Promoting Well-Being

Abstract

SUMMARY Many African American bisexuals must resolve a dilemma of how to form alliances with multiple social reference groups in the construction and maintenance of multiple identities. Often the ideologies espoused by these reference groups conflict in relation to their normative standards for gendered and sexual behavior. Until this dilemma is resolved, many bisexuals experience a fragmented sense of self. In the promotion of subjective well-being, therapists may assist African American bisexuals to deconstruct these hegemonic forms of femininity and masculinity, demoralized public media representations of their being, and the stigma and shame attached to homoerotic expressions of sexuality. Deconstructions of hegemonic femininities and masculinities are often accompanied by a need to resist the nature of a particular self, constructed by indigenous Africentric patriarchal psychologies. This construction of the self equates African American bisexual identities with a pathological personality disorder known as misorientation. The psychotherapist who is aware of these aspects of the experiences of African American bisexuals is in a better position to offer affirmative mental health services to this population.