Coloring across the lines: Clinical practice with gay male couples.
Item
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Title
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Coloring across the lines: Clinical practice with gay male couples.
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Identifier
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AAI3127848
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identifier
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3127848
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Creator
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Ball, Steven.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Irwin Epstein
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Date
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2004
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Social Work | Psychology, Clinical | Sociology, Theory and Methods
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Abstract
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This qualitative study utilized structured interviews with psychotherapists who are experienced in work with male couples to examine how clinicians have addressed the societal, legal, multicultural, systemic, and psychodynamic forces that create and impact upon contemporary gay relationships. The concept of practice wisdom was employed to explore how these forces affect direct practice experiences and to generate practice trends, common stylistic adjustments, and necessary knowledge for clinical interactions with this population.;Through grounded theory methodology, the data revealed potential problems with the generic application of available theories of clinical practice to psychotherapy with male couples. Many of the respondents struggled to reconcile the values inherent in their clinical theories and techniques with the here and now phenomenology of the treatment process. A number of therapists reflexively engaged queer theory in their practice via the deconstruction of heteronormative presumptions that they formerly utilized to understand the developmental aspects of relational attachments. This process created space for the diverse patterns of dyadic intimacy that they witnessed in this population. In a parallel process to that of the therapists, the researcher's data analysis revealed the need for an epistemological pluralism: an amalgam of both essentialist and social constructionist frameworks.;In addition, the data revealed how gay and non-gay clinicians emphasized different needs, pathways and patterns of clinical work, and as a result challenged prevailing beliefs about cultural competency. Obvious differences in sexual orientation, development and experience gave some of the non-gay therapists and their gay clients the intersubjective freedom to explore expectations of and differences with each other. The data from some of the gay therapists revealed the influence of their socially constructed gay identities on their choice of theoretical frameworks, their use of self and their desire for legitimacy among their professional peers. Borrowing from a metaphor supplied by one of the respondents, the data illuminated the impact of couple work with gay men on when to work inside, outside or across the lines of dominant clinical theories, common therapeutic processes and socially constructed beliefs that prescribe healthy relationships and effective couples work.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
