Cody Murphy

that this enhances the couple relationship, it is also true that "coming out" to parents can destabilize the couple relationship. This is particularly true when the lesbian partners are at different stages of disclosing their identity to their parents.

Importance of Recognition

of Lesbian Couple Relationships

The desire for recognition and validation of the relationship is strong in a culture that disqualifies lesbian relationships, outlaws lesbian sexuality, treats lesbianism as invisible, and denies lesbian women the legal, religious, and social sanctions of their couple relationships. When experiencing the hurt and anguish of oppression, it is quite natural to turn to family, particularly parents, for comfort.

As mentioned earlier, most heterosexual women assume that their couple relationships will not only be recognized but will also be supported by their parents and the larger society. Lesbian women, however, frequently experience invasion of their couple boundaries by parents. Members of the lesbian couple who are not "out" are frequently invited to family gatherings, weddings, bar mitzvahs, and holidays without their partners. It is hard to imagine that a husband would not be with his wife at the funeral of her mother. Lesbian women, however, sometimes choose to prevent their partners from being present and giving them visible support at times of loss in their lives for fear that other family members will find out about the lesbianism.

The respondents indicated that disclosing their lesbianism to their parents frequently (although not always) allowed the couple to attend family functions and events as acknowledged partners. One must note with a combination of sadness and joy the pleasure that lesbian women take in the recognition of their lesbian couple, which their heterosexual counterparts take for granted. But as one woman so clearly discovered when she learned that her father had not told his wife of his daughter's lesbianism and couple relationship, being "out" doesn't always ensure the recognition of the couple.

CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS

The counselor working with lesbian couples must be lesbian affirmative. It is not enough for the counselor working with lesbian couples to passively "accept" their life-style. He or she must be able to actively affirm the validity of their relationships and recognize both the specific challenges and the strengths of lesbian couples.

In addition, this study on the relationship between lesbian couples and their parents leads to the following specific implications for the counselor working with lesbian couples:

1. Always ask about issues of self-disclosure. How the lesbian partners manage their identity impacts on the couple. Therefore, issues about self-disclosure to parents (and others) are part of the relevant information about the couple. The counselor should actively and specifically ask to whom the couple is "out." I have found it useful to routinely put that information on the genogram with the other important information about the family of origin.

2. Focus on the implications of decisions about secrecy and disclosure to parents. Help the women explore how what may perceive as a personal decision about "coming out" to parents affects the couple. One particularly difficult situation is when the partners are at different stages of "coming out" to parents.

50

50

Often, the woman who is more "out" feels that her partner's decision not to disclose her relationship reflects a lack of commitment to the couple. The counselor should help each woman in the couple explore the meanings that she gives to decisions about disclosure to parents and encourage the partners to acknowledge and respect the individual differences in family history that may result in different timetables for the "coming out" process. The counselor should help the partners affirm their commitment to each other whether or not they are "out" to parents.

3. Provide specific help and preparation to each member of the couple when one partner desires to "come out" to parents. Role-playing can be used to explore issues such as: Should one parent be told before the other? How is each parent likely to react? How might the daughter respond to their reactions? How to utilize the partner in the process and how will it affect each member of the couple relationship? Remind the clients that the parents' responses may change over time as they get used to the idea and suggest that providing parents with information about lesbianism might be helpful.

4. Help the couple grieve over the loss of "heterosexual privilege" in the family of origin. Lesbian couples frequently note the ways in which their parents respond differentially to heterosexual siblings. This is particularly apparent when, for example, a lesbian woman's sister marries. One or both of the partners may note with some sadness and resentment the things that they did not get from parents at the time of their coupling: a shower, a wedding, and most important, what these represent-parental recognition and celebration of the relationship. Although the lesbian partners may "accept" this and frequently reject the notion of showers, weddings, and so forth, they often need permission to grieve over the loss of overt signs of parental support.

5. Encourage the couple to challenge the ways the couple tolerate or perpetuate parental homophobia. Members of the lesbian couple will frequently present examples of how their parents display homophobic attitudes: not asking about the daughter's partner for 8 years, giving the coupled daughter a Jewish singles magazine, not thinking that it is important to tell a new spouse that the daughter is lesbian. Sometimes the lesbian women do not notice the parental homophobia and sometimes they recognize it but do not say anything, because their own internalized homophobia makes them feel ambivalent about their commitment and life-style. The counselor should encourage the couple to explore the ways that they have internalized society's negative view of lesbianism and how that may interfere with their ability to confront their parents' homophobic statements.

6. Help the couple to affirm their couple boundaries during interaction with their parents, whether or not the couple is "out." The counselor can suggest that the couple role-play some strategies that will enable the partners to feel connected in the face of parental denial, disapproval, and invasion of couple boundaries. The couple can discuss how to give each other secret signals, whether or not to wear rings, or, more overtly, whether or not to invite the parents over to share anniversaries. The counselor can help the members of the couple rehearse what to say when parents omit the partner from "family pictures" even though the couple is "out."

7. Recognize the need of lesbian couples to build and validate their friendship networks. Although their parents and biological families may often remain a primary source of support, many lesbian couples feel the need for obtaining additional

JOURNAL OF COUNSELING & DEVELOPMENT SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1989 VOL. 68

support from others who know and accept their lesbianism. For some lesbian couples, their intimate friends may be considered family. The counselor should always ask each member of the lesbian couple whether or not she considers her partner as family and, when appropriate, place her on the genogram. In addition, it is important to ask if there are any others who the couple considers family. The counselor should also be aware of the variety of support systems for lesbian couples that are available in the community. These may include activist organizations, lesbian couple support groups, gay professional women's groups, newspapers, and so forth.

8. Constantly guard against homophobia. Just as lesbian couples and their parents are susceptible to homophobia, so too is the counselor. Therefore, the counselor working with lesbian couples must commit himself or herself to scrupulously reviewing the course of the therapy and checking for overt or covert signs of homophobia. Supervision with other lesbian-affirmative counselors, which attends specifically to the effects of homophobia on the couple, is essential.

In conclusion, the counselor working with lesbian couples must attend to issues specific to their lesbian orientation. She or he must address: (a) identity management, including the effects of secrecy and "coming out"; (b) homophobia, in the larger culture, within the lesbian women themselves, and in the counseling relationship; and (c) the resultant loss of status, privilege, and expectations that comes with having a lesbian orientation in a homophobic culture. And, just as the counselor working with a heterosexual married couple should attend to the impact of larger family systems, including in-laws, on the couple, so should the counselor working with lesbian couples address the ongoing effects of parental attitudes and interactions on the lesbian couple.

REFERENCES

Aldous, J. (1967). Intergenerational visiting patterns: Variations in boundary maintenance. Family Process, 6, 235-251.

Bell, A.P., & Weinberg, M.S. (1978). Homosexualities: A study of diversity among men and women. New York: Simon & Schuster. Blood, R.O. (1969). Kinship interaction and marital solidarity. Merrill Palmer Quarterly, 15, 171-184.

Blumstein, P., & Schwartz, P. (1983). American couples. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Boszormeyni-Nagy, I., & Spark, G.M. (1973). Invisible loyalties: Reciprocity in intergenerational family therapy. New York: Harper &

Row.

Cass, V.C. (1979). Homosexual identity formation: A theoretical model. Journal of Homosexuality, 4, 219-235.

Lesbian Couples and Their Parents

Chafetz, J., Sampson, P., Beck, P., & West, J. (1974). A study of homosexual women. Social Work, 19(6), 714-723. Coleman, E. (1981/82). Developmental stages of the coming out process. Journal of Homosexuality, 7(2/3), 31-43.

Cramer, D.W., & Roach, A.J. (1988). Coming out to Mom and Dad: A study of gay males and their relationships with their parents. Journal of Homosexuality, 15(3/4), 79-91.

Dank, B. (1971). Coming out in the gay world. Psychiatry, 34(2), 180–

197.

Festinger, L. (1957). The theory of cognitive dissonance. New York: Stanford University Press.

Gonsiorek, J. (1982). An introduction to mental health issues and homosexuality. American Behavioral Scientist, 25(4), 367-384. Haley, J. (1973). Uncommon therapy: The psychiatric techniques of Milton H. Erickson, M.D. New York: Norton.

Hencken, J., & O'Dowd, W.T. (1977). Coming out as an aspect of identity formation. Gay Academic Union Journal: Gai Saber, 1, 18-22. Jay, K., & Young, A. (1979). The gay report. New York: Summit Books. McGoldrick, M. (1980). The joining of families through marriage: The new couples. In E. Carter & M. McGoldrick (Eds.), The family life cycle (pp. 93-119). New York: Gardner.

Mendola, M. (1980). The Mendola report: A new look at gay couples. New York: Crown.

Moses, A. E. (1978). Identity management in lesbian women. New York: Praeger.

Murphy, B.C. (1982). Intergenerational contact and the impact of parental attitudes on lesbian and married couples: A comparative study. Dissertation Abstracts International, 43, 4156B. (University Microfilms No. 83-09732)

Nemeyer, L. (1980). Coming out: Identity congruence and the attainment of adult female sexuality. Dissertation Abstracts International, 36, 6394B. (University Microfilms No. 80-24138)

Ponse, B. (1978). Identities in the lesbian world. Westport, CT: Greenwood. Roth, S. (1985). Psychotherapy with lesbian couples: Individual issues, female socialization, and the social context. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 11(3), 273-286.

Roth, S., & Murphy, B.C. (1986). Therapeutic work with lesbian clients: A systematic therapy view. In M. Ault-Riche (Ed.), Women and family therapy (pp. 78-89). Rockville, MD: Aspen.

Ryder, R.G., Kafka, J.S, & Olson, D.H. (1971). Separating and joining influences in courtship and early marriage. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 41(3), 450-464.

Sophie, J. (1988). Internalized homophobia and lesbian identity. In E. Coleman (Ed.), Integrated identity for gay men and lesbians (pp. 53-65). New York: Harrington Park Press.

Tanner, D.M. (1978). The lesbian couple. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.

Bianca Cody Murphy is an assistant professor of psychology at Wheaton College, Norton, Massachusetts. The author thanks Joseph H. Pleck and Susan Clark of Wheaton College and Priscilla Ellis and Sarah Greenberg of Newton Psychotherapy Associates for their helpful comments on this article. Correspondence regarding this article should be sent to Bianca Cody Murphy, Dept. of Psychology, Wheaton College, Norton, MA 02766.

JOURNAL OF COUNSELING & DEVELOPMENT SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1989 VOL. 68

51