Facilitating Gay Men's Coming Out: An Existential-Phenomenological Exploration

SUMMARY

This paper examines the core issues facing male clients in confronting their anxiety about whether or not to “come out” as gay. The author proposes that therapists can discover, through the process of working with the existential dimensions of the client and phenomeno-logical description, the true essence of the client's sense of being-in-the-world. Therapists can also explore the client's need to identify as gay. These issues are discussed with reference to a specific case study, which explores a client's individual needs by confronting the problems experienced in his ongoing daily reality.

KEYWORDS:

• Authenticity
• coming out
• existential
• gay men
• givens
• homophobia
• homosexuality integration
• isolation
• phenomenology
• psychotherapy