed’.
This combination of stereotyping and
lack of subsequent discussion or allusion
to debate around the subjects of women’s
refuge, child protection or desirable
masculine traits is characteristic of many
passages in the book.
References to homosexual men in the
Psychological and Psychiatric
book are on the whole very worrying.
Problems in Men
Gomez informs us
’Exclusive
Joan Gomez
homosexuality clearly
cannot be viable in nature, but it has
Routledge, 1991; pp 131; £25.00 hbk
always been a feature of civilisation in
The blurb for this book suggests it ’will
decline’.
be essential reading for health
professionals, for social workers and for
According to Gomez, men who are
school
welfare officers ... in the prison system’.
teachers, scout masters and
workers in children’s homes
I
or with
was braced for the fact that men’s
affective lives
adolescents, ’whether paedophile or
were to be framed by
psychological and psychiatric problems
homosexual, are well advised to seek
but I was not ready for the paucity of
therapy’.
analysis that
The reader will look in vain for
was to follow in this
any
’unbiased and objective account’
remotely serious or enlightening link
incorporating ’the latest research in
between being a man and crime. There
medicine and gender studies’.
is only cursory reference throughout to
Following
the social construction of
a fairly general first
being a man.
chapter, Joan Gomez,
The
a Consultant
sections on sexual crime contain
Psychiatrist, looks at the biological
some singularly inappropriate phrases
...
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