Healing Historical Oppression in the LG BT Communities

Catalog description

This course explores how LGBT historical (and current) oppression negatively affects personal development of LGBT individuals through the experiences of minority stress. This process will be explored with both systemic and psychodynamic lenses. Although the labels included in LGBT (and any number of other labels) communities have not always existed, people with non-heteronormative or non-cisgender identities have always existed through history. A therapist with the ability to help clients reclaim LGBTQ+ history can help in psychological healing through providing twinship, altering internal objects, and healing the internal split, thereby reducing internalizing homo/bi/transphobia. The historical treatment of LGBT people in psychotherapy and psychiatry will be explored, as well as ways to navigate how this manifests in negative transference. Through learning in this course, students will learn to deliver interventions that help in building the self-efficacy of LGBTQ+ individuals through historical/cultural appreciation and understanding.