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Therapy experiences of clients with BDSM sexualities: listening to a stigmatized sexuality.
Introduction
In the field of mental health, one current cutting edge is the identification of appropriate and inappropriate therapeutic techniques with people with alternative sexualities. When topics of alternative sexuality arise in the context of therapy, misapplications of diagnostic criteria and a lack of familiarity about alternative sexualities can combine to foster disruptions or dysfunction in the therapeutic interaction (Nichols, 2006). As the field of mental health gains more information about the full range of human sexuality, the increase in knowledge can lead to more accurate diagnoses, effective interventions, and address public misconceptions about human behavior and mental health. Clinical practice around issues of alternative sexuality and mental health is hindered by the difficulties in translating research and scholarship into clinical practice. In particular, assessing pathological from non-pathological expressions of alternative sexuality requires a close relation between research, clinical practice, and professional training. While there are many factors that lead to a noticeable hindrance of scholarship in how to translate sexuality research into practice and clinical practice into research, one factor that we explore in this study is the experience of stigma within therapeutic contexts. Stigmatization of various forms of sexuality can cause significant difficulties in gaining information from and making observations about people with alternative sexualities. By stigma, we mean that a person is recognized or labeled as having an "undesired differentness from what we had anticipated" (Goffman, 1963; p.5)--and that this difference is seen as discrediting the person, making others suspect that the person is incapable, immoral or diseased. In several cases, the cues for stigma cannot be readily seen by the public, but must be inferred through the "labeling" of a person (Goffman,...See the full content of this document
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