¶ … Jack and Ennis, two-19-year-old were gay and involved in a mutually romantic relationship, although one is married with children whilst the other has an impetuous relationship with a woman. The relationship between the men is tempestuous and rocky with only fear of the local killing them due to their 'queer' identity' refraining them from living together. Jack, the more openly gay of the two, is indeed killed by a homophobic mob in 1980 for being "queer." The book is a celebration of two men and their love for each other, and their suffering and dying for this love. They represent the possible difficulties of working with gay and/or lesbian clients. Actually, Jack and Ennis also present therapists with the additional challenge of working with clients who have undergone trauma, but since this is the lesser challenge of the first and the two combined are beyond the scope of this essay, I will limit myself to discussing the legal, ethical, and other challenges that are involved with counseling the...

Most research studies indicate that counselors have a difficult time understanding and dealing with sexual minorities (Barret & Logan, 2001). The counselor in question has to make sure that he is above such subjectivity and that he will not attempt to 'reform' him to his ways of thinking.
Since most communities are bi-sexual, living in such communities may cause counselors to implicitly view individuals with different sexual orientations as 'abnormal'. To transcend this attitude, counselors working with the gay / lesbian population are recommended to absorb themselves in workshops, relevant literature, and the gay / lesbian culture so that they retain and intensify their empathy and understanding of this subgroup.…