LGBTQ+ Clients: Queer Affirmative Strategies to Address Sexual and Gender Identity

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All members of the PESI, Inc. planning committee have provided disclosures of financial relationships with ineligible organizations and any relevant non-financial relationships prior to planning content for this activity. None of the committee members had relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies or other potentially biasing relationships to disclose to learners.  For speaker disclosures, please see the faculty biography.

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Speaker

Aaron Testard, LMFT, LPCC Related seminars and products

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Aaron Testard, LMFT, LPCC, is a psychotherapist in private practice in Chicago, IL and the San Francisco Bay Area in California with over 20 years of experience. For 7 years, he served as director of clinical programs at the Pacific Center for Human Growth, an LGBTQ counseling and support center where he designed and implemented psychotherapy services for individuals, couples, and families, 24 adult peer support groups, and an after-school youth program. He also has trained and supervised numerous interns over the years and has been an LGBTQ community mental health consultant for local clinics and organizations. Aaron has spent the majority of his career as an LGBTQ specialist, including time as an addiction counselor and a consultant for a felon re-entry program. In his current practice, he focuses on sexual and gender identity. He works with adults, adolescents, and couples and consults with clinicians throughout the United States. 
 

Aaron received his MA in counseling psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies. He is a trained drama therapist, sensorimotor therapist, and practitioner of the Gottman couple’s method, EMDR, and DBT-informed client work.

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Aaron Testard maintains a private practice. He receives a speaking honorarium and recording royalties from PESI, Inc. He has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Aaron Testard is a member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, the Gaylesta, the Bay Area Open Minds; Kink and Poly Aware Therapists Association, the National Association of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counseling, and the World Professional Association of Transgender Health.

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Objectives

1. Appraise current trends and perspectives in the LGBTQ+ community.
2. Identify clinician behaviors, language practices, and intake considerations that promote safety and trust when working with LGBTQ+ clients.
3. Analyze the main factors impacting treatment and the identity development process of LGBTQ+ clients.
4. Differentiate the phases of identity development for LGBTQ+ clients to better inform treatment planning.
5. Summarize ways LGBTQ+ history, sociocultural context, and identity development models can inform treatment planning.
6. Apply treatment strategies to help clients in each phase of LGBTQ+ identity development.

Outline

• Understand LGBTQ+ history and its impact on present models of sexuality and gender
• 2 key questions to ask during an intake session to establish safety and trust
• Current trends in the ever-evolving dating and hook-up culture
• Learn up-to-date terminology and genderaffirming language including SOGIE, GSM, and more!

• Trauma as a key factor for LGBTQ+ mental health
• Covert cultural sexual abuse and other traumas
• Gender dysphoria diagnosis – what does it mean and when to use it?
• How attachment injury affects LGBTQ+ development
• The phases of sexual and gender identity development
• Limitations & risks

Clinical Interventions to Support Clients Through Each Phase of LGBTQ+ Identity Development

Phase 1: Pre-Coming Out and Confusion

• Key Issues: Identify and defuse internal judgements about behavior, thoughts, desires
• Treatment Strategies:
  • Educate on gender and body dysphoria
  • Sexual health assessment and education

• Key Issues: Exploration of LGBTQ+ information and overcome barriers to coming out
• Treatment Strategies:
  • Questions that effectively address barriers and potential loss
  • Inquire and challenge without pushing beyond client readiness
  • Psychoeducational tools to help clients consider their identity

• Key Issues: Address shame and deeper exploration of gender and/or sexual identity
• Treatment Strategies:
  • Help clients build their unique support system
  • Apply ACT matrix and Functional Analytic Psychotherapy principles to address shame and internalized homophobia
  • Psychoeducation and information on gender transition steps

• Key Issues: Support coming out/transition process and address internalized homophobia
• Treatment Strategies:
  • Utilize WPATH Standards of Care to support clients in transitioning
  • Guided visualizations for challenging coming out situations
  • Tools to build resilience with increased visibility

• Key Issues: Validation of anger, process trauma, grief, and loss related to being LGBTQ+
• Treatment Strategies:
  • Manage anger about oppression, teach clients the 4 roles in social change
  • Trauma-informed techniques for processing traumatic memories
  • Release pain of grief and loss through EMDR, IFS, Sensorimotor, and other techniques

• Key Issues: Continue emotional processing and revisit earlier phases as needed
• Treatment Strategies:
  • Address continued minority stress
  • Know when to re-engage in earlier stages of development

Target Audience

• Counsellors
• Social Workers
• Psychologists
• Psychotherapists
• Case Managers
• Art Therapists
• Marriage & Family Therapists
• Addiction Counsellors
• Educators
• Nurses
• Physicians
• Other Mental Health Professionals

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