Adolescence is a developmental stage fraught with uncertainty, confusion, conflict, and growth. LGBT youth are unique in that face common challenges that are pervasive in most youth cultures, along with the difficulties encountered by the LGBT minority population. As a young person, common challenges such as grades in school, conflicts with friends and/or family, and struggling with romantic issues can become extremely difficult to manage when coupled with discovering and coming to terms with one’s identity. (LGBT, 2015) When engaging in a working relationship with young LGBT clients, the worker must tune in and understand the ways in which being considered a part of a sexual minority affects what some would consider the “normal” struggles of adolescence. A common therapeutic approach for working with teenagers is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), but the question is if CBT will be a helpful tool as is, or if it needs to be altered in order to best fit the needs of young LGBT clients.
Craig, Austin, and Alessi (2013) suggest that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (or CBT) can be applied to the unique
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She notes that CBT has historically “relied on expert control, focused on problems rather than strengths, and lacked relevance for at-risk groups” (as cited in Craig et al., 2013). In order to combat these issues to create the best helping environment possible, the worker must be capable of understanding the drawbacks, acknowledging them, and making sure to treat the client in an affirming and empathetic way. The focus should be on best helping the client. Some specific things that the worker can do are including the client more in the process of identifying problematic behaviors, take some time to acknowledge positive coping skills or behaviors, and tuning in to possible ways to make CBT more relevant for a minority or at-risk