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This paper shows how the co-creation and telling of narratives helped members of an AIDS support group transform their unique and separate experiences of suffering into shared insights, intense connections and comfort. Examples of narratives are drawn from the author's experience as a co-leader of a support group for gay men living with AIDS. Current literature on group work with persons living with AIDS is embedded in a modernist orientation in which the therapist is the scientist/expert, the client has the problem and the therapist helps the client's through exploring and interpreting the client's story according to a superseding theory (Gergen and Kaye, 1992). This approach emphasizes the need for leaders to maintain objectivity and emotional distance to avoid burnout (Gabriel, 1991; Grossman and Silverstein, 1993; Tunnell, 1991). In contrast, in a post-modern therapeutic approach, there is no privileging of the therapist's narrative and the traditional hierarchical relationship is replaced by a mutual effort as therapist and client together develop stories that translate and transcend experience. Using the AIDS work as illustration, this paper offers a post-modern, narrative approach to group work and shows how persons living with AIDS can use narrative to move beyond finite structures and the limits of life.

ABSTRACT: This paper applies the concepts and techniques of the self psychological approach to the treatment of gay men with AIDS. The psychosocial impact of AIDS on the maintenance of self and identity for gay men is explored with an emphasis on the implications for selfobject needs being met. The author illustrates through four case vignettes attempts at satisfying the mirroring, idealizing, and alterego selfobject needs of such clients. Individual, relational, and family-focused clinical concerns are addressed.

The AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) crisis is affecting greater numbers of people, and counselors are being called upon to work with this population. Counseling roles have expanded, and counselors have been thrust into the medical, social service, and political spheres. In this article the authors describe the role of the counselor in the era of AIDS; psychological reactions to a chronic, stigmatized, and ultimately fatal illness; and the special needs of specific populations (gay men, families and friends of gay men, gay youth, significant others, people of color, heterosexual women and lesbians, college students, substance abusers, and the "worried well"). The authors also examine the effects of HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) illness and AIDS on the care giver. Counseling interventions are described throughout the article.

In this article, the author describes developmental and clinical issues in the use of life review as a therapeutic frame in psychotherapy of young adults with acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Presentation of clinical data suggests that elaboration of life narratives, by means of reminiscence, may help people to regain a cohesive sense of self, carry out psychological and social tasks, and revise life structures in the context of the illness experience. The author demonstrates how narrative approaches, informed by developmental theory, shift the focus from disability and dysfunction to concern for relative health and personal growth in social intervention with this population. Emergent research issues also are identified.