In the Shadow of the Epidemic: Being HIV-Negative in the Age of AIDS

Walt Odets

Published by Duke University Press 1995

In the Shadow of the Epidemic

Being HIV-Negative in the Age of AIDS

Walt Odets

In the series Series Q

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822379232

Overview
Contents

About this book

For gay men who are HIV-negative in a community devastated by AIDS, survival may be a matter of grief, guilt, anxiety, and isolation. In the Shadow of the Epidemic is a passionate and intimate look at the emotional and psychological impact of AIDS on the lives of the survivors of the epidemic, those who must face on a regular basis the death of friends and, in some cases, the decimation of their communities. Drawing upon his own experience as a clinical psychologist and a decade-long involvement with AIDS/HIV issues, Walt Odets explores the largely unrecognized matters of denial, depression, and identity that mark the experience of uninfected gay men.
Odets calls attention to the dire need to address issues that are affecting HIV-negative individuals—from concerns about sexuality and relations with those who are HIV-positive to universal questions about the nature and meaning of survival in the midst of disease. He argues that such action, while explicitly not directing attention away from the needs of those with AIDS, is essential to the human and biological well-being of gay communities. In the immensely powerful firsthand words of gay men living in a semiprivate holocaust, the need for a broader, compassionate approach to all of the AIDS epidemic’s victims becomes clear. In the Shadow of the Epidemic is a pathbreaking first step toward meeting that need.

Author / Editor information

Walt Odets is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Berkeley, California. A member of the AIDS Task Force of the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association, he has spoken and written frequently on the psychosocial issues of HIV-negative men and AIDS prevention for gay men. He is also an editor and contributor for the series AIDS Management: The Role of the Mental Health Community and a contributing author to Therapists on the Front Line: Psychotherapy with Gay Men in the Age of AIDS.

Reviews

"Odets presents an often harrowing picture of frailty and vulnerability on a massive scale, and his book is a much-needed corrective to the complacent view that everything is basically OK in the domain of gay men’s safer sex education. In the Shadow of the Epidemic will doubtless become an instant locus classicus for subsequent debate about the short- and long-term psychological impact of the epidemic and the types of intervention necessary to reduce wide-scale suffering."—Simon Watney, author of Practices of Freedom: Selected Writings on HIV/AIDS

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
A Word about the Writer and the Reader Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	11
1 Why We Need a Book about Being HIV-Negative Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	13
2 The Psychological Epidemic Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	23
3 Survivor Guilt and Related Family Matters Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	40
4 Life in the Shadow: Loss and Mourning Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	63
5 Being Outsiders: The "HIV-Negative" Identity Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	99
6 Being Alone Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	123
7 Being Together: The Relations of Positives and Negatives Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	145
8 Being Sexual: The Politics and Humanity of Gay Sex in the Epidemic Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	178
9 Being Here: Other Kinds of Survival Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	233
Epilogue Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	265
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	281
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	301

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Pages
- Main content: 328

eBook

Published: July 12, 1995
ISBN: 9780822379232