Clinicians Digest May/June 2008 - Page 6


Of course, intuition isn't 100 percent accurate, and so how can therapists find the line between using intuition and behaving like an opinionated Dr. Phil? Perhaps by balancing their intuition and cognition. When therapists intuit something, says Welling, they should consider not saying anything immediately, but observing and listening to the client instead, using their consciousness to assess what they think they've noticed. It's usually a good idea to be up front about intuitions, too. "A few moments ago, I thought I saw a little twitch by your mouth. It happened so quickly I couldn't be sure. But I'm wondering whether you were just thinking about something."

Therapists who pay attention to their intuitions and follow up by using their conscious minds to assess and corroborate or dismiss them most likely will greatly improve their ability to "read" their clients.

When Does Homosexuality Begin?

A new study further supports the view that homosexuality is biologically determined. Researchers at Northwestern University have gotten an objective look at the childhoods of gay and straight adults by placing ads in alternative media and asking people to bring in videos of themselves from the time they were babies to 15 years of age.

Coders who were blind to the sexual orientations of the videos' subjects watched the children on vacations, at birthday parties, and singing, dancing, acting, playing, or biking. Looking at the mannerisms, speech patterns, and physical appearance of the children, they rated whether each girl and boy "appeared or behaved in a more masculine or feminine way" on a 7-point scale. The results: gay male and female adults exhibited significantly more gender nonconformity as children than the straight adults did, and this noncomformity increased with age. The Northwestern study also found that the more gender nonconformity children showed, the more they reported being bullied or rejected by friends and parents.

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