Sexual Orientation and Counselor Competency: The Impact of Training on Enhancing Awareness, Knowledge and Skills

ASEXUally: On Being an Ally to the Asexual Community

“…Counselor allies should be prepared to facilitate understanding and communication within relationships, with an emphasis on recognizing and exploring the true presenting issue and helping the parties to identify mutual ground. Additionally, it will be important for counselor allies to be comfortable with their own sexuality, as well as openly discussing sex and sexuality (Dillon, Worthington, Soth-McNett, & Schwartz, 2008;Owen-Pugh & Baines, 2013;Rutter, Estrada, Ferguson, & Diggs, 2008;Walker & Prince, 2010). When working with clients who have presenting issues around their asexual identity, this will likely be a primary focus.…”

Couples Counseling for a Transgender-Lesbian Couple: Student Counselors’ Comfort and Discomfort with Sexuality Counseling Topics

“…More applied clinical research is required to ascertain counseling competency for GLBT clients and supervision with graduate counseling programs as the participants (Rutter et al, 2008). Introspective surveys of supervisors' and trainers' own internalized heterosexism or homophobia could be very beneficial.…”

“…While clinicians will have some experience in serving GLBT individuals or couples during their clinical training practicum, it seems quite rare that graduate level-training coursework would actually include clinical vignettes or knowledge seminars to discuss the sexual minority client population's unique needs (Israel et al, 2003;Rutter et al, 2008). In addition, few supervision or clinical training protocols exist to address the unique needs of GLBT couples and families.…”

“…To address this issue of counselor preparedness and the training programs' responsibility to impart change, a division of the American Counseling Association (ACA), the Association for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Issues in Counseling (ALGBTIC), has developed competency standards that call for counseling faculty to address GLB issues in their curricula. According to these standards, counseling courses should focus on increasing students' level of competency through enhancing students' awareness, knowledge, and skills when working with GLB clients (ALGBTIC, 2006;Rutter, Estrada, Ferguson, & Diggs, 2008). Croteau and colleagues (1998) suggest imparting a GLBT affirming therapy that integrates feminist, cognitive, and narrative theories to address oppression, internalized homophobia, and social constructs that are harming these sexual minority clients.…”

“…This added notion-that GLBT clients often discover their sexual orientation in the context of an undergraduate experience with a same-sex relationship-suggests that college counseling center staff (both clinicians and trainers alike) ought to be prepared to work with this sexual minority youth population (Rutter et al, 2008).…”