Minority Stress Counseling for LGBTQ+ Individuals

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer+ (LGBTQ+) individuals experience a breadth of mental health disparities. Reducing these disparities is an area of key psychological research. Minority stress is theorized to be an underlying source of the disparities (Meyer, 2003). Minority stress can be conceptualized as the internalized stigma that results from experiences of social marginalization. By reducing minority stress, it is hypothesized that generalized mental illness indicators might be reduced and indicators of wellbeing increased.