LGBTQI Workbook for CBT

Erik Schott

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780367544362
• eBook ISBN: 9781000356380
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
• Index: Psychology

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is one of the most popular evidence-based interventions in the world, but little has been done to explore how it affects different groups of people, such as the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI) community. The LGBTQI Workbook for CBT is filled with hands-on, practical perspectives for readers who are seeking a new point-of-view or for clinicians and students seeking additional tools, competence, and humility when working with sexual and gender minorities.

The workbook focuses on skill building and addresses techniques for personal selfassessment, cognitive and behavioral activation, psychoeducation, and therapist resources. Incorporating structured learning tools to promote professional responsibility as well as ethically driven and evidence-based practices, this text aims to promote empowerment. Applied activities are available in multiple reproducible worksheets and handouts to utilize in session, in the classroom, in the field, and in life.

The LGBTQI Workbook for CBT is an invaluable resource for interested members of the LGBTQI community, beginner or experienced clinicians, and students working with sexual and gender minority clients. It is an excellent supplementary text for graduate students in social work, psychology, nursing, psychiatry, professional counseling, marriage and family therapy, and other healing professions such as medicine, acupuncture, or physical therapy.

Part 1

Self-Assessment Handouts and Worksheets

Firsthand Self-Assessment

Directions:

• Trace an outline of your hand in the open space below (or place five images inspired by the questions below);
• Record your responses to the following questions in the spaces created from each finger within the traced outline (or record your response next to the five images).

Islands and Stones Goal Setting

Directions: Select three goals you wish to address, and write them down on the “islands” below. These “islands” in this metaphor are what you are working or hopping towards. For each goal, break down how you will achieve this goal into three objectives. Objectives are smaller bite-sized steps that will get you to your goal or the island. Objectives are the “hopping stones” you will take to get to your “island.”

Intersectionality Gem

Intersectionality is a framework and tool for assessment (Crenshaw, 1989). It supports conceptualizing a person, community, or social problem as distressed by a multitude of discrimination and oppression. It simultaneously considers human beings as being dynamic gemstones with multiple facets of identity. It is these facets or overlapping identities and experiences that must be assessed for in order to understand the complexity of prejudices individuals and communities face every day. For the LGBTQI community, intersectionality provides a framework to address sexual identity, gender, sex, and assigned sex at birth, but incorporates all facets of identity when considering the entire person in any given context.

Intersectional theory asserts that people are often disadvantaged by multiple sources of oppression: skin color (race), socio-economic status (SES), gender identity, sexual identity (orientation), religion and spirituality, sex, assigned sex at birth, first language, national origin, culture and ethnicity, ability, and age, to just mention a few identity markers. Intersectionality recognizes that identity markers (e.g., “female” and “black” and “lesbian” and “mother”) do not exist independently of each other. Please go back and view the Audrey Lorde illustration; she held all these identities to be her own simultaneously and dynamically. Crenshaw (1989) in the seminal work defining the theory, postulates that each identity marker informs the others, often creating a complex convergence of oppression and marginalization.

Who are you? What kind of gem are you? Ruby, Sapphire, or Emerald?

Directions: Write out your identities on the gem outline and answer the four questions:

Superhero Miracle Question

Comic books and graphic novels have always given the LGBTQI community icons and heroic stories to escape within. For many in the community, superheroes model the idea that being different is OK; the fantasy world created allows for these differences.

It was not until 1992 that there was an openly gay comic book character. Since 1954, there had been an authority that controlled strict guidelines forbidding any LGBTQI representation in comics. Queer comics have been historically underground operations. Sexual identity (orientation) has been debated for many superheroes over time and historical campiness fits well with superheroes generalizability for being colorful, nonconformist, powerful, living with double identities, and always struggling to be accepted. The connection between superheroes and the LGBTQI community is compelling. Visualizing your own superpowers will be an inspiration to help power you up for your next goal to achieve (Pagan, 2018).

The Miracle Question is a self-assessment technique frequently used in Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) developed by DeJong and Berg (1998). It is a powerful CBT-informed tool. It helps get us into a solution orientation mind-frame or thinking pattern. The Miracle Question allows us to begin small steps toward finding solutions to challenges we have set as goals requiring attention. Below are two self-assessment exercises using the Miracle Question. The first is the traditional Miracle Question as initially designed by DeJong and Berg (1998). The second example is a LGBTQI Superhero Miracle Question.

For further reading about LGBTQI inclusion and representation in comic books, visit the New York Public Library’s blog post Power Up for Pride With LGBTQ+ Superheroes (June, 2018).

The Traditional Miracle Question (DeJong & Berg, 1998):

Now, I want to ask you a strange question. Suppose that while you were sleeping tonight and the entire house is quiet, a miracle happens. The miracle is that the problem which brought you here is solved. However, because you’re sleeping, you don’t know that the miracle has happened. So, when you wake up tomorrow morning, what will be different that will tell you a miracle has happened...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• About the Author
• Disclaimer
• Current Life Selfie
• Introduction
• Part 1: Self-Assessment Handouts and Worksheets
• Part 2: Cognitive Handouts and Worksheets
• Part 3: Behavioral Handouts and Worksheets
• Part 4: Psychoeducational Handouts and Worksheets
• Part 5: Therapist Handouts and Worksheets
• Appendix A AT Progress Note
• Appendix B Biological-Psychological-Social AT Assessment
• Appendix C Resources
• Future Life Selfie
• References
• Index