SIT and the Multicultural Movement

On Friday, November 6th, I’ll be heading up to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, for the Christian Association for Psychological Studies East Region Conference. The conference theme is actually on marriage and family, but I will be giving a presentation with two team members from the Institute for the Study of Sexual Identity (ISSI) on the topic of multicultural competence and clinical practice with sexual minorities. The multicultural movement has emerged as a significant reference point for working with diversity issues in clinical practice, and the services that are provided to sexual minorities are also included in that discussion.

The presentation we will be giving will offer Sexual Identity Therapy (SIT) as an alternative to the often-polarized therapy options under consideration with religious sexual minorities: gay affirmative therapy and reorientation therapy. We will note the inherent limitations in both of these models and offer a third option, SIT. The presentation will then explore (and briefly critique) the multicultural movement and its approach to sexual minorities, as well as the place of SIT as a client-centered, identity-focused approach that is consistent with what is best about the multicultural movement as applied to multiple aspects of diversity, as is often found when working with religious sexual minorities.