Гэри Келли

Гэри Ф. Келли - психолог-консультант, преподаватель сексологии с 40-летним стажем. Профессор сексологии и психологии. С 1973 года работает в Университете Кларкоса (Потсдам, штат Нью-Йорк, США). Автор ряда книг по сексологии. Книга "Основы современной сексологии (Sexuality Today: The Human Perspective, 1980) стала международным бестселлером и выдержала с переработками и дополнениями свыше 10 переизданий.

Gary F. Kelly has been a sexuality educator and counselor for 40 years, publishing several popular books in the field. After a 35-year career as Counselor, Dean, and Vice President for Student Affairs at Clarkson University (Potsdam, NY) and as Headmaster of The Clarkson School, he retired from administrative work to devote more time to writing, teaching, and counseling. He continues to teach courses in human sexuality, psychoactive substances, psychopathology, and counseling psychology in the Psychology Department at Clarkson, where the Student Association honored him with its Outstanding Teaching Award in 2008. He also teaches courses on ethics and social problems in the Honors Program. He is licensed as a Mental Health Counselor in New York State.

Born in the St. Lawrence Valley of upstate New York, Kelly was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of St. Lawrence University, taking high honors in Biology. After deciding not to pursue a doctorate in physiology as he had originally planned, Kelly worked in a medical laboratory on human genetics and genetics counseling, taught for a few years, and then decided to pursue graduate work in counseling and human development. With his becoming the director of the Student Development Center at Clarkson University, his career in higher education began. From 1974 to 1998, he taught popular graduate courses in human sexuality to counselors in training, and was considered an innovator in sexuality education for counselors.

Kelly was also an innovator in early college entrance for talented and accelerated high school students. In the mid-1970s, he was one of the co-founders of The Clarkson School, a school-within-Clarkson University that enrolled its first class in the fall of 1978. The concept of the president of the University at the time, Dr. Robert A. Plane, and his wife Mary Plane, Kelly was appointed headmaster of The Clarkson School in 1982. He served in the position until his retirement from all administrative posts in 2005, at which time an endowed scholarship for Clarkson School students was established in his name.

Gary Kelly's sexuality education work with students received national recognition with his election to the board of directors of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS). Kelly served for eight years as editor of the Journal of Sex Education and Therapy and was one of the charter editorial board members of the American Journal of Sexuality Education. He is a member of the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists and of the Society for the Scientific Study of Human Sexuality.

In the late 1980s, his popular book for teenagers, Learning About Sex, came under attack by the Catholic Archdiocese of New York and by other right-wing religious conservatives. Even though the Archdiocese denied any involvement in criticism of the book, The New York Times reported that an attorney who worked for the Archdiocese was a leader of the book-banning effort and claimed that the Archdiocese wanted the book banned from recommended lists. Another group of conservative clergy claimed the book was responsible for a proliferation of teen pregnancy and STDs, and that it had "tarnished children's values" through its "promotion of sexual promiscuity and adventuring in perversions." The group demanded that the New York State Education Department apologize to parents for having recommended the book as "one of the best for teens." Kelly refused to compromise the values of thorough information for young people that he has always espoused, and his books have continued to be popular.

For several years in the 1990s, Gary and Betsy Kelly were co-owners of Rivendell Retreat Center in the Adirondacks. The center offered classes and retreats on meditation, Yoga, the integration of Eastern sacred traditions with Western psychotherapeutic practices, and other approaches for personal growth and healing. He authored several articles on this work in professional journals and taught a graduate course on transpersonal counseling during three summers. Kelly still practices Yoga and meditation, and uses integrative techniques in his counseling practice.

Today, Kelly lives with his wife Betsy beside a lake in the Adirondack Mountains, a short distance from his campus office, where they enjoy canoeing, kayaking, and walking in the forest with their three dogs (two golden retrievers and a boxer). They have two adult daughters, Casey D. K. Walter, an actress, and Chelsea A. Kelly, a counselor and social worker.