The inheritance of shame
Subtitle: a memoir
By: Peter Gajdics
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: Brown Paper Press
Published: 2017
Language: eng
Number of pages: 354
ISBN-13: 9781941932087
Subjects: Case studies; Gay men; Family; Family relationships; Sexual reorientation programs; Biography
Description: "The Inheritance of Shame details the six years author Peter Gajdics spent in a bizarre form of conversion therapy that attempted to 'cure' him of his homosexuality. Kept with other patients in a cult-like home in British Columbia, Canada, Gajdics was under the authority of a dominating, rogue psychiatrist who controlled his patients, in part, by creating and exploiting a false sense of family. Juxtaposed against his parents' tormented past--his mother's incarceration and escape from a communist concentration camp in post-World War II Yugoslavia, and his father's upbringing as an orphan in war-torn Hungary--Gajdics' story explores the universal themes of childhood trauma, oppression, and intergenerational pain. Told over a period of decades, the book shows us the damaging repercussions of conversion therapy and reminds us that resilience, compassion, and the courage to speak the truth exist within us all"--Publisher's description.