The complexity surrounding clients’ religion and sexuality, especially marginalized sexual orientations, can cause a lot of confusion for psychotherapists, especially when attempting to balance client welfare and autonomy. While navigating these tough waters, we may unsurprisingly commit religious and sexual orientation microagressions toward our clients (Trusty et al., 2022; Golightly, 2023). Factors that could bring out these microaggressions during therapy are our own personal biases about how religion and sexuality may not go together, since a lot of religious teachings outright condemn queer beliefs and expression. Additionally, our personal religious or queer identities and experiences can result in strong opinions about how these identities intersect.
Queer religious identities have existed throughout history, but have been marginalized by other louder dominant religious voices (Roden, 2016). Queer religious people have often faced exclusion and discrimination, so therapists should be mindful to provide them with a space where these concerns and identities can be validated without judgement. When psychotherapists fail to acknowledge a client’s religious experience or engage in religious and sexual microaggressions, religious folks continue to be unseen and may feel silenced. Therapists can honor their queer religious clients’ specific experiences and needs by implementing a multicultural orientation framework that promotes humility (i.e., respect, curiosity, and open-mindedness) while addressing clients’ identities. Mirroring their language, being curious about their experience and beliefs, and letting them direct the conversation can help make clients with religious and queer identities feel included and seen. Therapists can also consider their levels of cultural comfort (ease or tension when discussing sexuality and religion) and how this manifests in their vocal pace, tone, and behavioral posture in session.
We created a training program, “Developmental and Deliberate,” which uses deliberate practice-oriented principles (e.g., repeated practice and peer/supervisor feedback) to help psychotherapists increase their cultural humility and comfort toward diverse religious and spiritual clients. Notably, our videotaped client vignettes include several queer religious clients that psychotherapists may find helpful. The video vignettes and workbook are an open-access tool on the Religious and Spiritual Humility in Psychotherapy channelopens in new window. Parts of this tool were evaluated in a quasi-experimental study (funded by the Religious and Spiritual Competencies Project); participants described the program as highly satisfactory and helpful, and those in the training condition reported an increase in cultural comfort over time (Winkeljohn Black, 2023). There is emerging evidence (publication forthcoming) that participants in the training condition reported increased comfort with the vignettes over time, relative to the control condition.
We encourage therapists who are working with queer religious clients to use these resources as an opportunity for self-reflection and growth. The workbook includes recommendations for how to approach each vignette, but here are some general recommendations to consider:
- Self-reflect. Consider writing your own autobiography of your religious and sexual identities to see how and whether they’ve intersected in your life. How do you imagine this impacts your work with clients?
- Be ready to help clients find queer, religious spaces if the client wants them.
- Think about your peer consultation network – who would you feel safe reflecting and processing with? We all need spaces where we can process our own automatic thoughts and reactions to difficult topics.
- Practice responding to the vignettes in the workbook and YouTube series above, or review your recorded sessions with clients, if you have them. Notice how and when you follow the client’s language and when you do not. This may give you a baseline for what topics or themes are more or less comfortable for you, or where you may struggle to empathize with a client or idea.
Therapists recognize that sometimes they might have to take the backseat when it comes to making assumptions about the client and let them explain their story. They are the authors, and their narrative is important. It is impossible to be aware of all diverse religious and sexual identities. But it is possible to be humble and open to understanding them as clinicians.
Direct inquiries to Zoya Dawar, graduate student at Penn State Harrisburg.
