Social Work with People Practicing Same-Sex ... - ILGA Europe

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he is confronted with the problem of the absence of a model for such relationship. The
model of homosexual partner relationship is reconstructed virtually anew every time.
Meanwhile, the attempts to follow traditional heterosexual model by adopting a “male“
and “female“ roles fail without bringing about the desired effect of satisfaction with
the relationship. These attempts may be related rather to the social pressure and gender
stereotypes embedded in one's conscience. At the same time, today in the framework
of the traditional heterosexual models by far not always one would encounter a strict
division of sexual roles between a passive, soft, caring only for children and home
woman and active, leading and bread-winning man. In some cases, it goes the other way
round, or else the roles overlap. For instance, in one interview for the media a member
of LGBT organization has emphasized: “This is no secret that the traditional model of
family relations today is not always functioning. It is enough to look at the divorce
statistics. And there is no need to make homosexuals replicate this system — on the
contrary, one can learn from us how to build non-stereotypical, flexible and personal
models of relationships, where the place and role of each partner is defined not by the
social prescriptions and a combination of stereotypes, but by the individual preferences
and mutual agreement“.
In building such relationships the partners may benefit from psychological support
whereby the counsellor is helping the couple to work out individual mechanisms of
cooperation in their intimate relationship that would meet the needs of this specific
family/partnership. If the psychologist also has received training in sexology s/he may
help partners in addressing the issues of sexual interaction for the culture of samesex
relationships is not discussed openly many couples lack the basic information and
sexual education in aspects related to same-sex relationships. Since recently, specialists
working with homosexuals usually keep available special educational materials on
sexology.
Obviously, the above list of issues on which homosexuals may seek assistance from a
psychologist is neither complete nor final. We have not considered issues of raising
children in same-sex partnerships, issues of elderly homosexuals, issues of additive
behaviour of homosexuals resulting from the experience of being rejected by the society
etc. It is important, however, that the general approach to providing the psychological
support in relation to these issues remains the same and would include the following
main points:
— to conduct analysis of the socio-cultural situation in which the client's
psychological problem has formed and developed;
— to work with gender and other social stereotypes of the client;
— to give the client, in the course of counselling interaction, an experience of
acceptance and non-evaluative attitude;
— to raise the client's self-esteem and form a sense of unconditional inherent worth
of one's personality;
— to help form an integral gender and sexual identity of the client;
— to develop the client's capacity and skills to uphold one's life philosophy and
oppose various forms of social pressure.
It is worth noting also that many problems with which the homosexuals seek help of
the counselling service are essentially non-specific ones — people of heterosexual
orientation may come with similar problems including: difficulties in relations between
the partners, conflicts at home, feelings when leaving one's partner, psychological
difficulties encountered when searching for a partner etc. In these cases, there is no
need to emphasize one's sexual orientation and counselling may go on without any
specific problems.