The existing literature on interventions with sexual minorities has identified two foci for eliminating mental health disparities in this population: social-structural and individual. Despite the different approaches to intervention, both have focused on reducing stigma-related stressors (Meyer, 2003). Intervening to reduce these stressors is much needed; however, in order to provide psychotherapeutic services that are maximally effective, it is necessary for the field to move from acknowledging the importance of stigma-related stress toward a more sophisticated understanding of the multiple psychosocial processes that stigma-related stress disrupts. In identifying such processes, research from the psychological mediation framework makes two contributions to the literature on interventions with sexual minorities. First, the framework points to specific psychological processes that should be targets of prevention and intervention efforts. Second, in highlighting the interrelationships between stigma-related stressors and general psychological processes, the framework provides important insights into the ways in which disparities in psychiatric morbidity may persist without joint attention to how both components of the model serve to reinforce the other. In the section below, I discuss implications for separate and joint interventions, with particular attention paid to contributions that the framework offers at both social and individual levels.
