TY - JOUR
T1 - Security amidst stigma
T2 - Exploring hiv and sexual minority stressors through an attachment-based psychotherapy group
AU - Mastropaolo, Christina
AU - Carrasco, Belinda
AU - Breslow, Aaron S.
AU - Gagnon, Gregory J.
PY - 2020/3
Y1 - 2020/3
N2 - Despite strides in HIV prevention and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender care, comprehensive care centers are of critical importance for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities and people with HIV/AIDS who continue to contend with intersecting stigmas and chronic minority stressors. Building on the integrated attachment and sexual minority stress model, we discuss these themes by highlighting a group vignette from an urban psychiatric clinic that has provided affirmative psychotherapy to marginalized communities affected by HIV/AIDS for over 2 decades. The authors have rotated at the clinic as cofacilitators of a weekly, process-oriented group for sexual minority men who are HIV positive or are affected by HIV. In this article, we provide a theoretical foundation for HIV-affirming group psychotherapy and clinical integration of minority stress and attachment-based interventions. Group psychotherapy provides a rare opportunity to bond an often-isolated community by evoking factors of universality, cohesiveness, and catharsis. It simultaneously enables us to confront individual existential concerns with serostatus disclosure, grief, and feelings of victimization, as well as challenge internalized stigma and rejection sensitivity. We apply these issues to a verbatim clinical exchange, analyzing attachment-related themes and issues pertaining to minority stress and stigma, as well as discuss group mechanisms for attachment interventions.
AB - Despite strides in HIV prevention and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender care, comprehensive care centers are of critical importance for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities and people with HIV/AIDS who continue to contend with intersecting stigmas and chronic minority stressors. Building on the integrated attachment and sexual minority stress model, we discuss these themes by highlighting a group vignette from an urban psychiatric clinic that has provided affirmative psychotherapy to marginalized communities affected by HIV/AIDS for over 2 decades. The authors have rotated at the clinic as cofacilitators of a weekly, process-oriented group for sexual minority men who are HIV positive or are affected by HIV. In this article, we provide a theoretical foundation for HIV-affirming group psychotherapy and clinical integration of minority stress and attachment-based interventions. Group psychotherapy provides a rare opportunity to bond an often-isolated community by evoking factors of universality, cohesiveness, and catharsis. It simultaneously enables us to confront individual existential concerns with serostatus disclosure, grief, and feelings of victimization, as well as challenge internalized stigma and rejection sensitivity. We apply these issues to a verbatim clinical exchange, analyzing attachment-related themes and issues pertaining to minority stress and stigma, as well as discuss group mechanisms for attachment interventions.
KW - Attachment
KW - Group
KW - HIV/AIDS
KW - Minority stress
KW - Stigma
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85077159024&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85077159024&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1037/pst0000264
DO - 10.1037/pst0000264
M3 - Article
C2 - 31855044
AN - SCOPUS:85077159024
VL - 57
SP - 29
EP - 34
JO - Psychotherapy
JF - Psychotherapy
SN - 0033-3204
IS - 1
ER -