Date: Sun, 21 May 1995 12:29:16 -0500 (CDT) From: Judith Kaufman Subject: glb therapist survey _____________________________________________________________________ I sent a survey out to various GLB listservs on the internet in April, 1994 on GLB attitudes towards counseling/psychotherapy. Two hundred and ninety-nine of you responded within 24 hours. Preliminary analyses of the e-mail data and snail mail data based on glb populations in Oklahoma and Colorado are included below. We should have a paper ready for submission sometime this fall. Thank you to all who responded. Judith S. Kaufman Dept. of Applied Behavioral Studies in Education Oklahoma State University kaufman@osuunx.ucc.okstate.edu. Preliminary Data Summary from: An Investigation of the Attitudes of Gays, Lesbians, & Bisexuals Towards Counseling/Psychotherapy Judith S. Kaufman, Al Carlozzi, Donald L. Boswell, Kathy Wheeler-Scruggs Oklahoma State University Patricia Levy University of Southern Colorado Sample Data for this study were collected by two different methods; E-mail and snail mail. Specifically, data were collected from 299 respondents subscribing to 17 listserves on the Internet. Additionally, 316 responses were collected by distribution through various organizations serving the gay, lesbian, and bisexual communities in Oklahoma and Colorado. Comparisons between the two samples indicate that E- mail respondents were slightly more open with regard to sexual orientation (4.4 on a 5 point scale) than the more traditional sample (3.7 on a 5 point scale); were slightly more educated; and made slightly more money. The mean age of the E-mail sample was 33.5 and the mean age of the traditional sample (snail mail) was 36.8. Additional comparisons are in table 1. For this study, the samples were combined to increase the variance. TABLE 1: DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS SNAIL MAIL E-Mail All Ss SEXUAL ORIENTATION Gay 149 135 284 Lesbian 120 120 240 Bisexual 41 38 79 Other 5 3 8 SEX Female 147 146 293 Male 162 149 311 RELATIONSHIP STATUS Partnered (SS) 152 151 303 Partnered (OS) 9 17 26 Not Partnered 108 84 192 Never Partnered 21 23 44 Separated 2 2 4 Widowed 8 1 9 ETHNICITY Anglo/white 282 265 547 Asian-American 3 5 8 African-American 5 6 11 Hispanic 6 5 11 Native American 26 11 37 Other 11 26 37 RELIGION Agnostic 44 54 99 Atheist 12 29 41 Buddhist 4 8 12 Catholic 15 23 38 Hindu 2 5 7 Jewish 5 19 24 Mormon 2 3 5 Muslim 0 0 0 Protestant 111 36 147 Other 112 89 201 EDUCATIONAL LEVEL 75,001 19 42 61 Research Questions and Results Question 1 What is the relationship between level of openness as measured by the combination of z scores of item 2 (How open are you about your sexual orientation?), and items 3 (# of glb political or support meetings attended per year), 4 (# of glb mailing lists), and 5 (# of glb marches attended in past 3 years) and the importance of the therapist's sexual orientation? Results No significant relationships were found between level of openness and the importance of the therapist's sexual orientation. Additionally, no significant relationships were found between level of openness and the importance of the therapist's sexual orientation in dealing with sexual problems, couple/relationship problems, family problems, problems related to self (e.g. depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, etc.), or work problems. The lack of significant relationships is likely due to little variance in the openness scores. Question 2 Is there a relationship between sexual orientation and preference for gay, lesbian, bisexual or heterosexual therapists? Results We neglected to include gender as a variable in the therapist preference item. Many subjects (approx. 200) left this item blank, wrote in a gender preference, or marked more than one answer. Therefore, results are questionable. Results are presented in table 2. TABLE 2: PERCENTAGES OF GAYS LESBIANS AND BISEXUALS WHO PREFER THERAPISTS OF VARYING SEXUAL ORIENTATIONS Respondents n=194 n=171 n=52 Therapist Preference Gay Lesbian Bi Gay Male 49% 1% 4% Lesbian 5% 65% 15% Bisexual Female 1% 2% 35% Bisexual Male 1% 0% 10% Heterosexual Female 4% 4% 0% Heterosexual Male 0% 1% 2% Does Not Matter 40% 27% 36% Question 3 Are there differences between gays' lesbians' and bisexuals' ratings of importance of therapist sexual orientation for either general or specific problems? Results A MANOVA comparing gays' lesbians' and bisexuals' ratings for a combination of general and specific problems was conducted. A significant sex orientation effect was found, F, (12,1122) = 2.27, p < .008. Univariate tests on each of the six problems were conducted with follow-up Tukey's tests. Results are in table 3. Subject ratings range from 1 (not at all important) to 11 (extremely important). TABLE 3: MEAN SEXUAL ORIENTATION IMPORTANCE RATINGS Sexual Orientation All Problem Gay Lesbian Bisexual Ss Unspecified 6.39 6.62 5.81 6.41 Sex Problem 7.75 7.82 6.99 7.68 *Relationship Problem 7.25 *7.50 *6.41 7.24 Family Problem 5.76 6.26 5.54 5.93 *Self Problem *6.25 6.05 *5.06 6.02 *Work Problem 4.60 *5.00 *4.01 4.68 Note: * denotes significance at .05 level Question 4 Is there a relationship between sexual orientation and openness? Results When combining the four measures of openness, it was found that gay men were significantly more open than either lesbians or bisexuals. More specifically, gay men attended significantly more meetings and marches than did lesbians. The other single indicators approached significance but were not independently significant. Question 5 What is the relationship between openness and level of importance for variables other than the therapist's sexual orientation which may affect therapist choice? Results Significant inverse relationships were found between the total openness score (combined z scores) and the importance of the therapist's degree, license, and race. In addition, importance ratings of privacy, type of agency or setting, and referral by a family member or relative were inversely related to the total openness score. It should, however, be noted that although significant, these correlations were low, ranging from .09 to 16. Question 6 Are there differences between gay men's, lesbians', and bisexuals' ratings of the importance of variables such as degree earned, age, experience, etc. when choosing a therapist? Results Mean differences for the three groups were found for six of 22 variables. Mean ratings for each group are presented in table 4. The ratings ranged from 1 (not at all important) to 11 (extremely important). TABLE 4: MEAN IMPORTANCE RATINGS FOR VARIABLES WHICH MAY AFFECT THERAPIST CHOICES Gay Lesbian Bisexual Subjects Degree earned 8.17 7.81 7.76 7.97 Years of experience 7.43 7.95 7.82 7.68 *License and/or certification *8.75 *8.20 8.35 8.48 *Theoretical orientation *7.68 8.18 *8.71 8.01 Specialty area of practice 7.87 8.07 8.11 7.98 Age 4.64 4.96 5.34 4.85 *Sex *5.35 *8.78 *6.84 6.9 Race and/or ethnicity 3.31 3.21 3.29 3.27 Religion 4.61 4.92 5.17 4.81 Cost of services 8.12 8.20 8.72 8.23 Services covered by insurance 8.20 7.76 8.22 8.03 Location of office 6.29 5.98 6.71 6.22 *Privacy 9.06 9.56 8.92 9.24 Previous experience w/ the professional 6.05 5.67 5.42 5.82 Type of agency or setting 6.15 5.66 5.99 5.93 Referral by trusted friend 7.91 7.57 7.78 7.76 *Referral by family member/relative *4.85 *4.08 4.51 4.51 Referral by gay, lesbian, bisexual person *7.97 *7.20 7.46 7.60 Referral by member of the clergy *3.39 *2.61 2.57 2.97 Referral by former client of the therapist 7.08 6.65 6.71 6.86 *Referral by crisis line/referral service *5.00 *4.07 4.21 4.52 Advertisement in the yellow pages 2.45 2.20 2.31 2.33