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Lesbian Therapists and Their Therapy

From Both Sides of the Couch

• By Ellen Cole, Esther D. Rothblum, Nancy C. Davis

• Price: $16.00
• Binding: Paperback (also available in Hardback)
• Pages: 80
• Published by: Routledge
• Publication Date: 8th August 1996
• ISBN: 978-1-56023-082-3

About the Book

This is an important anthology for therapists who want to enhance their sensitivity and effectiveness in working with lesbians. In Lesbian Therapists and Their Therapy, the authors describe how being a lesbian has affected their own therapy--as clients and as therapists--to enable other practicing lesbian therapists to work more effectively with lesbian clients.

This guidebook contains personal stories from lesbian therapist's own therapy, told to help other therapists deal with lesbian clients. Lesbian Therapists and Their Therapy enlightens the reader about the special factors in making therapy with lesbian clients more successful. The contributors accomplish this by highlighting personal details from experiences they had during their own therapy. In an excellent position to critique others’therapy with lesbian clients, these lesbian therapists can help others identify and avoid the pitfalls of doing therapy with this population.The personal material contained in this collection shows, in a very powerful way, the good and not-so-good handling of the special issues that all lesbians face in today's society.

Lesbian Therapists and Their Therapy is unique because it presents insight from personal stories of therapists that is not available elsewhere in book form. Among the topics and concerns covered are:

• therapists who are homophobic
  
• pitfalls of doing therapy with lesbian clients
  
• boundary issues between client and therapist
  
• attempts to change sexual orientation through therapy
  
• sexual abuse in therapy

This book will appeal to all therapists who deal with or would like to treat lesbian clients. Lesbian Therapists and Their Therapy should also appeal to graduate students studying psychology and counseling who desire to be well-prepared for treating this population. It is a helpful collection for persons not in the counseling field who would like to learn about the problems lesbians face in therapy due to their sexual orientation.

Table of Contents

Contents
The Quicksand of Boundary Violations

•  When a Straight Psychologist Works with Lesbian Clients
•  Becoming a Lesbian Psychologist
•  When a Therapist Breaks the Rules
• Personal Therapy of One Lesbian Therapist: A Lesson in Power and Responsibility
• From the Inside Out
• From the Other Side of the Couch: A Lesbian Psychiatrist Looks at Her Own Therapy
• From Personal Therapy to Professional Life: Observations of a Jewish, Bisexual Lesbian Therapist and Academic
• Reflections of a Mid-Life Lesbian Therapist
• After the Crash: My Journey to Become a Lesbian Feminist Body Psychotherapist
•  Lesbian Clients/Lesbian Therapists: Necessary Conversations
• Reference Notes Included