Routledge Homework Assignments and Handouts for LGBTQ+ Clients: A Mental Health and Counseling Handbook

Featuring over 70 affirming interventions in the form of homework assignments, handouts, and activities, this comprehensive volume helps novice and experienced counselors support LGBTQ+ community members and their allies. Each chapter includes an objective, indications and contraindications, a case study, suggestions for follow-up, professional resources, and references. The book’s social justice perspective encourages counselors to hone their skills in creating change in their communities while helping their clients learn effective coping strategies in the face of stress, bullying, microaggressions, and other life challenges. The volume also contains a large section on training allies and promoting greater cohesion within LGBTQ+ communities. Counseling and mental health services for LGBTQ+ clients require between-session activities that are clinically focused, evidence based, and specifically designed for one or more LGBTQ+ sub-populations. This handbook gathers together the best of such LGBTQ+ clinically focused material. As such, it will appeal both to students learning affirmative LGBTQ+ psychotherapy/counseling and to experienced practitioners. Offering practical tools used by clinicians worldwide, the volume is particularly useful for courses in clinical and community counseling, social work, and psychology. Those new to working with LGBTQ+ clients will appreciate the book’s accessible foundation to guide interventions. Review "Overall this is a very strong guidebook for helping professionals who work with LGBTQ+ clients. The editors should be applauded for organizing each facet of this massive notebook into a cohesive book." ― Michael P. Chaney, Oakland University "This text stimulates clinicians to think of the many questions they should ask to ensure that their counseling sessions are LGBTQQ+ affirming. I believe the drive to ask and answer even more questions about queer and trans mental health therapy is this text’s ultimate contribution to the discipline and the profession. It provides resources that we might not have even realized that we need." ― Anneliese Singh, University of Georgia "The resources in this book represent a significant source of activities for LGBTQ+ clients regardless of their social location. Authors of the homework exercises have been very thoughtful in the design of their activities, clearly identifying when an activity would not be indicated. Many activities are devoted to transgender and nonbinary clients. If you work with LGBTQ+ clients, you need this in your library!" ― lore m. dickey, PhD, North Country HealthCare "Joy Whitman and Cyndy Boyd share a queer treasure trove of innovative and practical exercises for use with LGBTQ+ clients. This must-have resource brings together top clinicians and scholars who share therapeutic best practices for affirming and supporting queer and trans clients across a variety of contexts and issues." ― David P. Rivera, PhD, Queens College, City University of New York "Homework Assignments & Handouts for LGBTQ+ Clients is a welcome addition to any mental health training program, or post-master’s advanced seminar in counseling members of the LGBTQ+ community. [It provides] intriguing exercises and interventions that can supplement empathic treatment planning for best practice with a focus on intersectionality in counseling. A solid, engaging addition to the literature." ― Catherine Roland, EdD, LPC, NCC, past president, American Counseling Association "Doctors Whitman and Boyd have woven together a revolutionary resource that is desperately needed by mental health professionals. This incredibly creative compilation of exercises not only applies effortlessly to allies and members of the LGBTQ+ communities but also cuts across issues related to lifespan milestones and the intersectionality of multiple identities. I know of no other resource in existence―buy it, use it in the classroom, use it with your clients and, dare I say it