Introduction
Heterosexism refers to systematic preference and privilege given to heterosexual individuals and the stigmatizing impact that this has on sexual minority groups (Ritter and Turndrup 2002; McGeorge and Carlson 2011). The term heterosexism highlights the similarities in the oppression that is experienced by sexual minority groups and other minority groups such as women or people of color (McGeorge and Carlson 2011; Ritter and Turndrup 2002). Furthermore, heterosexism describes the processes which oppress those who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB) while providing privilege to those who identify as heterosexual (McGeorge and Carlson 2011; Ritter and Turndrup 2002). Heterosexism is important to examine in the context of couple and family therapy to ensure that LGB clients have access to supportive and nondiscriminatory mental health services. To provide quality care to...
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Smith, A.D., Seiter, N., Quirk, K. (2018). Heterosexism in Couple and Family Therapy. In: Lebow, J., Chambers, A., Breunlin, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15877-8_897-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15877-8_897-1
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