The Cotherapist Relationship a Married Couple?

Abstract

This article addresses the pervasive influence of assumed norms of sexuality in the relationships between co-therapists and groups. It is suggested that there is an automatic tendency for groups to place co-therapists into a normal, heterosexual, married relationship to one another and in relation to the group as family, and the literature assumes that this is, in itself, therapeutic. However, this normality avoids and prevents exploration of alternative sexualities, stigmatising them as inferior to and mere deviations from heterosexuality. This, the author suggests, is blinkered and unhelpful to both client and therapist, and art psychotherapists need to raise their awareness of their own and their clients sexualities.

The particular clinical basis of the article is an outpatient art psychotherapy group within an adult psychiatric NHS trust setting.