The Alberta Teachers’ Association

If you are a counsellor working with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or questioning (LGBTQ) students, you might consider reflecting on the role that your religion, race, ethnicity, gender, culture and sexual identity play in shaping your biases. For example, how does your gender affect your counsellor–client relationships? What are your personal beliefs about the fluid or fixed nature of sexual orientation and gender identity? If you are an LGBTQ person, how did the development of your own sexual identity affect your therapeutic relationships?

The following intervention strategies are adapted from Black and Underwood (1998):

• Be yourself and be sincere. The fundamental approach for all counsellors should be one of acceptance and openness to hear your client’s voice.
• Model and reaffirm the terms that your client uses. If students are uncomfortable with such words as lesbian, gay, transgender, transsexual, homosexual and so on, use such terms as same-sex feelings, attraction or relationships instead.
• Come from an “informed, yet not knowing” stance in which clients can tell their stories unburdened by your prior assumptions regarding gender and sexuality.
• Integrate sexuality and gender issues throughout therapy and ask your client for feedback regarding its relevance to different issues. Not all issues will stem from, or be related to, sexuality and gender identity.
• Empower your clients by seeing them as experts on their own lives. This approach, which will help to demystify the counselling process, can be accomplished by discussing confidentiality issues, offering relevant self-disclosures and negotiating the goals of therapy.
• Respect the confidentiality of your clients. Failing to do so can pose risks to students coming out to their parents, family members, teachers and friends.
• If your client wants you to meet his or her parents, be sure to discuss the risks inherent in that decision. Proceed with caution. Hershberger and D’Augelli (2000) suggest that counsellors ask the following questions before meeting with a student’s parents:
  1. How much information do the family members have?
  2. Did the client tell them? If not, how did they find out?
  3. Which family members know? What were the reactions of each?
  4. How long have they known?
  5. What was the quality of the relationship between the client and the family before disclosure and has it changed since?
• Validate your client's feelings, whether he or she is feeling alone, afraid, guilty, ashamed, angry, excited, proud, comfortable, whole or strong. Affirm your client’s hopes and options as an LGBTQ person.
• Offer to support the student during the coming-out and coming-to-terms process. Resist categorizing clients in simplistic or stereotypical terms.
• Give the student accurate information about community resources, books, magazines, health issues and local support/youth groups.
• Be open to discussing dating and sexual behaviour, a discussion that will help clients think about the potential consequences of behaviours and develop a healthy sexual identity and self-esteem.
• Help clients develop strategies for navigating such situations as relationships with older partners, club/bar scenes and sexualized environments. Strategies may include connecting clients with appropriate community organizations in which they can engage in social activities without feeling sexually coerced.
• Be prepared to address such socio-political issues as marginality, privilege and power. These issues may surface when you are discussing the role of gender norms, societal prejudices and stereotypes in the oppression of LGBTQ persons. Understand how these oppressive influences can consciously or unconsciously affect self-concept, self-esteem and relationships. In some cases, clients may unknowingly experience these negative messages as a form of internalized homophobia.
• When working with clients who are also members of racial, ethnic or religious minorities, take into account the following factors:
  1. The importance of family, community and religious ties
  2. The degree to which the client and his or her family believes in North American values regarding sexuality/sexual identity
  3. The client’s history of discrimination or oppression
  4. The community’s beliefs about same-sex relationships
  5. Different attitudes toward the disclosure of sexual identity/orientation. For example, non-disclosure does not necessarily indicate shame, denial or a lack of pride.
• Be prepared to intervene and advocate for services, support and resources on behalf of your client.

Responses to Avoid

1. Denial: Telling clients that they are wrong about their sexuality, that they could not be an LGBT person or that they can change their sexual orientation
2. Lecture: Informing clients that their sexuality is unnatural or unhealthy
3. Liberal response: Stating that the client is no different than anyone else
4. Inadequate response: Avoiding issues related to sexual-minority identity

For Further Information

Black, J., and J. Underwood. “Young, Female, and Gay: Lesbian Students and the School Environment. Professional School Counseling 1, no. 3 (1998): 15-20.

Carroll, L., P. J. Gilroy and J. Ryan. “Counseling Transgendered, Transsexual, and Gender-variant Clients.” Journal of Counseling & Development 80, no., 2 (2002): 131–39.

De Castell, S. “Prospects for Identity Formation for Lesbian, Gay, or Bisexual Persons with Developmental Disabilities.” International Journal of Disability, Development and Education 48, no. 1 (2001): 53–65.

Dworkin, S. H. “Individual Therapy with Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Clients.” In Handbook of Counselling and Psychotherapy with Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Clients, edited by R. M. Percz, L. A. Debord and K. J. Bieschke. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 2002, pp. 157–81.

Hershberger, S. L., and A. R. D’Augelli. “Issues in Counselling Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Adolescents. In Handbook of Counselling and Psychotherapy with Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Clients, edited by R. M. Percz, L. A. Debord and K. J. Bieschke. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 2000, pp. 225–47.

Morrow, S. L.“First Do No Harm: Therapist Issues in Psychotherapy with Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Clients.” In Handbook of Counselling and Psychotherapy with Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Clients, edited by R. M. Percz, L. A. Debord and K. J. Bieschke. Washington: D.C.: American Psychological Association, 2000, pp. 137–56.

Ryan, C., and D. Futterman. Lesbian & Gay Youth: Care & Counseling. New York, N. Y.: Columbia University Press, 1998.

Sanders, G. L., and I. T. Kroll. “Generating Stories of Resilience: Helping Gay and Lesbian Youth and Their Families.” Journal of Marital and Family Therapy 26, no. 4 (2000): 433–42.