Mindfulness and Acceptance for Gender and Sexual Minorities

"Mindfulness and Acceptance for Gender and Sexual Minorities is an important contribution to the next wave of therapies for GSM. As we move beyond a focus on affirmative and non-pathologizing therapies, it is crucial that we begin to adapt evidence-based therapies to meet the needs of the diverse populations that we treat. Mindfulness and acceptance are approaches that are especially suited for GSM clients struggling not only to accept themselves, but also to live effectively in a changing, and at times, hostile culture. This book is essential for any clinician treating GSM clients."
--Jayme L. Peta, PhD, coauthor of The Gender Quest Workbook
"I finished this book feeling both humbled and at the same time empowered in my work with GSM clients. It provides a very approachable overview of the theoretical foundations central to contextual behavioral science, while at the same time being extremely practical and directly applicable for clinicians, offering numerous clinical examples and suggested exercises. This book is an essential read for any clinician working with issues of sexuality, gender and gender identity, stigma, and shame from a functional contextual perspective."
--Jenna LeJeune, PhD, licensed clinical psychologist, and cofounder and director of clinical services at Portland Psychotherapy Clinic, Research, and Training Center in Portland, OR
"Matthew Skinta and Aisling Curtin have edited the preeminent book on GSM-affirmative treatment. Writing from their core personal and professional experiences, the chapter contributors inspire readers to become not only more insightful and effective therapists, but to strive for cultural humility and societal equality. This deeply thoughtful and heart-stirring treasure trove will guide clinicians for generations to come."
--Mavis Tsai, PhD, coauthor of A Guide to Functional Analytic Psychotherapy, and research scientist and clinical faculty at the University of Washington
"Skinta, Curtin, and the chapter authors respond to the need in the field to articulate ways in which mindfulness-based approaches can address many specific challenges faced by gender and sexual minority (GSM) individuals. It is increasingly important to ensure that GSM (and other minority) populations are able to access mental health treatments that are both evidenced-based and follow culturally competent, affirmative care. This book is a unique intellectually stimulating resource for clinicians to have in our tool box, both those who are familiar with mindfulness-based approaches and desire information about how to work with GSM, as well as those who work with this population and require information about mindfulness-based approaches to care."
--Steven Safren, clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of Miami
"The evolved human brain carries multiple possibilities for experiencing and acting in the world. Our capacity for love coexists with our capacity for hatred and cruelty; our capacity for joy lives with our capacity for depression; we are multidimensional beings. Such richness of our potential multiplicities is especially manifest in our sexualities, where many combinations of with whom and how are possible. Tragically, for complex psychocultural reasons we have sought to limit, suppress, and constrain this richness. Shaming and stigma have confined and narrowed choices, and not always in favor of the heterosexual, e.g. Sparta. We are oppressed by the repressed. This excellent book brings together a group of insightful and knowledgeable authors that address the personal and social costs of shame and stigma on sexual variations. ... Sensitive, wise, and compassionate, this will be a classic in the field for many years."
--Paul Gilbert, PhD, FBPsS, OBE, professor of clinical psychology at the University of Derby, and author of Human Nature and Suffering and The Compassionate Mind
"There is a kind of violence that occurs when we tell people, in bold headlines and in small, quiet ways: do not express your difference, do not wonder about who you are, certainly not out loud, but really not even to yourself. Just be quiet and fit in. The palette of human sexuality is broad, and that breadth is largely unknown because we have suppressed the knowing of it, even among individuals who have a sense of these differences from the inside out. We have a choice. We can create a kinder, more curious, and more thoughtful context for our clients to come to know themselves and to help us to know them. This is an important book if you want to be part of that kinder context."
--Kelly G. Wilson, PhD, professor of psychology at the University of Mississippi
"This empowering volume shows how to bring powerful, evidence-based methods to gender and sexual minorities (GSM): do it through the application of GSM-affirmative, scientific principles linked to evidence-based procedures. Acceptance, mindfulness, compassion, and values-based action open the door to a new and more progressive conversation with the entire field about how to best meet the wide-ranging needs of GSM populations. Comprehensive, powerful, and clearly stated, this wonderful book helps show us all a new way forward."
--Steven C. Hayes, PhD, Foundation Professor at the University of Nevada, and codeveloper of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT)
"This is a groundbreaking book on several levels. The expert authors bring the light of cutting-edge behavioral research to people and challenges that are often overlooked by mainstream clinical approaches. Furthermore, the book places compassion front and center in the development of new strategies. This is a must-read book."
--Dennis Tirch PhD, coauthor of The ACT Practitioner's Guide to the Science of Compassion, and founder of The Center for Compassion Focused Therapy
"This volume includes the latest thinking and therapeutic interventions in our field to help guide clinicians in their work with gender and sexual minorities. Each of the chapters includes the nuts and bolts involved in helping GSM clients. No stone is left unturned in the array of chapters that include such topics as coming out, same-sex parenting, shame, and being a minority in GSM communities. The book is clearly aimed at detailing therapeutic interventions for clinicians, including compassion-, acceptance-, and mindfulness-based treatments as both standalone as well as integrated with other approaches such as acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), and functional analytic psychotherapy (FAP). This volume includes specific suggestions as well as case examples that clinicians can apply in their work. It even includes a chapter to address the issues confronting straight therapists working with GSM clients. Their goals are not only to help clinicians be effective with GSM clients, but also address implications for society. I highly recommend this extremely interesting, timely, and well-written and edited book."
--Robert J. Kohlenberg, PhD, ABPP, professor in the department of psychology at the Center for the Science of Social Connection at the University of Washington