Psychoeducational programming: Creating a context of mental health for people who are lesbian, gay, or bisexual.

Abstract

The effects of attitudes and practices that tend to omit, exclude, overlook, or misrepresent lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people are evidenced in the presenting problems of many LGB clients (Albee, 1995; Uribe & Harbeck, 1991). These problems include (a) feeling disconnected from a sense of identity and community, (b) depression stemming from self-hate or feelings of failure for being someone who is less than societally ideal, and (c) high levels of fear or emotional flatness resulting from having to hide and change one's natural sense of self (Browning, Reynolds, & Dworkin, 1991; Shannon 6r Woods, 1991).Service delivery options typically available to mental health providers include individual, group, and couples counseling approaches (see chapters 7, 8, and 12, this volume, respectively). As is indicated in many of the preceding chapters, working with LGB clients can be developmentally enriching for both client and therapist (Silverstein, 1991). Despite the ben-359

Reflections on Understanding and Ameliorating Internalized Heterosexism

“…Glauser (1999) argued that using narratives to understand oppression, in this case racism, is powerful because first-person accounts show the "how" of oppression in a way that cannot be minimized or denied. Schreier and Werden (2000) understand the power of narratives in anti-heterosexism prevention as resting in how such stories "access emotionality." I believe that counseling psychologists need to develop a truly empathic connection to the experiences of heterosexism, generally, and more specifically to the horrific reality of the IH that Paul Monette described as a coffin world.…”

Contributions of Multicultural Counseling to Counselor Competence With Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Clients

“…Counselors may, howaa ever, attach morality to behaviors that they associate with ethnic minorities, such as drug use, teen pregnancy, and use of the welfare system. Although it may be possible to alter such attitudes toward ethnic minority clients by combating stereotypes with accurate information, this type of approach is unlikely to affect certain opinions about sexual orientation (Schreier & Werden, 2000). For example, studies showing that children are not negatively affected by being raised in a home with LGB parents (Ainslie & Feltey, 1991;McLeod & Crawford, 1998) may affect an individual's opinion about LGB parenting issues.…”

Heterosexual Identity and the Heterosexual Therapist

“…Maintaining a gay-affirmative climate is doubtless critical in helping trainees integrate gay-affirmative attitudes into their personal and public identities. Training environments that discourage the exploration of antigay attitudes, however, may actually have the opposite intended effect on some trainees (Schreier & Werden, 2000). For example, in such an environment, trainees with strong fundamentalist religious beliefs may grow estranged from their gay-affirming colleagues and thus feel no incentive to explore their sexual orientation identity or increase their sense of affiliation with the general counseling community.…”

“…A number of educational activities have been proposed to increase students' sensitivity to sexual orientation issues (e.g., Browning & Kain, 2000;Phillips, 2000;Schreier & Werden, 2000). Models of heterosexual identity may inform efforts to select and design such activities for therapist training modules focused on sexuality.…”

“…Trainees using different working models can- not be expected to respond in a similar manner to these activities, and trainees very likely differ in ways that core motivations relate to such interventions. Thus, educators may profit from thinking carefully about ways that students with different working models and social reference groups may interpret and react to interventions (Schreier & Werden, 2000). Effective activities will allow trainees with diverse sexual identities to explore their biases, gain knowledge, and develop skills related to sexual orientation.…”