Full Course Description

 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning (LGBTQ) Clients: Clinical Issues and Treatment Strategies

Program Information

Objectives

  1. Assess gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning clients for psychological trauma to assist in informing treatments interventions.
  2. Establish and understand the six distinct stages of the coming out process to provide optimal amount of support to the client.
  3. Distinguish between mental health disorders that mimic the effects of the trauma from growing up LGBTQ.
  4. Utilize specific clinical interventions and assessment tools to more effectively treat LGBTQ clients.
  5. Employ adaptable clinical interventions to work more effectively with LGBTQ clients from different generations.
  6. Consider the dynamics of same gendered couple, including vulnerabilities and strengths, when working with LGB couples in session.

Outline

Do No Harm: Make Your LGBTQ Client Feel Safe & Respected in Therapy

  • Red-flag words: Offensive words you might use (without you knowing!)
  • Intake session: questions about developing identity
  • Strategies to establish rapport and comfort
  • Tips for discussing sex and sexuality

Talk About Sex!

  • Don’t miss out on key info by ignoring the sex talk
  • Top or bottom? And other important questions to ask: flexible, changing sexual preferences and attractions
  • Varieties of sexuality
  • Protect the client from your own biases and assumptions

Coming Out

  • Stigma and its impact on mental health from childhood to adulthood
  • 6 distinct stages with interventions
  • Navigate the 3 phases of coming out to avoid isolation and alienation
  • Fear, shame and rejection unique to this population
  • Relationship concerns: family, friends, school or workplace
  • Finding a sense of belonging in LGBTQ community
  • Harmful and dangerous effects of conversion therapy

LGBTQ Adolescence

  • Coming out issues
  • It gets better but not before coming out
  • Bullying and other safety issues contributing to PTSD
  • Harm reduction adult dating apps such as Grindr, Scruff, etc.
  • Risk assessment for substance abuse
  • Assess for suicidality
  • Finding support

Gay Male

  • Develop a treatment plan and goals for unique challenges growing up gay male
  • Accurate assessment of alcohol use with this high risk population
  • HIV & STI prevention strategies and risk and harm reduction
  • Generational differences informing different treatment plans
  • Internalized homophobia
  • Learn specific sexual terminology to avoid alienating your client

Lesbian

  • Develop a treatment plan and goals for unique challenges growing up lesbian
  • Specific terminology that is helpful and damaging in this population
  • Sex and sexuality: what to know, what to ask
  • Strategies to manage gender dynamics
  • Internalized homophobia manifests in development

Bisexuality

  • Learn strategies to help the anxiety of bisexuals in dating and relationships
  • Internalized biphobia and bisexual development from childhood into adulthood
  • Compare and contrast male and female bisexuality

Transgender

  • Overcome the knowledge barrier
  • Avoid using outdated treatment plans
  • Learn and differentiate correct terms such as gender queer, gender fluid and cisgender
  • Strategies to help your client tell their partner, families, friends and employers
  • Tips to discuss hormone treatments and surgical procedures
  • Crucial points for transgender teens medically and psychologically and how to create best treatment plan

Questioning

  • Avoid mislabeling a client and leading them down the wrong sexual identity path
  • Differentiate between sexual fluidity from bisexuality, gay and lesbian identities
  • Differentiate between sexual identity, sexual behavior and sexual fantasies

Working with LGB Couples

  • Dynamics of a same gendered couple including vulnerabilities and strengths
  • Coming out discrepancy causing turbulence for couples
  • Recognize and identify how internalized homophobia creates conflicts
  • Open relationships in gay male couples
  • Sexual issues and strategies on compatibility, incompatibility, frequency and satisfaction

Working with Mixed Orientation Couples and Relationships

  • Specific stages of coming out as a mixed orientation couple
  • Specialized treatment programs for the straight spouses
  • Helping LGBTQ spouse integrate their identity into their mixed orientation relationships
  • Learn how to identify which couples will succeed and which won’t

Copyright : 04/12/2015

​ LGBTQ Youth: Clinical Strategies to Support Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

Program Information

Objectives

  1. Assess how school, family and social pressures impact the formation of an LGBTQ youth’s identity.
  2. Support the coming out process with youth clients and facilitate family interventions to create safety, support, space, and acceptance.
  3. Analyze LGBTQ youth clients’ level of risk and protective factors for developing symptoms of anxiety and depression, as well as self-harm behaviors and suicidal ideation.
  4. Assess family dynamics of the client to determine potential to work towards increased acceptance and support.
  5. Assist transgender clients in the readiness process for medical gender transition and compose letters of support for clients to obtain medical gender transition treatments.
  6. Foster LGBTQ affirmative school environments with strategies for working in conjunction with school staff, administration and parents.

Outline

 

Coming Into an LGBTQ Identity and Coming Out to Others

  • Identity development
  • Internalized homo/bi/trans -phobia
  • The decision to come out
  • Fears in the coming out process
  • Youths’ safety

Clinical Considerations

  • Intervening in depression, shame, self-harming behaviors, and suicidality
  • Addressing anxiety
  • Approaching transgender compared to LGBQ
  • Importance of family acceptance
  • Intersections of other cultural identities
  • Research limitations and risks of psychotherapeutic approaches

Differences within the LGBTQ Spectrum

  • Lesbian Youth
    • Confronting invisibility
    • Facilitating positive self-esteem
  • Gay Youth
    • Discussing gender role expectations
    • Sexual health
    • Substance use
  • Bisexual Youth
    • Understanding bisexuality as a legitimate identity
    • Harmfulness of bisexual erasure
  • Transgender Youth
    • Assessing need/desire for gender transition
    • Exploring options for gender expression
  • Questioning Youth
    • Making space for exploration and fluidity
    • Reducing pressure to self-label

Working with Families

  • Coming Out
  • Creating space for parents’ reactions and resistance
  • Supporting youths’ LGBTQ identity
  • Helping parents work towards increased acceptance and support
  • Navigating religious beliefs
  • Supporting parents’ own process of coming out
  • Attending to the needs of siblings and extended family members
  • Facilitating support networks

LGBTQ-Affirmative School Environments

  • Importance of safe schools for youths’ well-being
  • Assisting parents with school advocacy
  • Coaching youth towards self-advocacy
  • Dealing with bullying and mistreatment
  • Considerations for transgender youth

Copyright : 07/12/2016