Experiences with sexual orientation microaggression in mental health services in Israel

Abstract

AbstractIntroduction Little is known about the experiences of LGBTQ+ identifying professionals working in mental health services.Method This study analyzed 14 in-depth interviews conducted with LGB identifying professionals working in mental health services in Israel.Results Analysis of the interviews identified six unique forms of sexual orientation microaggressions: (1) Pathologizing LGBTQ+ identities; (2) Messages of concealment; (3) Lack of recognition; (4) Organizational positioning as experts of “gayness”; (5) Heteronormative compliments; and (6) Invasiveness.Conclusion We argue that actions should be taken by mental health services to reduce the unique sexual orientation microaggressions identified in this study.Keywords: Microaggressionmental health servicesself-disclosure Ethics statementThis study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Department of Social Work at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev.Disclosure statementThe authors declare that they have no competing interests.Data availability statementDue to the nature of this research, participants of this study did not agree for their data to be shared publicly, so supporting data is not available.Table 1. Details of research participants.Download CSVDisplay TableAdditional informationFundingThe author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.