Attachment-based family therapy for lesbian and gay young adults and their persistently nonaccepting parents.

Abstract

Describes a modification of attachment-based family therapy for working with sexual minority young adults and their persistently nonaccepting parents. The goal of the treatment is to improve the quality of young-adult-parent relationships and promote connection and mutual acceptance. We provide a brief overview of the treatment tasks that comprise the model, describe the rationale behind each task and how it is implemented, offer clinical excerpts, and conclude with thoughts about the limits of the model and future challenges. Finding out that one's child is lesbian or gay is often a life altering event. Even among parents who are generally accepting of sexual minority individuals, the realization that their own children are same-sex oriented can elicit a plethora of challenging emo- tions, including shock, shame, anger, sadness, and fear. Parents may be concerned that their children are going to be marginalized, stigmatized, and victimized. They may also grieve the loss of the hetero-normative family dream and be anxious about how they will deal with the strangeness of seeing their children with same- sex partners and involved in the gay community. They worry about their children's future and whether they will find loving, commit- ted partners and experience the joys of having their own families, however defined. Most parents also feel at least a twinge of discomfort at the thought of sharing their new status with family, friends, and colleagues. It is not surprising that research suggests over half of parents initially react to their children's disclosure with some degree of negativity (D'Augelli, Grossman, Starks, &