Mindfulness and Acceptance for Gender and Sexual Minorities: A Clinician's Guide to Fostering Compassion, Connection, and Equality Using Contextual ... Mindfulness and Acceptance Practica Series)

When it comes to sexuality, our culture is changing, and rapidly. For many decades, we’ve thought of “sexual minorities” almost exclusively in terms of gay men and lesbian women, and have given relatively little attention even to those recognized groups. An emerging literature now reveals that gender and sexuality are more fluid than we’ve ever imagined, and thankfully, there appears to be a rapidly-occurring cultural awareness and evolution around issues of sexuality and gender, reflected by almost unprecedented conversations about things such as transgender rights.This evolution is vital, but presents us with unique challenges. As we do the necessary work of pulling back the veil that has covered our understanding of gender and sexuality, there is discomfort, backlash, and sometimes violence. Now more than ever, we need systems of mental health that can meet the issues faced by sexual minorities with understanding, compassion, and competence. As the culture changes rapidly, we in the field of mental health must keep up.This book is a vital contribution for exactly this reason. Both scholarly and passionate, this book features a cornucopia of entries on a wide-range of topics that will rapidly increase practitioners’ understanding around the nuanced issues faced by sexual minorities. The book goes well beyond theory, however, and is filled with tools that will immediately help clinicians draw upon evidence-based strategies to work more competently and confidently in helping clients explore their sexuality, the process of coming out, and to work actively and flexibly with issues of shame and intimacy. An array of chapters explore approaches to more specific topics as well, such as parenting, HIV/AIDS, and work environments, as well as process-relevant issues such as the ease of which well-meaning straight therapists can unknowingly commit microaggressions in therapy with sexual minorities and how these can be worked with. The book is filled with case vignettes and tangible techniques and strategies drawn from therapy modalities such as ACT, FAP, DBT, and CFT.Consistently well-written and warm in tone, this well-edited book is a pleasurable and edifying read that I can heartily recommend to all therapists as well as instructors of undergraduate and graduate university psychology courses in Diversity, Psychotherapy, and Gender Studies. Highly recommended!Russell Kolts, Ph.D.Professor of Psychology, Eastern Washington UniversityAuthor, 'CFT Made Simple,' 'The Compassionate Mind Guide to Managing Your Anger,' and 'An Open-Hearted Life'

This book is one of it's kind. I am a therapist, I work with LGBTQ people quite often and frankly there is very little (if any) resources that provide SPECIFIC interventions and theories FOR this population. The authors, who are all well established in their fields, explain their interventions and the theoretical background in a way that I understand. Frankly, I have not finished reading the book yet but I am having a hard time putting it down. It literally feels that it was written for me.The authors use primarily Mindfulness techniques and/or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy practices. If you are not familiar with either you may want to check them out. I am not an expert in either but the biggest premise is that people who get stuck in their thinking trying to defuse their discomfort by engaging the same cognitive pathways that lead them there. I particularly liked the "End, comma" (Chapter 5) exercise that aims to ease such thinking which in turn reduces discomfort.I seldom write reviews on Amazon but this book I felt that I owed to. Hope this review helps you with your decision making.

Thoughtful resource that blends theory and practical guidance for psychologists—and lots is applicable for teachers, nurses, clergy, and anyone in a "helping profession."

Fantastic read so far and great downloadable materials included.

Perfect book and content when working w/this population.

Great book!

I rarely write reviews, but wanted to take moment to applaud these authors for writing an important book. This is an excellent book that is one of a kind. There are many therapists who are using mindfulness and acceptance-based approaches with their clients and who need more guidance on how to use these processes with GSM clients. This book provides excellent guidance from a variety of different authors. One of its strengths is that the chapters are written by a variety of different authors so that the reader can get a diversity of perspectives on how to do this work effectively. As an edited book, it's not always integrated between the different topics/chapters and some topics are not covered as much as might be expected if it were a single, integrated book, written by only one author. But that downside is just the nature of edited books and also it's diversity of perspectives is part of what makes it strong. Hopefully these authors will write a more integrated, non-edited book on this topic some day as the work continues to progress.The book provides practical examples and guidance, not just theory, and as such can immediately be applied in your practice. Highly recommended.