HW
CASE EXAMPLES ACTIVITY; PLEASE UPLOD RESPONSE.
Case example confronting loneliness and isolation:
Consider how your values are likely to influence the way in which you would work with Eric,
a 33-year-old gay man. You are doing an intake interview with Eric, who tells you that he is
coming to counseling because he often feels lonely and isolated. He has difficulty in intimate
relationships with both men and women. Once people get to know him, Eric feels they will
not accept him and somehow won’t like him. During the interview, you discover that Eric
has a lot of pain regarding his father, with whom he has very little contact. He would like a
closer relationship with his father, but being gay stands in the way. His father has let him know
that he feels guilty that Eric “turned out that way.” He just cannot understand why Eric is not
“normal” and why he can’t find a woman and get married like his brother. Eric mainly wants
to work on his relationship with his father, and he also wants to overcome his fear of rejection
by others with whom he would like a close relationship. He tells you that he would like those
he cares about to accept him as he is.
Your stance. What are your initial reactions to Eric’s situation? Considering your
own values, would you expect to have any trouble establishing a therapeutic relationship
with him? In light of the fact that he lets you know that he does not want to explore his
sexual orientation, would you be able to respect this decision? As you think about how you
would proceed with Eric, reflect on your own attitudes toward gay men. Would your
attitude be different if this client was not a gay man but rather was a lesbian? Think about
some of the issues you might focus on in your counseling sessions with Eric: his fear of
rejection, pain related to his relationship with his father, desire for his father to be different,
difficulty in getting close to both men and women, sexual orientation, and values. With the
information you have, which of these areas are you likely to explore with Eric?
Case example: Caught in a conflictual situation.
Margie waits several months after starting counseling to tell you that she is a lesbian.
Although she has talked about her feelings of anxiety and depression during every session,
she has held back on disclosing the underlying source of her debilitating symptoms—her
fear of being alienated from her family if she tells them that her roommate, Sheila, is
actually her partner. Margie’s parents hold conservative values and in her presence have
openly condemned others who identify themselves as gay or lesbian. She is certain that
coming out to them would devastate them and cause them to disown her. At the same time,
Margie is experiencing increasing pressure from Sheila to introduce her to her family as her
partner. Stuck between wanting to please her partner and wanting to be accepted
Case example Caught in a conflictual situation:
Case example: Caught in a conflictual situation.
Margie waits several months after starting counseling to tell you that she is a lesbian.
Although she has talked about her feelings of anxiety and depression during every session,
she has held back on disclosing the underlying source of her debilitating symptoms—her
fear of being alienated from her family if she tells them that her roommate, Sheila, is
actually her partner. Margie’s parents hold conservative values and in her presence have
openly condemned others who identify themselves as gay or lesbian. She is certain that
coming out to them would devastate them and cause them to disown her. At the same time,
Margie is experiencing increasing pressure from Sheila to introduce her to her family as her
partner. Stuck between wanting to please her partner and wanting to be accepted
Concerns of LGBTQI People 79
by her family, Margie is very conflicted, which is exacerbating her anxiety and depression.
She tells you that she was afraid to reveal her sexual orientation to you earlier because she
feared you may have a similar reaction to her news as she expects her family would have.
She ultimately decided to tell you because she couldn’t hold it in any longer and needed to
tell someone.
Your stance. How would it be for you to hear this from Margie? What might you be
inclined to say to her? How would your own values influence your perceptions of Margie’s
situation and affect the way you intervened in her case? Consider how you would react
internally to the conflictual situation that Margie is experiencing and how you would
support her in working through it. This would be a critical time to engage in self-reflection
to ensure that you would not be tempted to impose your values on Margie regardless of the
particular beliefs or values you hold. If your values are similar to those of Margie’s family,
what measures can you take to ensure that you work effectively with her and that your
biases don’t contaminate the therapeutic process? Would you be able to focus on the issues
Margie presents and not the value conflict you have with her?
Discussion. Counselors are not exempt from the influence of negative societal
stereotyping and prejudice toward LGBTQI people. Many LGBTQI people internalize the
negative societal messages they receive, which causes them to experience psychological
pain and conflict.
You may tell yourself and others that you accept the right of others to live their lives
as they see fit, yet you may have trouble when you are in an actual encounter with a client.
There could be a gap between what you can intellectually accept and what you can
emotionally accept. This is something to examine in your supervision sessions and perhaps
in your personal counseling.
Survey
Complete the survey and provide me a summary of your reflection
ALGBTIC (2009) has also developed Competencies for Counseling With
Transgender Clients, which is geared toward counselors who work with transgender
individuals, families, groups, or communities. These competencies are based on a
wellness, resilience, and strength-based approach, and it is felt that counselors are in a
unique position to make institutional change that can result in a safer environment for
transgender people. This begins with counselors creating a welcoming and affirming
environment for transgender individuals and their loved ones. Counselors must respect
and attend to the whole individual, and they should not simply focus on gender-identity
issues.
You might well be unaware of your client’s sexual orientation until the therapeutic
relationship has been established. Or a client who has been involved in only
heterosexual relationships may begin to question his or her affectional orientation well
into the therapeutic process. This client may need to spend time in counseling exploring
his or her affectional orientation to find inner peace, and you must be able to
competently facilitate this process. If you expect to provide services in a community
agency or any other setting with diverse client populations, you need to have a clear
idea of your own values relative to issues associated with sexual orientation. As a way of
clarifying your values pertaining to sexual orientation, complete the following
inventory, using this code:
3 = I agree, in most respects, with this statement.
2 = I am undecided in my opinion about this statement. 1 = I
disagree, in most respects, with this statement.
1. Lesbian, gay, and bisexual clients are best served by lesbian, gay, and
bisexual helpers.
2. A gay or lesbian counselor is likely to push his or her values on a
heterosexual client.
3. I would have trouble working with either a gay male couple or a
lesbian couple who wanted to adopt children.
4. Sexual identity is a choice.
5. A lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender person can be as well adjusted (or
poorly adjusted) as a heterosexual person.
6. I would have no difficulty being objective in counseling lesbian, gay,
bisexual, or transgender clients.
7. I have adequate information about referral sources in the local gay
community.
8. I feel a need for specialized training and knowledge before I can
effectively counsel lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender clients.
9. I expect that I would have no difficulty conducting family therapy if the
father were gay.
10. I think that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people of color are subject
to multiple forms of oppression.
After you finish the inventory, look over your responses to identify any patterns.
Are there any attitudes that you want to change? Have any of your attitudes been
modified as a result of this discussion? Are there any areas of information or skills
that you are willing to acquire?
Family Values 81
A recommended resource for a more comprehensive discussion on this topic is
Affirmative Counseling With LGBTQI+ People (Ginicola, Smith, & Filmore, 2017).
SWOT Analysis of your skills as helper
Strengths
Where do you thrive?
What have others said about you?
Opportunities
Where can you seek more education to be better?
Weaknesses
What’s challenging for you today that you can work on tomorrow?
Threats
What’s getting in the way of you being your best? How can you overcome it?
Describe the components of a multicultural perspective on helping ?
What biases and assumptions do you hold about individuals who look, think, feel, and behave
differently from you?
Reflection on chapter 4. What stood you out the most?
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