In this section, I discuss the development of a psychological mediation framework to address these significant gaps in the knowledge base. As reviewed above, three distinct literatures on mental health burdens in LGB populations have emerged: (a) psychiatric epidemiology; (b) group-specific social stressors resulting from stigma; and (c) general psychological processes. To date, however, these literatures have largely been pursued separately, with little consideration of how group-specific and general psychological processes may jointly operate to produce disparities in psychopathology among sexual minorities. The psychological mediation framework proposed here synthesizes and integrates the key observations from these distinct literatures, highlighting the interrelationships among group-specific and general psychological processes in the development of mental health disparities. Specifically, the framework suggests that stigma-related stress renders sexual minorities more vulnerable to general psychological processes that are known to predict psychopathology in heterosexuals (see Figure 1). This integrative framework argues that one risk factor is a consequence of the other, and that both contribute to the pathogenesis of mental disorders in LGB populations. Additionally, this theoretical approach takes into account the unique stressors that sexual
