APA’s Guil for Psychotherapy Wh Lbian, Gay and Bisexual Clients: The Fundamentals for Practice

ISSU ARISG PSYCHOTHERAPY WH LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR PATIENTS

In many ways, the practice of psychotherapy wh lbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenr (LGBT) patients do not differ om treatments ed wh heterosexual, genr nformg, and cisgenr patients. In this article, the abbreviatn LGBT is ed as shorthand for a wi range of inti, sometim wrten as LGBTQQI+, meang lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, queer, qutng, and tersex, wh the + ditg that the list do not leate all possible sexual and genr inti.

A lbian, gay, bisexual, or transgenr inty is evably lked to multiple inti: child, parent, spoe and/or partner, siblg, profsnal, employer, employee, ngregant, patient, or if a patient’s LGBT inty is not the primary foc of treatment, s impact on the urse of treatment should not be unrtimated or overlooked. However, this attu may overlook the fact that growg up lbian, gay, bisexual, or transgenr is a different cultural experience than growg up heterosexual and cisgenr. Mory StrsThe LGBT muny is not a homogeno group.

As one gay patient put , “We are the only mory group born to the enemy mp” (14).

ISSU ARISG PSYCHOTHERAPY WH LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR PATIENTS

Lendg support to that observatn is the fact that 30% of homels youths are LGBT, most often rultg om beg forced out of their home or feelg a need to n away om home bee their sexual orientatn, genr inty, and/or genr exprsn are not accepted (15) the nsequenc of wispread negative attus toward LGBT dividuals, is not surprisg that they may be unable to acknowledge to themselv, or reveal to others, any homoerotic feelgs, attractns, or fantasi. Clil prentatns related to beg the closet n vary severy, om the ls tense se of a young adult man nsirg the possibily that he might be gay to more severe maniftatns, which any ht of same-sex feelgs ris totally out of nsc awarens. Stayg the closet is sometim done for relig reasons; at other tim is due to personal choice, such as an dividual’s efforts to mata a stable, heterosexual, cisgenr Out of the ClosetGay people the pre-war years, then, did not speak of g out of what we ll the “gay closet” but rather of g out to what they lled “homosexual society” or the “gay world, ” a world neher so small, nor so isolated, nor, often so hidn as “closet” impli.

—Gee Chncey (18)In ntemporary age, “g out of the closet” means tellg another person that one is lbian, gay, bisexual, or transgenr. Comg out to onelf as lbian, gay, or bisexual may prece any sexual ntact or may occur durg a sexual moment. Herdt and Boxer (20) have scribed g out as a rual procs of passage requirg a lbian, gay, or bisexual person to unlearn prcipl of sentialist heterosexualy, unlearn stereotyp of homosexualy, and learn the ways of LGBT culture.

OutgWhat me to be lled outg—clarg closeted public figur to be gay—was...