Family Therapy with One Person

Family therapy principals can also be applied when only the gay son or lesbian daughter is available for treatment. Experts have demonstrated that it is possible to treat families successfully by meeting with only one of its members (Anonymous, 1972; Bowen, 1978; Carter & Orfanidis, 1976). This type of treatment is illustrated in the cases of Joe, whose family lived 100 miles away, and Rolando, whose father resided in South America. Therapy consisted of teaching Joe and Rolando about the grieving/adjustment process and coaching them to establish and maintain at least some contact with their disapproving parents.

Helping Joe understand his parents' need to grieve: Joe wanted his parents to accept his homosexuality. However, he recognized that debating and reasoning with them only resulted in family arguments, which then escalated into defensiveness and anger. In therapy, the clinician encouraged Joe to express his feelings of shock, disappointment, and anger. Even though his parents' reactions seemed dramatic, the therapist helped Joe frame his father's depression and mother's rejection as part of a temporary process. Like Cindy and most gay people, Joe had to find a way to reconcile his own orientation with societal disapproval. The clinician encouraged Joe to use the knowledge he had gained from this process to assist him in seeing his parents' responses from a less reactive, more objective perspective. Adopting this point of view enabled Joe to be more patient and willing to give his parents the time and space to adjust to this new information. Joe ceased trying to convince his parents to accept his homosexuality and as a result, destructive family arguments abated.

The therapist advised Joe not to call home for 2 weeks, giving him and his parents a break from their arguments over the telephone. During this time, Joe continued to talk to the clinician about his feelings regarding his parents' reactions. At the third week, the therapist suggested that Joe make a brief contact with his parents. The clinician recommended that he not initiate a discussion about his sexual orientation, and if his parents raised the issue, he was to tell them he understood that they needed time to get used to the news.

Helping Joe and his parents reconnect: After several brief, awkward contacts over a period of 4 weeks, Joe and his parents were able to maintain a polite but strained conversation over the telephone. His father had been referred for professional counseling by his parish priest and was no longer suicidal. His mother seemed less upset and angry. Joe told them he understood they needed time to adjust to the news. Sadly, he and his parents agreed that they would not spend that upcoming Christmas together. However, Joe's mother talked of seeing her son and his partner Tim at an upcoming 70th birthday party for his father.

Joe was puzzled by what appeared to be mixed messages from his parents but did not initially ask for clarification. In therapy, it became apparent that not discussing this confusing information could be the beginning of a growing rift between Joe and his parents. He was encouraged to recontact his mother to learn more about what she meant. When he did, his mother replied: "We love you and Tim. We may never approve of your relationship, but by then, we'll be more used to the idea."

Helping Rolando reconnect: During his second month of therapy, Rolando's sister called from South America to inform him that their father had suffered a serious heart attack. Rolando feared that he would never get the opportunity to reconcile with his father. This crisis, along with experiences in his new role as stepfather to his partner's daughter, led Rolando to wonder what had gone wrong between him and his father. He strongly wished to reestablish contact.

The therapist suspected that this might be a good time for the two to reconnect, and he advised Rolando to call his father in his hospital room. The clinician coached Rolando to limit his conversation to his concern for his father's illness. Rolando followed this advice and found that even though they had been estranged for over 5 years, his father seemed moved to hear from him. Soon after this contact, Rolando planned a visit to South America to see his father. In anticipation of this trip, he felt anxious. He remembered his father as an angry brute whose abuse wounded him physically and emotionally. However, the man on the phone sounded sick and frail. The therapist empathized with Rolando's anxiety and confusion. Rolando feared that his father would denounce his lifestyle, and he needed assistance on how to react in a way that protected himself but also maintained a connection. The therapist coached Rolando to share his feelings with his father if he felt attacked or to end their conversation and try again later when his father seemed more calm.

Three weeks later Rolando returned to report on the success of his reunion. Rolando was surprised to see how the frightening ogre had become a frail old man who was now able to show tenderness. The topic of his homosexuality was not broached directly. However, his father asked about his happiness and whether he was protecting himself from AIDS. Rolando interpreted these concerns as indirect acknowledgments of his sexual orientation. Rolando and his father were products of a Latin American, Catholic culture that prized heterosexual masculinity and stigmatized homosexual behavior. Rolando knew it was unrealistic to hope that he and his father would ever be able to talk openly about his sexual orientation; yet he believed that a good relationship was still possible.

Rolando periodically returned to South America, and his relationship with his father continued to improve. The clinician coached Rolando to maintain contact with his father and openly to express his desire to have a relationship with him. The therapist framed Rolando's father's statements as evidence that, despite societal and cultural disapproval, he still cared for him and wished to reestablish contact.

Like many clients, Rolando wondered whether confronting his father with his recollection of abuse would somehow improve his own mental health. After much discussion, Rolando and the therapist determined that while a cathartic confrontation might relieve his anger in the short term, such action might also make his father defensive and jeopardize the renewal of contact they both now wanted. A continuation of the estrangement would not advance Rolando's emotional development nor help him establish the father-son relationship they both sought. During individual sessions, the clinician helped Rolando mourn his unmet childhood need for nurturance from his father. Rolando realized that if he could establish a relationship with his father now, it might satisfy some of this need. As an adult, he could interact with his father but also set limits, withdrawing temporarily to protect himself if necessary.

Rolando's mood improved as did his relationship with his significant other. Mourning the lost opportunities for positive experiences with his father and learning ways to influence relationships through his own behavior freed him to try new ways of relating to his partner. He also began to take pride in providing his stepdaughter with the fathering he had never received.

Followup

Adjustment to the news that a son or daughter is gay can take 5 years or longer (Muller, 1987). Therapeutic interventions should be designed to assist families through the acute crisis that follows disclosure. In each of the cases described above, adaptation continued beyond termination. Joe's treatment lasted about 2 months. Rolando and Cindy's family remained in treatment several months longer. Posttermination followup indicated that family relationships were maintained and had improved from the time of disclosure. Ruth and Bob noticed that there was more openness and honesty in their relationship with their daughter. Joe stated that while his parents were once again including him and his partner in family events, they were still adjusting. At followup, Joe reported that they had objected to his plan to inform his extended family of his sexual orientation, and as a result he decided to put off doing so until his parents had more time to adjust. What was particularly interesting is that, since coming out, Joe felt more mature and less anxious for his parents' approval. Joe reported that an additional, unexpected but related outcome was how his relationship with his partner improved:

Me and Tim have gotten closer. I don't take things between us for granted. He's been supportive. Communication has gotten so much better. We're in this together. There's a calming effect. I feel we're a team. It's comforting.

This growing closeness suggests that Joe's coming out may have increased his level of differentiation and, as a result, he was freer to be more intimate with his partner.

In a posttreatment interview, Rolando reported that his relationship with his father had been improving. While they rarely spoke directly of his homosexuality, which Rolando found acceptable, he and his father had been regularly communicating by telephone and spending time together during his frequent visits to South America. Rolando, now aware of the systemic nature of relationship interactions, had also been applying what he had learned to strengthen his relationship with his partner.

CONCLUSION

For a variety of reasons, some parents may never be able to have relationships with their openly gay, adult children, and will sever all ties when their son or daughter comes out. However, therapeutic intervention can help many families avoid estrangement. In order to shepherd the family through this crisis, the clinician should address the distinct needs of the gay person and the parental subsystem. Meeting separately and helping parents and the gay son or lesbian daughter express and clarify feelings is a way to begin to diffuse the powerful emotions of this crisis. Once feelings are acknowledged, parents will be more receptive to the therapist's efforts to re-educate them about gay lifestyles, and lesbians and gay men will be better able to understand their parents' reactions. Both segments of the family should be coached to maintain some contact throughout the coming-out process, even if it is brief and superficial. Then gradually, parents and offspring can grow closer as parents begin to adjust to the news of their child's homosexuality.

These interventions are meant to help families through the initial stages of the coming-out crisis. In each of the case examples in this article, parents' adjustment to their offspring's homosexuality continued after treatment. A complete acceptance of a gay son or lesbian daughter's sexual orientation may be impossible for most parents. However, if parents and gay children continue to relate in nonreactive ways, which reflect an understanding of the reciprocity of family relationships and the emotional needs of each of its members, maximum adjustment as well as new levels of intimacy are possible.

Because shocked and disapproving parents can inflict great emotional pain on their offspring, therapists are urged to encourage their gay clients to rely on their partners during the coming-out period. The clinician advised Cindy to lean on her partner and friends for support while her parents struggled with the news that she was a lesbian. At the therapist's suggestion, both Joe and Rolando occasionally brought their partners to sessions in order to discuss how the men could support each other as they coped with Joe's and Rolando's parents' reactions. Parental disapproval has been found to be a potentially galvanizing force for gay relationships (LaSala, 2000; Murphy, 1989). Joe believed that the family crisis improved his relationship with his partner. Rolando also saw growth in his relationship with his partner as he reconnected with his father. Perhaps this occurred because Joe and Rolando relied on their partners for emotional support as they worked to resolve issues with their parents. It is also likely that Joe's coming out and Rolando's reconciliation with his father resulted in higher levels of differentiation for both men, which then led to increased intimacy with their partners.

The interventions described in this article may be applied to other kinds of family crises. For example, intercultural or interracial couples are likely to be confronted with hostility from their families of origin. The announcement that a son or daughter is involved in a relationship or is going to marry a someone from a different race, class, or religion may precipitate a family crisis similar to that which follows the coming out of a son or daughter. Helping family members to calm down by meeting with them separately, empathically listening to their concerns, and encouraging brief, nonreactive contacts may be useful in guiding a variety of families through many kinds of difficult periods.