Questioning heteronormativity: using queer theory to inform research and practice within public mental health services

Abstract

Queer theory is often maligned as being inadequate for advancing social justice. So, how might queer theory guide research and practice in public mental health services (PMHS)? Within the research on mental health issues for lesbians, gays and bisexuals (LGB) there are calls for making mental health services more LGB affirmative. Mostly this scholarship is from the field of ‘lesbian and gay psychology’. This tends to have an individualistic, positivist and essentialising focus. As such, it is limited in exploring how heteronormative cultural discourses impact on research, mental health systems and clinical practice. For example, common recommendations include separate LGB services and matching clients and clinicians along sexual orientation lines. Utilising a queer perspective on the homo/hetero binary, this article argues that such strategies are minoritising, in that they make homosexuality relevant to only a minority of clients and staff. When applied to mental health practice, minoritising strategies have limited scope to effect change for the wide group of same-sex attracted clients within PMHS. Based on research with same-sex attracted clients and staff of PHMS in Aotearoa/New Zealand, this article explores how a queer theoretical perspective can usefully inform research and clinical practice in ways that affirm queerness by questioning heteronormativity.