TOWARD UNDERSTANDING

The purpose of this column is to create a better understanding of homosexual problems through the psychiatric viewpoint.

BLANCHE M. BAKER M.D., PH.D.

Dear Reader:

Everyday ONE receives letters from individuals who are tormented or who make a plea for help. The feelings expressed are at one time or another shared by many of us. For several years we have hoped to have a column conducted by a fully qualified professional person who could answer such questions from the psychiatric viewpoint.

This issue launches "Toward Understanding" conducted by Dr. Blanche M. Baker, a well-known and popular psychiatrist. She has been closely watching and following our work since early 1953. We first met her when she spoke at our 1955 Midwinter Institute. Her challenging talk is still remembered by all who heard it. In 1956 and 1957

her appearances again proved popular.

Dr. Baker's good works include a heavy schedule of private practice with people who are sincerely interested in receiving psychiatric help. By means of her own unique type of "client-centered" therapy she is constantly learning more about what makes people unhappy and ill. We have seen how her use of psychoanalysis and psychosynthesis has made her ever more deft and sure of herself in enabling individuals to release their own creative potentials. Together with her husband, William F. Baker, handwriting analyst and psychological consellor, an active member of the Mattachine Society, she is linked in an impressive therapeutic team, specializing in group therapy and and psychodrama. Much successful work has been accom-

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