Sexual and Gender Minority (SGM) youth find themselves growing up in a time when their civil rights seem to be rapidly shrinking in many states. Thousands of bills have been filed in US state legislatures in the past several years attempting to starkly limit transgender and non-binary civil rights, public life, and access to affirming care. Challenges to school and university curricula and to materials in public and school libraries have disproportionately targeted LGBTQ-friendly material, as well as discussions of racism and racial justice. Social media has prominently featured rhetorical attacks on SGM people, including youth and their affirming parents, as well as threats and actual violence toward individuals and communities.
SGM youth of all ages are profoundly impacted by this political climate. Calls to youth crisis hotlines reliably increase in the aftermath of highly visible SGM-antagonistic events. As with any family stressor, parents’ anxiety, grief, and conflict over current events are often reflected by children via regression, mood and anxiety symptoms, acting out, self-harming, and other problem behaviors. Therapists working with this population should be prepared to address questions and fears that come up for young clients and their families in ways that are clinically, developmentally, and culturally appropriate. This workshop, led by Dr. Whit Ryan of Connecticut Children’s Hospital and Margin to Center Therapy, will help clinicians assess and intervene appropriately in order to help support better mental health and family functioning.
Learning Objectives:
After this presentation, attendees will be able to:
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Identify common anxieties and concerns that sexual and gender minority (SGM) youth may experience in the current political climate, and how they may be directly or indirectly (symptomatically) expressed.
- Apply social, cognitive, cultural, and identity development frameworks to aid in selecting appropriate clinical strategies for clients who present with distress about SGM-antagonistic policies and community or media discourse.
- Describe a variety of interventions that may be useful with clients of different ages and stages who present with similar concerns, including family systems, psychoeducation, mindfulness, cognitive-behavioral, and humanistic-experiential.
2 CEUs available, offered by AAMFT.
Other Information: If you are unable to participate on this date, please do not register. The webinar will be recorded and available for later purchase on Teneo.
Presenter Information
Dr. Whit Ryan is a licensed clinical psychologist based in central Connecticut. His specialty areas include multiculturally-focused psychology, therapy with LGBTQIA+ individuals and communities, sport and performance psychology, consultation, and anti-racism training for white people. His practice is rooted in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and he works from a compassionate, person-centered, feminist, pro-queer, pro-trans, approach.
Dr. Ryan earned his PsyD in Clinical Psychology and an MA Sport and Performance Psychology from the University of Denver's Graduate School of Professional Psychology. He interned at the Center for Multicultural Training in Psychology at Boston Medical Center and the University of Boston, and his post-doctoral fellowship was at Hartford HealthCare's Center for Gender Health.
He is currently on staff at Connecticut Children’s Hospital and sees clients in private practice as part of Margin to Center Therapy. He is also part-time faculty at UCONN, and a Certified Mental Performance Consultant (CMPC) with the Association for Applied Sport Psychology. In his spare time, he is a field hockey umpire and coach, and enjoys spending time cuddling his husband and their three-legged cane Corso, Renzo, who thinks he is a lap dog.