The relationship
miracle worker

F or more than three decades a deeply admired advocate for stable relationships and sound mental health care for gays and lesbians, psychotherapist and author Betty Berzon has left an immense legacy in the wake of her death January 24 at age 78.

From her therapy patients to readers of her successful books on self-esteem and coupling, many are mourning Berzon's death from cancer, none more so than her partner of 33 years, Terry DeCrescenzo, who was with Berzon when she passed away at their Los Angeles home.

DeCrescenzo remembers when her partner was first diagnosed with cancer in 1986. Though Berzon would undergo a mastectomy, her physician put her prognosis for survival at just two years. "Betty said, 'Bring it on,' " DeCrescenzo recalls.

Born in St. Louis, Berzon attended Stanford University in the late 1940s but dropped out after a female dorm mate tried to seduce her. She was still deeply closeted when she moved to Los Angeles in 1950. After opening a short-lived bookstore in the city, Berzon received her bachelor's degree in psychology in 1957 from the University of California, Los Angeles, rubbing shoulders with esteemed psychologists such as Evelyn Hooker, who later became instrumental in declassifying homosexuality as a mental illness.

Berzon received a master's degree in psychology from San Diego State University in 1962 before being hired at the newly founded Western Behavioral Sciences Institute in La Jolla, Calif. During the next few years Berzon made a name for herself by espousing the benefits of group therapy and by speaking publicly about the human potential movement.

When Berzon's 40th birthday rolled around in 1968, she realized she couldn't deny her attraction to women any longer; she came out as a lesbian, moved back to Los Angeles, and became active in the growing gay liberation movement. She began counseling gay and lesbian patients exclusively, with her specialty being male couples.

"The most important thing Betty did was to help people when she came out as the first openly gay psychotherapist," DeCrescenzo says. "Betty always said, 'You can't go into a relationship without having reconciled your own self-esteem issues and your own embarrassment about being gay.' "

In 1971, Berzon began serving as a peer counselor at a new gay community organization, helping to found what was to become the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, now the nation's largest gay and lesbian service agency. She soon became the first woman on the center's board of directors.

Berzon also cofounded the Southern California Women for Understanding, a nonprofit lesbian organization still in operation, in 1976, and served on the board of directors of the Whitman-Radclyffe Foundation, a gay and lesbian drug and alcohol recovery center in San Francisco. Berzon's influence was also felt in her roles as president of the Gay Academic Union and board member for National Gay Rights Advocates.

By the end of the 1970s, Berzon had earned her doctorate in psychology at Los Angeles's International College, and her writing had brought her national recognition. She served as coeditor of 1979's Positively Gay: New Approaches to Gay and Lesbian Life, which has remained continuously in print and was expanded, updated, and revised in 2001.

Her best-selling Permanent Partners: Building Gay and Lesbian Relationships That Last, published in 1988, was one of the first books to advise gay couples on issues such as finances, legal difficulties, and having children. Her other works include The Intimacy Dance: A Guide to Long-term Success in Gay and Lesbian Relationships and Setting Them Straight: You CAN Do Something About Bigotry and Homophobia in Your Life.

Berzon wrote of her own dramatic struggle with self-hatred and denial in her Lambda Literary Award-winning 2002 autobiography, Surviving Madness: A Therapist's Own Story.

While Berzon's books are as popular as ever (a novel titled Queer Babies is expected to be published posthumously), it may be her personal work with clients that leaves the most indelible mark.

"If we hadn't seen Betty, we probably wouldn't even be together," says Marty Lingg, who with his partner, Joe Ramirez, sought out Berzon's therapy expertise in the mid '90s. "One of the biggest things that happened [to us] is that 31/2 years ago we decided to have a baby. We know, without a shadow of a doubt, if we hadn't been in touch with Betty, it never would have happened; I never would have felt confident in myself or my relationship to take such a major step. We did end up adopting, and we're very thankful."