What is Sexual Minority Therapy?

Therapy4u Associates Limited Counselling, Weight Loss, Cognitive Behav May 25, 2013

Sexual Minority therapy is a therapy where we, as counsellors, help the client in understanding and gaining skills to be able to cope, with the sometimes hidden but also pervasive isolation and oppression that they may feel, with regard to the their personality, and sexuality, and whether they are in the right body. Allowing them to come to terms with and accept themselves for who they are, and how they feel, and help them understand that they are not “WRONG” or their situation is not wrong – they are just different to the way the majority are.

Differences are seen sometimes as a scary thing. Although not all things are ‘mad, bad or evil’, they can seem so to those who don’t understand it, through ignorance and lack of knowledge. But difference can also be positive, through learning and listening, it’s in learning the positives and reducing the negatives.

Through acceptance of themselves and their inner peace, they may gain the confidence to come out, if that is their wish, or if not, to give them the strength to be themselves, to be happy within, gain inner peace and self-acceptance. This will, in turn, hopefully allow them the strength and capacity to be stronger and to cope with most outside social conditions, in their family, friends and work units.

Within sexual minority therapy we deal with the many issues surrounding, gays, lesbians, trans-genders, trans-sexuals, transvestites, hermaphrodites and A sexual clients. Plus the problems of non-acceptance, and the diverse attitudes encountered by clients in their daily life.

The basic sexual minority philosophy is based upon these three domains:

Individual – This includes individual issues, such as relationships (dating skills), work (daily grind, openness, or hiding), parenting (in a hetero family, single or same sex), spirituality (beliefs), smoking, drugs or alcohol use (self-abuse), and double life issue’s, the way we all live our lives, and the usual things we do from day to day.

Organisation – Helping individuals be more accepting and allow acceptance, and the paperwork (forms etc) to be easier to read and fill in and informative.

Culture/Social – This includes legal changes, making discrimination illegal, gay parenting issues, homophobic bullying, and allowing voices to be heard and understood.

Gaining an insight and understanding of our client’s fears, feelings and sexuality issues is a vital part of our being able to be present, empathise in a non-judgemental way, something that is not always available to them, their listening time, their own time, allowing them to be free and honest with themselves about themselves, in some instances for the first time. It is about equality and diversity in all people and the acceptance of these diversities and the understanding of true equality.