Page et al. The Role of Religion and Stress in Sexual Identity and Mental Health among Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Youth.

LGB youth have particular stressors that their peers may not have to experience. This study looked at two specific challenges that LGB youth often experience: religious stress and gay-related stress. In terms of religious stress, many young LGB individuals withdraw from practicing or feel a conflict with the religion’s views due to their sexual minority status. In addition, gay-related stress could take the form of teasing, bullying, and negative family reactions, which sometimes lead to emotional difficulties and a negative self-identity. This study specifically looked at how LGB youth’s mental health is impacted by negative LGB identity related to these two stressors.

This article was very interesting to me, particularly because I honestly do not know that much about this topic, but I have wondered about the role and effects of religion in the lives of LGB individuals for some time. The points and highlights within the article seem very intuitive and obvious to me, but honestly the challenging part is figuring out how to “remedy” or help when this plays out in a real-life situation. The article recommended that the clinician could help an LGB youth client to find another, more supportive, religious organization to join if they were feeling negative self-identity or emotional distress from a previous one. However, to me, this seems far too simplistic. One has to consider the feasibility of that. Can the child drive or physically get there on his or her own?  Is the family open to accommodating by attending two separate religious services or by not having the child attend the original religious service with the rest of the family? In addition, for many families, religion and culture go hand in hand and separating these phenomena may not be so easy. Although I agree that a child should benefit from the protective or supportive atmosphere that often comes with a religious community, I am curious and eager to learn more about how to navigate that for LGB youth. It could be helpful for the child to talk about spiritual development and from where he or she draws their strength rather than focus on finding a new religious organization.

Also, recently in field placement, I observed a patient who was a parent whose daughter recently came out to her as a lesbian. In addition to some other concerns, this parent was dealing with a lot of mental health difficulties and emotional pain resulting from coping with her daughter’s sexual orientation. I know this was not touched on specifically in this article, but parents often really struggle when they learn their child is LGB, and they also sometimes feel a conflict with their religious or cultural beliefs. As the article stated, a parent or family member’s negative reactions often then come back to influence how the child is feeling. Therefore, for some LGB youth, it may be helpful to work with the parent as well to tease apart what they are feeling, not only for their well-being but also for the child’s. After observing that patient and reading this article, I am really starting to see the overlap and the importance of working with both children and families, especially related to this particular topic.