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Transgender Youth Focus Group Therapy Essay

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Transgender Youth Focus Group Therapy Essay
Abstract
This is a literature review that creates a hypothetical group therapy plan to addresses the challenges that transgender youth ages 13-19 face in daily life. It specifically targets psychological distress, shame, suicidal behavior and lack of support systems as common problems faced by this population as well as possible causes of these challenges. This paper postulates a therapy group aimed at transgender youth with a therapy plan centered around different cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) approaches that target shame, suicide, psychological distress, and family intervention in the discussed population. Keywords: Transgender youth, cognitive behavioral therapy, shame, psychological distress, suicidal behavior, support systems

Transgender Youth Focus Group
“Transgender” is the term used to describe someone whose gender identity (i.e., how one internally defines their gender) does not match their biological sex (Perez-Brumer, …show more content…
One cause for the higher rates of distress is the minority stress theory, which attributes the transgender distress to a lack of social support, poor socio-economic conditions, hypervigilance, and/or discrimination (Meyer, 2003). This minority stress tends to surface when an individual feels a lack of connection to the dominant culture (Craig et al., 2013). Budge et al. (2012) confirms this theory and reveals that the lack of social support received by transgender youth contributes to the high rates of depression. These youth may experience a withdrawal of familial or social support upon coming out. Giammatei (2015) identifies how this decrease in social support can manifest itself within different social contexts and how the role of harassment at school or home contributes to the higher rates of depression in transgender youth. Craig et al. (2013) further verifies the role of discrimination and bullying in causing psychological distress such as minority
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