Sexual Identity and Faith: Helping Clients Find Congruence

Spirituality and Mental Health, Book 7

By: Mark A. Yarhouse

Narrated by: Jarret Lemaster

Christians who struggle with a conflict between their sexual and religious identities have few therapeutic options available to them. "Sexual Orientation Change Efforts" (SOCE) have rightly fallen out of favor and are no longer practiced by most clinicians. At the same time, the common approach of gay affirmative therapy (GAT) can at times present challenges and may not be a good fit when clients hold to conventional religious beliefs and values.

An alternative to these methods is Sexual Identity Therapy (SIT) - an approach that aims to provide individuals with a safe therapeutic space to explore the tension between their sexuality and their faith. Working within the SIT framework, clients are able to resolve their inner conflict to their personal satisfaction and to freely choose a coherent identity that enables them to move forward in life.

SIT has several stages, each designed to enable the client to make meaning out of his or her same-sex sexuality. At no point in the process is the client encouraged to choose one sexual identity over another. The ultimate goal of SIT is congruence. Congruence is achieved when a person freely adopts an identity and lives it out in ways that are in keeping with his or her beliefs and values. The SIT model is brought to life throughout the sauidobook with the help of case studies drawn from the author’s 20 years of experience.

The book is published by The Kent State University Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

©2019 Mark A. Yarhouse (P)2020 Redwood Audiobooks

Critic reviews

“This book should be a training resource for all professional caregivers who want to be culturally competent...” (Stephen P. Stratton, Asbury Theological Seminary)

“A very important resource.” (Lee Beckstead, PhD, counseling psychologist)

“This volume is a welcome and impressive contribution.” (Stanton L. Jones, PhD, professor of psychology, Wheaton College)

No Workbook

This book has thought-provoking content. It caused me to rethink a lot of my views of myself. It lacks a workbook however. And without doing the work in the questions that are asked throughout the book, I’m not really doing the work. I suspect those questions are easy to find in the written book but not so much here in the Audible copy. I’ve written the publisher to try to get more information.