IT TAKES A VILLAGE TO RAISE A CHILD, AND IN SOME WAYS, the same can be said about writing a book, and I owe a debt of gratitude to the many people who helped make this one possible.
First and foremost, I must thank the National Institute of Mental Health at the National Institute of Health, which funded this project (1 R03 MH068272–01) and therefore made it possible. A special thanks goes to my program officer, Emeline Otey, who believed in this project from the start and played a big role in making it happen.
Of course, this study would never have happened if it were not for the sixty-five families who were gracious and generous enough to share their stories with me. They taught me the importance of unconditional love and the persistence of family bonds and for this I am eternally grateful. Their stories will stay with me forever.
Additionally, I also thank Lauren Dockett at Columbia University Press, not only for her patience and her assistance with this book but also for her continued commitment to knowledge building for the human services. Furthermore, I am grateful to my pioneering and prolific colleague, Gerald (Gary) Mallon, from the School of Social Work at Hunter College, for his encouragement and for introducing me to CUP. I also wish to thank the external reviewers whose feedback helped me enrich this work.
I was lucky to find two really smart, really sensitive research assistants in Bethann Albert and Rita Velez Carreras. Their assistance with interviewing and analysis was invaluable. I also wish to thank my transcribers, Linda D. Phillips and Astrid Hufnagel, whose accuracy and countless hours of hard work greatly contributed to the success of this project.
I owe an enormous debt of thanks to my home institution, the School of Social Work at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, and especially Dean Emeritus Mary Edna Davidson. Her support and belief in my abilities during the early years of my academic career helped give me the confidence to write a successful grant proposal. My current dean, the talented and masterful Richard Edwards, along with my colleagues at Rutgers, supported me with their words of encouragement and their willingness to put up with my absences when I was busy writing. A special thanks to you all.
I was initially introduced to family therapy by Professor Max Siporin when I was a Master of Social Work student at the State University of New York at Albany. I distinctly recall being inspired by a videotape he presented in class showing Virgina Satir’s sensitive work, which, as a student, I suspected was magic. (Now, as a seasoned clinician, I am certain of it.) My formal family therapist training really began at Project Strive, Inc., a home-based foster care prevention program where David Bosworth, the executive director, had the wisdom to hire Anne Itzkowitz from the Philadelphia Child Guidance Center to train us in structural family therapy. From that point on, I was fortunate to have received training and inspiration, either through formal programs, workshops, or consultations, from Salvador Minuchin, Carl Whitaker, Michael Kerr, Monica McGoldrick, Insoo Kim Berg, Steve DeShazer, and Maurizio Andolfi. I am grateful to have known and learned from these gifted individuals, and each has left an imprint on my thinking and my clinical work.
A very special thank you must go to my dear friend and mentor Mchael P. Nichols. Good teachers model and demonstrate skills for their students to copy. The really great ones help their students find these abilities within themselves. In his ongoing support of my work, including his sensitive review of previous drafts of this book, Mike pushed me to find the heart and smarts inside of me and gave me the courage to infuse them throughout the text. Having him in my life has been a gift for which I am eternally grateful.
My mother and father taught me many valuable things. One is to always aim high. From an early age they taught me the sweet pleasure of achieving lofty goals. They also demonstrated the importance of staying connected to loved ones, no matter what. If anyone is wondering, my parents had a very difficult time when they learned in 1979 that I was gay, and it took them several years to adjust. But we never let go of each other, and, eventually, like the parents in this study, they came around. When you have a family such as mine, whose members are passionate people with strong opinions, bruising arguments are inevitable. However, I always know that, no matter what happens, we will still love one another, and, in each other, we can always find a home to return to.
Finally, I must thank my partner of twenty-seven years, Timothy Murphy. Anyone who lives with someone who is writing a book knows how difficult and lonely it can be. Tim deserves a lot of credit for this book, as he did all the things that made it possible for me to have the necessary blocks of time to write it, including, but not limited to, maintaining the house, caring for our garden, and putting up with my alternating periods of crippling self-doubt and towering grandiosity punctuated by long emotional absences. One of the great mysteries of my life is how I managed to be lucky enough to have this smart, strong, devoted, and sensitive man as my partner. What I do know is I will never be able to thank him enough—and that I will love him forever.