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Researchers have yet to account for the potentially unique experiences of emerging adults who are in or seeking to be in a relationship with a same-sex romantic partner. This article articulates an agenda for research focused on better understanding and addressing the health and well-being of emerging adults in or pursuing same-sex romantic relationships. We provide a general summary of what is known about health and well-being in same-sex relationships, followed by an overview of the current and changing social climate surrounding same-sex relationships. We point out how recent historical changes present sexual minority emerging adults with unique relational benefits and challenges that have not been examined within the social and health sciences. We conclude by proposing a set of research questions to help develop knowledge needed to improve the health and well-being of emerging adults in or pursuing same-sex relationships.

Theories underlying psychotherapeutic interventions are subject to empirical and ideological scrutiny. This article reviews, integrates, and synthesizes core ideological critiques of Beck’s cognitive therapy, recognized as the progenitor of most cognitive-behavioral therapies. The context of this review and its philosophical implications are discussed in an introduction on psychology and postmodernism. The critical psychology perspective and its implications for cognitive therapy are reviewed. It is argued that the theory of psychopathology and behavior change underlying cognitive therapy is incompatible with a postmodern perspective on the human condition, evidenced by cognitive therapy’s reliance on modernist philosophical assumptions of rationality, reality, cognition, and ontology, as well as its social conservatism and inconsistence with the constructivism that defines cognitive science. This article also summarizes limitations of postmodern theory, offers suggestions for innovations in cognitive therapy, and discusses implications for psychotherapy research.