Buhrke

multicultural issues for lesbian women and gay men include the following:

Allen, P.G. (1984). Beloved women: The lesbian in American Indian culture. In T. Darty & S. Potter (Eds.), Women-identified women (pp. 83-96). Palo Alto, CA: Mayfield.

Beam, J. (1986). In the life: A Black gay anthology. Boston: Alyson. Beck, E.T. (1984). Nice Jewish girls: A lesbian anthology. Freedom, CA: Crossing.

Dowell, C. (1983). White on Black on White. Woodstock, VT: Countryman Press.

Espin, O.M. (1987). Issues of identity in the psychology of Latina lesbians. In Boston Lesbian Psychologies Collective (Eds.), Lesbian psychologies: Explorations and challenges (pp. 35-51). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois.

Greene, B.A. (1986). When the therapist is White and the patient is Black: Considerations for psychotherapy in the feminist heterosexual and lesbian communities. Women and Therapy, 5, 41-65. Hidalgo, H. (1984). The Puerto Rican lesbian in the United States. In T. Darty & S. Potter (Eds.), Women-identified women (pp. 105-115). Palo Alto, CA: Mayfield.

Ramos, J. (Ed.). (1987). Companeras: Latina lesbians: An anthology. New York: Latina Lesbian History Project.

Smith, B. (1983). Home girls: A Black feminist anthology. New York: Kitchen Table.

Smith, M.J. (1983). Black men/White men. San Francisco: Gay Sunshine Press.

ASSESSMENT IN COUNSELING

As Norton (1982) suggested, counselor educators can and should discuss heterosexist bias in tests and how lesbian women and gay men may have difficulty responding to items referring to significant others as members of the opposite sex. Furthermore, educators should point out that biases can result in lesbian women and gay men receiving lower evaluations for the same level of performance as heterosexuals (Casas, Brady, & Ponterotto, 1983; Garfinkle & Morin, 1978; Lipinski, 1978). Educators should lead discussions as to how to minimize such bias in standardized testing and clinical interviews and their results. One resource specific to this area follows:

Gonsiorek, J.C. (1982). Results of psychological testing on homosexual populations. In W. Paul, J.D. Weinrich, J.C. Gonsiorek, & M.E. Hotvedt (Eds.), Homosexuality: Social, psychological, and biological issues (pp. 71-80). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

CONCLUDING COMMENTS

This list of resources is not meant to be exhaustive. There are many other useful, interesting, and important works not listed

80

here. Nor do I mean to suggest that all of the above sources be used in a counselor training program. The array of sources is presented so that counselor educators can select those that best fit within individual courses and overall programs. Having resources available represents an important first step in the training of counselors to deal with the roughly 10% of the population that is lesbian or gay. It is important that our students be well equipped to deal with their caseloads. As educators, the responsibility for training them rests upon our shoulders.

REFERENCES

American Association for Counseling and Development. (1981). Ethical standards (rev. ed.). Washington, DC: Author. (originally published by the American Personnel and Guidance Association). Buhrke, R.A. (in press). Female student perspectives on training in lesbian and gay issues. The Counseling Psychologist.

Casas, J.M., Brady, S., & Ponterotto, J.G. (1983). Sexual preference biases in counseling: An information processing approach. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 30, 139–145.

Crain, W.C. (1985). Theories of development: Concepts and applications (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Garfinkle, E., & Morin, S.F. (1978). Psychologists' attitudes toward homosexual psychotherapy clients. Journal of Social Issues, 34, 101-

112.

Graham, D.L., Rawlings, E.I., Halpern, H.S., & Hermes, J. (1984). Therapists' needs for training in counseling lesbians and gay men. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 15, 482-496. Harren, V.A. (1979). A model career decision making for college students. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 14, 119-133. Levinson, D. (1978). The seasons of a man's life. New York: Knopf. Lipinski, M.E. (1979). The effects of client gender, client sexual preference and therapist gender on client prognosis (Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 1978). Dissertation Abstracts International, 40, 4825A.

Morin, S.F. (1977). Heterosexual bias in psychological research on lesbianism and male homosexuality. American Psychologist, 32, 629– 637.

Norton, J. (1982). Integrating gay issues into counselor education. Counselor Education and Supervision, 21, 208-212.

O'Connor, M.F. (1987, August). Clinical psychology graduate training and the gay minority. Paper presented at the meeting of the American Psychological Association, New York.

Thompson, G.H., & Fishburn, W.R. (1977). Attitudes toward homosexuality among graduate counseling students. Counselor Education and Supervision, 17, 121-130.

Robin A. Buhrke is an associate professor of counseling psychology, Department of Educational and Psychological Studies, University of Miami, Coral Gables. Correspondence regarding this article should be sent to Robin A. Buhrke, Dept. of Educational and Psychologica! Studies, University of Miami, P.O. Box 248065, Coral Gables, FL 33124.

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

Effects of a Workshop on Mental Health Practitioners' Attitudes

Toward Homosexuality and Counseling Effectiveness

JAMES RUDOLPH

The effects of a training workshop on mental health practitioners' attitudes toward homosexuality and counseling behavior were compared with the effects of no intervention. Treated subjects (n=21) were enrolled in a 3-day multimodal workshop about gay/lesbian counseling, and no-treatment comparison subjects (n=31) were enrolled in other counselor education coursework. Before and after the workshop, subjects completed homosexuality attitude questionnaires and a quasibehavioral gay/lesbian counseling effectiveness measure. Treated subjects improved significantly more than comparison subjects on all measures, and the gains remained in evidence at an 8-week follow-up. The multimodal training workshop thus appears encouraging as a possible means of instilling needed attitudes and skills in counselors of gay and lesbian clients.

here is a long history of condemnation of homosexuality in Western society (Bullough, 1979; Churchill, 1967; Ford

Tin

have witnessed a growing antihomosexual climate in this country, following a period of relative tolerance in the early 1970s (Clark, 1985; Gallup, 1977; Hirsch & Enlow, 1984; National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, 1988; Rudolph, 1989). For example, three-fourths of the adults in the United States believe homosexual relations between consenting adults to be always wrong (National Opinion Research Center, 1985). Such profound lack of acceptance is related to a variety of problems for gay men and lesbian women, for example, poor self-esteem, inadequate legal protection, depression, violent assault, alcohol and other drug dependency (Bell & Weinberg, 1978; Fifield, Latham, & Phillips, 1977; Moses & Hawkins, 1982; Nurius, 1983).

Given such problems, it is not surprising that proportionately 2 to 4 times as many gay men and lesbian women as heterosexuals seek counseling, and a significantly larger percentage of gay men and lesbian women report dissatisfaction with their treatment compared with heterosexuals (Bell & Weinberg, 1978; Jay & Young, 1979; Saghir, Robins, Walbran, & Gentry, 1970a, 1970b). Survey and anecdotal literature reveal that the source of dissatisfaction often is counselors' ignorance of or prejudice toward homosexuality (Adair & Adair, 1978; Fisher, 1972; Kameny, 1972; Saghir & Robins, 1973; Schwartz & Harstein, 1986). A large percentage of counselors perceive homosexuality as pathological and less desirable than heterosexuality, although many display some willingness to

accept homosexuality in other people (Rudolph, 1988a). Clearly, it would be desirable to alter prejudicial homosexual attitudes and behaviors in counselors.

Providing information about stigmatized groups and giving exposure to them have been shown to generally positively modify attitudes toward the stigmatized (Anthony, 1972; Schneider & Anderson, 1980). This finding has held generally true for information about homosexuality and exposure to gay men and lesbian women (Anderson, 1981; MacLaury, 1984; Pagtolun-An & Clair, 1986), although not absolutely (Herek, 1984; Martin, 1983). Multimodal presentations on human sexuality, using didactic and experiential techniques, have resulted in gains in knowledge about and shifts to more positive attitudes toward sexuality, including homosexuality (Kilman, Wanlass, Sabalis, & Sullivan, 1981; Voss, 1980). The less informed one is about homosexuality, the more likely one will hold negative attitudes toward it (Clark, 1979).

In recent years more than a dozen investigations have explored attempts to positively modify counselors' and others' (nurses, clergy) attitudes toward homosexuality by various educational and exposure treatments. The results were often complex and checkered. For example, in individual studies some, but not all, measures would show positive attitude change (Hyman, 1980; McCann-Winter, 1983; Morin, 1974). Some, but not all, treated groups would show positive attitude change (Goldberg, 1981; Martin, 1983; Rosen, 1976). And some, but not all, testings would show positive attitude change (Goldberg, 1981; Hyman, 1980). Of those studies reporting unqualified positive attitude change, many, although not all, were the more simplistic in research design of all the investigations, for example, lacking a control group, follow-up posttesting, or behavioral measure (Anderson, 1981; Cerny & Polyson, 1984; Dearth & Cassell, 1976; Greenberg, 1975; MacLaury, 1984; Pagtolun-An & Clair, 1986; Rudolph, 1986; Serdahely & Ziemba, 1984).

These collective results are inconclusive not only because they are inconsistent but also because each study suffered from one or more of the following serious methodological omissions: (a) lack of control or comparison groups against which to judge therapeutic changes, (b) lack of behavioral or quasibehavioral measures of counseling responses to gay/lesbian clients, and (c) lack of an adequate treatment program, including insufficient

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

81