ACT Webinars Season 5: Session 04

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with Aisling Leonard-Curtin, MsC

Despite incredible advances in the science of psychological distress among gender and sexual minority (GSM) clients, changes in treatment have lagged. Most resources are dedicated to the need for an affirming and non-rejecting stance, though these do not meet the needs of therapist's who wish to align their practice with the most current of data and to help their GSM clients thrive. This workshop will teach process-based behavioral techniques that take advantage of research on minority stress and emotion regulation. The workshop will incorporate both theoretical and experiential work. Moving through life as a gender or sexual minority often entails some period of secrecy, guardedness, shame, and familial ruptures. We will explore the therapeutic techniques that tackle these concerns. This workshop will also aid clinicians in cultivating their own compassion and values toward meeting the challenges of moving through life as a GSM person, particularly through targeting the therapist’s own history of cultural messages about gender and sexuality. From this place, powerful and therapeutic relationships can blossom where GSM clients can access the best possible therapeutic outcomes.

  1. Learn about the prevalence of psychological challenges amongst GSM clients
  2. Identify how adverse psychological impact relates to invalidation
  3. Learn how to conceptualize GSM clients presenting issues through an acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and functional analytic psychotherapy (FAP) perspective
  4. Learn functional contextual therapeutic tools for working with GSM clients