Introduction

Welcome to this special issue of the Journal of Couple and Relationship Therapy on Working with Queer Couples. Queer couple refers to romantic partnerships where one or more partners identifies as lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual, transgender, nonbinary, queer, or questioning (Heiden-Rootes et al., 2021). Intervention development for couples in distress, nearing divorce, or recovering from an affair has a long rich history in the literature. This special issue combines the science of couple therapy with our growing understanding of the social worlds of queer couples. The aim is to contribute to continued couple intervention development and theoretical commentary for queer couples that is critical of homonormative (Duggan, 2002), heteronormative (Warner, 1991), and cisnormative (McNeilly, 2019) practice and research. These three systems operate to constrain and stigmatize queer couples (and, frankly, all couples) who do not follow assumed cultural norms in romantic relationships - masculine-feminine gender expression, gender stereotyped dynamics, monogamous, child-raising, and co-habitating. When stigma is replaced by acceptance and celebration, queer individuals and couples thrive in their relationships (Coppola et al., 2021) and health (Heiden-Rootes et al., 2021; Mink et al., 2014). Thus, our approaches to couples therapy need to be adapted to attend to the particular needs and experiences of queer couples.

This special issue includes three articles covering a review of the current state of the couple therapy field to work with queer couples, an adaptation of restorative justice practice for work with queer couples experiencing domestic violence, and in-depth interviews with bisexual couples about what they need in couple therapy. First, the systematic review by Silvia et al. of journals in both English and Portoguese begins by defining the historical context of psychotherapy for queer people where stigma was a diagnosis and this gradually moved to more accepting stances. Using PRISMA guidelines, Silvia et al., describes a small but growing body of literature on work utilizing educational interventions and those that target particular types of problems (e.g., substance abuse, violence, etc.). In the second article, Bermea and VanBergen describe restorative justice as a therapeutic practice that prioritizes healing over punitive punishment. In the context of queer couples, this centers the need for safety, reducing stigma, and change on the part of couples who wish to stay together. The authors outline a process where couples therapists can ready themselves to utilize restorative practices with queer couples and integrate into various approaches to couple work. Finally, Nedela et al., utilized a qualitative approach to center the voices of bisexual individuals in same-gender couples for informing couple therapy practice. Through interviews of the couples, the authors note a dialectical tension between the couples wanting to being treated like anyone else and wanting therapists to understand bisexual stigma as a unique experience.

Each of these articles offers a critical review of the current literature and pushes the field forward to innovate couple therapy practice so we are ready to work with queer couples.