HEALING FROM HETEROSEXISM: AN EMPIRICALLY BASED EXERCISE FOR PROCESSING HETEROSEXIST EXPERIENCES

This chapter focuses on an activity which entails an expressive writing exercise intended to help clients process experiences of heterosexism that they have had. Objectives of the exercise include permitting clients to focus on these experiences in order to more fully process their effects or regulate emotions connected to them; to develop insights about themselves, interpersonal dynamics, or societal systems that contributed to heterosexist events; and to develop strategies for coping with these events, relationships, or systems. Heterosexism refers to the pervasive attitude in Western culture concerning the superiority of heterosexual orientations, relationships, and behaviors, and the resulting systemic oppression of all nonheterosexual identities. Heterosexism is perpetuated through both individual factors, such as attitudes and behaviors, and systemic factors, such as policies and actions that discriminate against nonheterosexuals. Heterosexism is transmitted not only through overt acts of discrimination, such as acts of violence or the lack of equal civil rights.