Tag: LGBTQIA+
-
Queer, Kinky and Coming Out Twice: What Clients Want from Sex Therapy
A look at “Queer & kinky: what do queer BDSM practitioners need from psychosexual therapy to ensure their experience is relevant and inclusive?” by Jody M. Sill (2024) Many queer people know the exhausting ritual of coming out, again and again, to new doctors, colleagues and acquaintances. Now imagine doing it twice: once about who…
-
A Plot Twist in the Polyamory Story: Minority Stress and Mental Health
A look at “Minority stress in consensually non-monogamous individuals: mental health implications” by Nicholas C. Borgogna, Stephen L. Aita and Lilah J. Aita (2024) In several posts in this series, we’ve seen researchers point out that people in consensually non-monogamous (CNM) relationships are no less mentally healthy than monogamous people. So here’s a study that…
-
Three Hours to Kink-Aware? Therapists, BDSM and Feeling Ready to Help
A look at “Are we ready to serve? Couple and family therapists’ attitudes toward BDSM and their perceived competence to help BDSM practitioners” by Zachary Lane Berman, Mona Mittal, Mariana K. Falconier and Jessica N. Fish (2025) In “Queer, Kinky and Coming Out Twice: What Clients Want from Sex Therapy”, queer kinky clients said they…
-
Good Intentions Aren’t Enough: The Ethics of LGBTQIA+ Therapy
A look at “Ethical considerations in LGBTQI+ clinical care” by Thomas G. Plante (2026) Most therapists would describe themselves as LGBTQIA+ friendly. But being friendly and being ethical aren’t quite the same thing. This short American paper, by a psychologist and ethics specialist, walks through the core principles of the American Psychological Association’s ethics code…
-
Peers, Pixels and Healing: Online Group Support for Queer Male Survivors of Sexual Trauma
A look at “Peer online motivational interviewing and affirmative care for sexual and gender minority men who are survivors of sexual trauma: A randomized clinical trial” by Joan M. Cook, Chyrell Bellamy, Amy E. Ellis, Vanessa Simiola, Steve Martino, Nicholas A. Livingston and Maria O’Connell (2025) A gentle note: this post discusses sexual trauma in…
-
The Bedroom and the Inner Critic: What Shapes Sexual Satisfaction for Gay Men?
A look at “A Theoretical Model for Predicting the Derivation of Sexual Satisfaction in Gay Men” by Rusi Jaspal, Anthony Gifford and Udo Scheinpflug (2026) Great sex isn’t just about technique or chemistry. It’s also about what’s going on in your head, including the voices you’ve absorbed over a lifetime. For many gay men, one…
-
Welcome to the United Kink-dom: Furries, Pet Play and Beyond
A look at “A Survey of the United Kink-dom: Investigating Five Paraphilic Interest Groups and Their Demographic and Psychological Correlates” by Ashley Brown, Edward D. Barker, Stella Friedrich and Qazi Rahman (2026) With a title like that, we were always going to cover this one. Researchers at King’s College London surveyed people in five communities…
-
Big Boys Don’t Cry? Masculinity, Femininity and Asking for Help
A look at “The role of gender norm conformity in men’s psychological help-seeking and treatment engagement: a scoping review” by Lewis Burns, Lisa Olive, Alyna Turner, Simon Rice, Anna Wrobel, Bronte Montgomery-Farrer, Bethany Norton, Zac Seidler and Alexa Hayley (2026) Men make up more than three-quarters of suicide deaths in Australia, where this review was…
-
Player Two Has Entered the Relationship: How Gaming Together Brings Partners Closer
A look at “Relationship Benefits of Gaming Together: A Phenomenological Approach” by Kaitlyn Swecker, Carissa D’Aniello-Heyda, Kayleese Martinez, Abigail Nixon, Jaclyn C. Pickens, Alyssa Costa, Stephen T. Fife and Dana Weiser (2025) Most research on video games and relationships tells a familiar tale: one partner (usually imagined as a straight man) disappears into a headset,…
-
Fifteen Years of Trauma Science in One Sitting
A look at “The impact of trauma and how to intervene: a narrative review of psychotraumatology over the past 15 years” by Miranda Olff, Irma Hein and 21 colleagues (2025) A gentle note: this post discusses trauma in general terms. To celebrate its 15th birthday, the European Journal of Psychotraumatology asked its editors, a who’s…
-
“Who Are You?”: Queer Co-Mothers and the Professionals Who Don’t Quite Get It
A look at “‘We carry on living in this othered world’: An interpretative phenomenological analysis of lesbian/queer co-mothers’ relationships with professional support” by Beth Levy and Amanda Middleton (2025) Picture walking into a GP surgery, a school meeting or a hospital ward with your partner and your child, only to be met with a puzzled…
-
Mostly Good News (With Some Glitches): Queer Clients’ Experiences of Therapy
A look at “Therapy and counselling experiences of queer adults in Germany” by Sonja Bröning and Agostino Mazziotta (2024) After the rather gloomy picture in “‘They Must Be Sick’: How Therapists See Non-Monogamous Clients”, here’s something a little more cheering. This German study asked nearly 500 queer adults about their actual experiences of therapy. The…
-
“Hate the Sin, Love the Sinner”: Religious Trauma and Queer Resilience
A look at “Surviving Charitable Hatred: Spiritual Violence and Queer Resilience” by Andi P. Eliza-Christie (2025) A gentle note: this post discusses religious trauma and spiritual abuse. “We love you, we just can’t accept your lifestyle.” Many LGBTQIA+ people raised in strict religious communities will recognise that sentence, and the peculiar pain of rejection wrapped…
-
In It Together: Relationships, Drugs and Sexual Health for Queer Men in Open Relationships
A look at “Interdependence and Sexual Health: Relationship factors associated with sexual behavior among sexual minority males in non-monogamous relationships who use drugs” by Tyrel J. Starks, Joseph R. Hillesheim, Juan Castiblanco and Demetria Cain (2026) Most sexual health research treats people as solo decision-makers: one person, one choice about condoms, one risk. But for…
-
“Will I Have to Explain Myself?” Why the Fit with Your Therapist Matters
There are hundreds of types of therapy, from CBT to psychodynamic to person-centred and beyond. It’s tempting to think that picking the “right” one is the key to success. But one of the most robust findings in psychotherapy research points somewhere else entirely: the relationship. What the research says Psychologists call it the therapeutic alliance:…
-
Coming Soon: How LGBTQIA+ People Cope with Minority Stress
A look at “Affect regulation in the context of sexual and gender minority stress: A scoping review protocol” by Daphne Y. Liu, Benjamin A. Swerdlow, Shao Yuan Chong, Nadia Kako, Alex Rubin and Nicholas S. Perry (2026) This one’s a little different: it’s a trailer rather than the main feature. A study protocol is a…
-
Coming Out at Any Age (and in More Than One Way)
Coming out is often imagined as a single, dramatic moment, usually in your teens, usually involving a nervous family dinner. In reality, it’s rarely that tidy. Many people come out in their thirties, fifties or seventies. Many come out more than once: as queer, as trans, as polyamorous, as kinky, or as neurodivergent. And most…
-
Who Cares for the Carers? LGBTQIA+ Caregivers and Mental Health
A look at “Assessing sexual and gender identity interaction with the relationship between caregiving and adverse mental health outcomes” by G. Thomas Wilson II, Gilbert Gimm and Rodman Turpin (2026) Caring for an ageing parent, a poorly partner or a friend in need is one of the most loving things anyone can do. It can…
-
It Doesn’t Just Get Better By Itself: Working with Young Queer Adults Today
A look at “Adopting a queer lens working with LGBTQ+ young people” by Silva Neves (2026) There’s a comforting story that goes something like this: things are so much better for young LGBTQIA+ people now. There’s Pride, rainbow lanyards, queer characters on TV. Surely they’re fine? This opinion piece by a London psychosexual and relationship…
-
Not a Trend, a Survival Strategy: LGBTQIA+ People and Family Estrangement
A look at “Relatively not speaking” by Alix Fox (2026) Scroll through the headlines and you’d think family estrangement was the latest fad, fuelled by celebrity feuds and TikTok “estrange-fluencers” urging everyone to go “no contact”. This Therapy Today feature asks whether that’s really true, and points out that LGBTQIA+ people have been navigating family…