| n 1974, the American Psychiatric Association voted to remove homosexuality from the DSM II (APA, 1987). The following year, the American Psychological Association passed a resolution supporting the American Psychiatric Association's actions, condemning homosexuality-based discrimination and supporting civil rights for homosexuals (Conger, 1975). Until this point, homosexuality had been pathologized and heterosexism was manifest in the research as demonstrated by the thematic content of articles published between 1967 and 1974 (Morin, 1977).;Since this review, the state of the field within various disciplines of professional psychology, as well as within the subfield of counseling psychology, has been revisited several times over the last four decades. Content analyses (Buhrke, Ben-Ezra, Hurley, & Ruprecht, 1992; Morin, 1977; Phillips, Ingram, Smith, & Mindes, 2003; Watters, 1986) have documented content and methodological trends in the psychological literature on sexuality. These articles have built upon one another to revisit prior themes, introduce new ones and provide recommendations for the field as a whole, as well as for future content analyses. Other authors have expanded this tradition to focus on specific topics (e.g. race/ethnicity; Huang et al., 2010) and on specific sub-fields (e.g. counseling psychology; Buhrke et al., 1992; Philips et al, 2003).;Though there has been a shift in the content of literature on sexuality, there remains a dearth of research on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transsexual counseling issues in general and, even more so, on specific sub-topics (i.e. age and cohort differences, ability/disability and transgender/transsexuality issues). Similarly, there is a need for continued examination of the methodological rigor and theoretical approaches used to examine these topics. To further explore needs and progress, this study expands upon prior analyses of the literature in counseling psychology (Buhrke et al., 1992; Philips et al., 2003). Specifically, using a team of independent raters who analyzed articles from leading counseling journals from 2000-2009, this study (1) investigates content and methodological trends by comparing and contrasting findings from this and prior studies, (2) examines gaps in the counseling literature on sexuality (e.g. disability, age and cohort differences and transsexuality/transgender issues) and (3) makes recommendations for future research. |
