Full Description
This seminal book is the original and definitive text presenting gender, sex, and relationship diversity (GSRD) therapy as its own therapeutic approach rather than simply a set of techniques or "add on" to other modalities in working with LGBTQ+ clients and other marginalised populations.
This edited volume draws on the expertise of international clinicians who offer contemporary perspectives as well as modernising traditional psychotherapeutic theories. The book introduces the modality by explaining the essence of GSRD therapy: its history, philosophy, and theories, as well as what it is used for and how it is practiced. It sets the landscape for GSRD therapy, centred on its seven core components. It focuses on specific populations and themes that are prevalent in the GSRD communities, yet often not written about or discussed in core clinical training, such as working with queer and trans young people, parenting, working with serious mental health difficulties, and ageing and the end of life. It also covers topics such as neurodivergence, self-harm, and body image.
The book is a critical resource for clinicians worldwide, particularly those working with or interested in working with populations who do not fit the dominant "norm" of heteronormativity and mono-normativity and those who are gender-expansive.
Contents
Part 1: The essence of GSRD therapy
Chapter 1: What is Gender, Sex, and Relationship Diversity Therapy? (Antonio Prunas)
Chapter 2: What do GSRD therapists do? (Dominic Davies)
Chapter 3: Key elements of GSRD therapy (Silva Neves)
Chapter 4: Obligatory, not optional, the development of the GSRD therapist (Agata Loewe-Kurilla)
Part 2: Integrating GSRD therapy
Chapter 5: Integrating GSRD Therapy - Exploration and affirmation: bridging the great divide (Paul Christopher Mollitt)
Chapter 6: Staring at Shadows (Karen Pollock)
Chapter 7: Distress directed towards our own Queer Bodies and Lives: A Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) informed approach to clinical work with people who identify as GSRD (Dr James Lea & Dr Brendan J Dunlop)
Chapter 8: A figure of the affirmed self: Gestalt and GSRD Therapy meet (Daniel Bąk)
Chapter 9: Internal Family Systems (IFS) to support GSRD people dealing with body image difficulties (Alessio Rizzo)
Chapter 10: Biopsychosocial - and mysterious! A Queer Jungian perspective on the meaning of GSRD (George Taxidis)
Chapter 11: Mentalising Internalised Stigma (Wilson Gallego Hoyos)
Chapter 12: Mirror Ball Encounters. Group therapy with GSRD Communities (Niki D and Tim Foskett)
Chapter 13: Decolonising the Vision of Wellbeing in Emotional Psychosexual and Relational Health for GSRD Clients (Rima Hawkins)
Part 3: Special interests in GSRD therapy
Chapter 14: Working with LGBTQ+ youth (Cat Johnston and Maria Kindstedt)
Chapter 15: The Spectrum of Family: Navigating the Challenges and Triumphs of Queer Parenting (Daniel Morrison)
Chapter 16: Queer Spirituality in Counselling and Psychotherapy (Matthew Cormack)
Chapter 17: Queer Aging and Endings (Christian Schulz-Quach & Margo Kennedy)



