Counseling Diverse Populations

This book addresses diversity counseling in an unique format that combines four non-ethnic groups: women, gays, the elderly, and people with disablities. It is a companion to Counseling American Minorities, which focuses on counseling ethnic and racial minorities. The concept of shared experiences of oppression is explained and clarified by identifying characteristics unique to each group. Another crucial topic is psychology's treatment of each group: how psychology as a field has ignored the special needs of minorities in the past, and in some instances, contirbuted to the oppression of women, gays, the elderly and people with disablities. A historical overview of how both psychology and society have treated these four groups puts theories of discrimination in context. An examination of the future directions of psychology addresses the needs of non-ethnic minorities.