Psychologists' Attitudes and Clinical Evaluations for LGB Clients.

Empirical evidence suggests that client gender, client sexual orientation, counselor gender, and counselor sexual orientation are factors that influence counselors attitudes and treatment practices with lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) clients. However, it is unclear how these factors may interact to affect attitudes and treatment practices. Moreover, no recent studies have examined attitudes and treatment practices among licensed psychologists, who may engage in both clinical and training responsibilities (thereby affecting both clients and trainees). This study compared licensed psychologists attitudes and clinical evaluations for clients of differing sexual orientations. After reading a vignette describing a lesbian female, gay male, bisexual female, bisexual male, heterosexual female, or heterosexual male client, 303 licensed psychologists completed a Semantic Differential, a Self-Attribution Scale, the Global Assessment of Functioning, a Treatment Process and Outcomes Expectations Questionnaire, and a demographic questionnaire. Results indicated that female participants held more positive attitudes and expected greater improvement in clients problems than did male participants. A significant interaction effect was found for client sexual orientation and participant gender. Results of content analyses supplemented quantitative findings suggested that participants did not consider sexual orientation to be an appealing issue. (Contains 58 references.) (GCP)