Studies suggest that one in six boys is sexually abused by age 16.
Sexual abuse can powerfully affect a boy as he develops into a man.
To find out about therapy and for help in choosing a therapist, see this excerpt from Dr. Gartner’s Beyond Betrayal: Taking Charge of Your Life after Boyhood Sexual Abuse.
Working to Promote Understanding of Male Sexual Victimization
Dr. Richard Gartner
Dr. Richard Gartner is a psychologist and psychoanalyst in New York City who specializes in treating men with histories of sexual abuse. He is a Training and Supervising Analyst and is on the teaching faculty of the William Alanson White Psychoanalytic Institute in New York City. He is the Founding Director of the White Institute’s Sexual Abuse Program and for six years he was Director of its Center for the Study of Psychological Trauma. The White Institute honored Dr. Gartner with its 2004 Director’s Award for his contributions to the psychoanalytic understanding of trauma.
A consultant and supervisor at the Trauma Treatment Center of the Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis, Dr. Gartner also taught and supervised in the clinical psychology program at Columbia University for twenty years. He received a B.A. in psychology from Haverford and a doctorate in clinical psychology from Columbia. He is licensed as a psychologist in New York State.
Dr. Gartner served on the Board of Directors of MaleSurvivor: the National Organization against Male Sexual Victimization (malesurvivor.org) for seven years and was its President from 2002-2004. He was Program Chair of MaleSurvivor’s 2001 conference, “Healing Sexual Victimization of Boys and Men” and served on the Program Committee for its 2007 conference, “Relief, Recovery, and Restoration: Helping Men Heal from Sexual Abuse.” Both conferences were held in New York City at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, the conference co-sponsor. Currently, Dr. Gartner is MaleSurvivor’s media spokesman.
Dr. Gartner was honored by MaleSurvivor at its 2007 conference by the establishment of the Richard Gartner Award for Clinical Contribution, of which he was the first recipient “in recognition of outstanding clinical service to male survivors, their families and loved ones, of contributions to the advancement of knowledge about psychotherapy for such persons, and in gratitude for enriching the understanding of male sexual abuse through multiple publications and media contacts.”
Dr. Gartner is a member of the American Psychological Association (Divisions of Psychoanalysis, Men and Masculinity, and Trauma); the New York State Psychological Association (Division of Psychoanalysis); the William Alanson White Psychoanalytic Society; the National Register of Health Service Providers in Psychology; the Leadership Council on Child Abuse and Interpersonal Violence; PEN American Center; and MaleSurvivor: the National Organization against Male Sexual Victimization. He serves on the editorial boards of Contemporary Psychoanalysis, the Journal of Trauma and Dissociation, and the American Journal of Psychoanalysis. He is a licensed psychologist in New York State.
Read Books by Dr. Gartner
Dr. Gartner’s books include:
Beyond Betrayal: Taking Charge of Your Life After Boyhood Sexual Abuse
Betrayed as Boys: Psychodynamic Treatment of Sexually Abused Men
Memories of Sexual Betrayal: Truth, Fantasy, Repression and Dissociation
Find out more information about his books here or read some of his articles here.
Charting and Explaining the Course of Recovery to Professionals, the Media, and the Public
Dr. Gartner has spoken and lectured widely about the sexual abuse of boys and its consequences for men in such diverse locations as the American Psychological and Psychiatric Associations; the Harvard University Medical School; the Sandor Ferenczi Society in Budapest; the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and numerous universities, rape intervention programs, and hospitals. Interviews with him have appeared in such media print outlets as the New York Times, Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, USA Today, The Nation, and New York Newsday. In addition, he has been featured on CNN, CBS, Fox News, NBC News Channel, MSNBC, and ABC.com, among others, and on radio stations in the United States, Canada, Australia, and South Africa. (For a fuller list of his media appearances see the Media/Appearances page of this website.)
Dr. Gartner was also interviewed in the 2004 Emmy-nominated WABC-TV documentary “Protect Our Children: Teenage Boys and the Wall of Silence” and in 2005 was the subject of a full-length interview in the Science Times section of the New York Times. (Click here to read the New York Times interview.)