LGBTQ+ Client Experiences and Opinions on Therapist Cultural Humility

LGBTQ+ people (i.e., individuals from gender or sexual minorities) are at a heightened risk for mental health issues and often face barriers in receiving quality mental healthcare. The use of cultural humility practices by therapists has been correlated with improved therapeutic relationships and therapy outcomes. Practicing cultural humility involves engaging in critical self-evaluation, lifelong learning, and having an other-oriented stance. The present study examined 54 LGBTQ+ people’s perceptions of their therapists’ cultural humility and their positive and negative identity-related experiences in therapy. We conducted an online survey of LGBTQ+-identifying individuals who were ages 18 or older and currently attend or have attended individual therapy. Participants filled out an adapted version of the Cultural Humility Scale (Hook et al., 2013) for therapist and self-evaluation and several open-ended questions about their experiences in therapy. The mean cultural humility score was 4.07 (SD = .52) and the mean importance score was 4.60 (SD = .52). The importance of therapist cultural humility to participants and their identity salience were not correlated with their perceptions of their therapists’ cultural humility. Additionally, we found that participants’ positive and negative experiences in therapy were associated with the presence or absence of therapist cultural humility factors. Common themes across participant experiences included the presence or absence of their therapists acknowledging and affirming their identities and expressing understanding of their experiences. Future research should consider the importance of therapist cultural humility to clients and perform further analyses examining associations between experiences in therapy and cultural humility practices for people of all cultural backgrounds.