Fostering Cross-Generational Support through Narrative Group Interventions with LGBTQ Populations
Kelsey Tevik, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL (USA)
The rapidly changing social landscape of the past 50 years has led to a distinctive social divide between adults and youth within the LGBTQ community. This poster examines potential benefits of utilizing group narrative therapy interventions for fostering cross-generational connection and support among LGBTQ populations. It discusses current literature, as well as identifying need for future research and scholarship. A curriculum for a ten-week LGBTQ narrative therapy group is provided.
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Presentation Description:
The nature of the relationship between older and younger generations in the LGBTQ community is framed by widely differing historical experiences. The rapidly changing social landscape of the past 50 years has led to a distinctive communicative divide between adults and youth within the LGBTQ community, with older generations viewing young people as radical, while youth view their elders as out of touch (Russell & Bohan, 2005). Group narrative approaches provide participants with opportunity to form their own personal narratives while gaining insight and understanding from multiple perspectives, which positions this approach at an advantage to elicit acceptance and support among members (Dean, 1998).
This poster examines potential benefits of utilizing group narrative therapy interventions for fostering cross-generational connection and support among LGBTQ populations. Authors including Steelman (2016), Galazara (2013), Mclean and Marini (2008), and Lev (2004), have discussed the efficacy of using narrative therapy with LGBTQ clients, as it gives participants an opportunity to express and validate their unique experiences, as well as being a powerful tool in dismantling internalized homophobia. The ability to externalize experiences of oppression and reframe harmful narratives, make narrative therapy a useful intervention when working with oppressed populations (Webster & Spellings, 2016). A major obstacle to creating cross-generational understanding and communication within the LGBTQ community is the lack of opportunity for youth and adults to interact in modalities that promote acceptance and support. Creating space for recognition and exploration of connections among various forms of oppression is a potentially powerful catalyst for fostering productive communication across LGBTQ generations (Russell & Bohan, 2005). The emphasis made in group narrative therapy on identifying and exploring the influence of oppression on personal and communal narratives allows this approach to provide a potential forum for promoting cross-generational communication and support within a therapeutic setting.
This poster examines the use of group narrative therapy interventions for LGBTQ clients and identifies the potential benefits of narrative group therapy interventions for fostering cross-generational connection and support among LGBTQ populations. Current literature is discussed, as well identifying need for future research and scholarship. A curriculum for a ten-week LGBTQ narrative therapy group is provided.
References:
- Dean, R. G. (1998). A narrative approach to groups. Clinical Social Work Journal, 26(1), 23-37.
- Galazara, J. (2013). Borderland queer: Narrative approaches in clinical work with Latina women who have sex with women (WSW). Journal of LGBT Issues in Counseling, 7(3), 274-291. DOI: 10.1080/15538605.2013.812931
- Lev, A. I. (2004). Transgender emergence: Therapeutic guidelines for working with gender-variant people and their families. Binghamton, NY, US: Haworth Clinical Practice Press.
- McLean, R., & Marini, I. (2008). Working with gay men from a narrative counseling perspective: A case study. Journal of LGBT Issues in Counseling, 2(3), 243-257.
- Russell, G. M., & Bohan, J. S. (2005). The gay generation gap: Communicating across the LGBT generational divide. The Policy Journal of The Institute for Gay and Lesbian Strategic Studies, 8(1), 1-8.
- Steelman, S. M. (2016). Externalizing identities: An integration of narrative therapy and queer theory. Journal of Family Psychotherapy, 27(1), 79-84. DOI:10.1080/08975353.2016.1136549
- Webster, L., & Spellings, M. (2016). A narrative approach to process group work with counselors-in-training. Journal of Creativity in Mental Health, 11(2), 170-186.
Greg- Thank you, I really appreciate the feedback! I was helped greatly with the scholarship both by Brian Kelly's course on arts-based and experiential practice, as well as the Loyola University summer institute on LGBT aging run by Dr.'s Marcia Spira and Michael Dentato. I hope to have the opportunity in this coming year to run the group and expand on what I have for publication.
Hi John, Thanks so much for your feedback! When I put this group together, it was a happy accident that the members were pretty evenly split between generations, which is what initially sparked my interest in looking into the cross-generational connection that could be built. Sadly, with COVID we weren't able to run the group, but I hope to replicate it in a more intentional way in my next field placement. I was lucky to attend a summer institute on LGBT aging that is held at Loyola University and was able to see in a small way that mutual aid and healing that can occur when these conversations are given space to occur. I think that these connections are so critical to our community and hope to continue the work! I would also be interested to see the implications of cross-generational LGBTQ housing, and how that could foster similar effects, as well as helping to address the housing instability that LGBTQ older adults often face.
Kelsey- The scholarship in this poster is impressive. You thoroughly describe the division existing between young and old LGBTQ persons, and include a thoughtful explanation of some potential causes. You also thoroughly describe the concept of group narrative intervention. Your theoretical conclusion, that the intervention of providing group narrative therapy for cross-generational LGBT persons should prove beneficial, is logical/smart. Great work!
Kelsey, as an old queer social worker, I’m thrilled to see attention being paid to cross-generational connections in the LGBTQ community. I worked for many years at SAGE in NYC with the aging element of these populations and always wanted to do more with this idea. When I supervised MSW students I would suggest they try to get inter generational groups together, and they tried. It was always difficult to find young people who were interested for all kinds of reasons. I did once bring a group of old gay men to the Hunter School of Social Work to speak to the students and we were all stunned at the enormous turnout and interest it engendered. The mutual aid that happened in that session was amazing to watch, as suddenly these old guys were being looked up to by all these young people and you could see the empowerment taking place. When the young social workers who were gay talked about their coming out processes, one of the men from SAGE marveled that they could speak so openly in a group setting about this. He noted that when he was their age he would never have dared do such a thing. So thank you for doing this poster. I hope you will continue to pursue this work of bringing the generations together.