May / June 2021 Volume 20, No. 3
Top 5 Favorite Interventions for Treating a Family with a Disability
Working with families living with a disability can often feel overwhelming for beginning and seasoned clinicians. Because there are minimal studies assessing the effectiveness of systemic models and interventions for families living with a disability (Chengappa, McNeil, Norman, Questsche, & Travers, 2017; Llyod & Dallos, 2006; Turns, Jordan, Callahan, Whiting, & Springer, 2019), clinicians often [...]
Read MoreMay / June 2021 Volume 20, No. 3
“How come no one can help us?” How MFTs Can Begin Treating Families with a Disability
Out of the two new clients I (B.T.) received one day, both were raising a child with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). “We met with two other family therapists but they told us we were ‘out of their scope,’ because they didn’t know anything about autism,” the parents informed me. As I nodded and gave [...]
Read MoreMarch / April 2021 Volume 20, No.2
Hate Crimes Against Transgender People
The jarring and persistent rise of hate crimes against transgender people has received more attention from social scientists and the media of late, which may bring more resources to the problem and prompt more victims to seek help. However, trans persons and their advocates say that those offering assistance should recognize that there are still [...]
Read MoreMarch / April 2021 Volume 20, No.2
Unpacking Femininity: Supporting Trans Feminine Clients and Inhibiting Clinical Bias
There is a growing body of literature to reflect the grave health disparities that transgender and gender diverse/expansive communities are faced with when compared with cisgender (cis) clients (Glick, Theall, Andrinopoulos, & Kendall, 2018), i.e., those whose gender identity is the same as that assigned at birth (Cava, 2016). On many micro and macro levels, [...]
Read MoreMarch / April 2021 Volume 20, No.2
Affirmative Therapy with Trans and Gender Expansive (TGE) Youth and Their Parents
When youth are expressing gender expansiveness or claiming a trans identity, it is common for parents to seek therapy for help navigating their child’s process. Parental attitudes vary widely and may include full support, relief, confusion, disbelief, fear, loss, anger, or outright rejection. Regardless of a family’s level of attunement with the youth’s expression/identity, it [...]
Read MoreMarch / April 2021 Volume 20, No.2
Let’s Talk About Trans Sex
To date, the sexuality models and interventions utilized in therapeutic fields are often constructed based on binary, heterosexual, cisgender coitus (Iantaffi & Benson, 2018)—leaving those in same sex relationships, those with different abilities, those with multiple partners, and those with various gender and sexual identities, excluded from the conversation. Specifically, trans people are often neglected, [...]
Read MoreJanuary / February 2021 Volume 20, No. 1
Impacts of the Pandemic and Systemic Racism on Foster Youth
Foster youth are well versed in exposure to and overcoming a variety of traumas and have often developed and relied on both individual and cultural assets. What has been emphasized less is how these traumatic experiences are interrelated with oppression from their community and structural racism in our systems. Background and preliminary data Every day, [...]
Read MoreJanuary / February 2021 Volume 20, No. 1
Suffering in Silence: Postpartum Anxiety in the Wake of COVID-19
I knew something was terribly wrong, but my distress didn’t have a name. My expectations of early motherhood included eye gazing, stroking soft folds of baby skin, and the blithe exchange of coos and song. There was that, and there was also a disorienting, relentless storm of angst, hypervigilance, and fear. I did not seek [...]
Read MoreJanuary / February 2021 Volume 20, No. 1
Hope from a Systemic Perspective
We have been looking forward to the New Year with renewed hope and expectations that our society can move past the pandemic and work together toward healing. The past year presented enormous challenges that generations have not seen before. Together, we faced a pandemic, stood up to systemic racial injustices, and went through a contentious [...]
Read MoreJanuary / February 2021 Volume 20, No. 1
Time is (Way) Out of Joint: On Systems, Politics, and Truth
It is difficult for an adversary to see further than the dichotomy between winning and losing in the adversarial combat. Like a chess player, he is always tempted to make a tricky move, to get a quick victory. The discipline, always to look for the best move on the board, is hard to attain and [...]
Read More