Working across gender and sexuality diversity

Drawing on the recent book Sexuality and gender for mental health professionals: A practical guide (Richards & Barker, 2013), this day provides a basic outline of good practice when working with issues of gender and sexuality. Attendees will be encouraged to reflect upon their own ideas and assumptions about gender and sexuality, and those implicit in their therapeutic approaches. We will consider various ways of understanding sexuality and gender, and their implications for therapy across client groups. Specifically we will focus on the issues which can be faced by those who fit into normative genders, sexualities and relationship structures, as well as for those who are positioned outside the norm. We will address the main client groups of which professionals should have a working knowledge, which may be less familiar at present, covering key language and practices. Attendees will have the opportunity to explore case studies and their own experiences of working with clients across different genders and sexualities.