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Master of Science / Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology / Christy D. Moran / Maintaining identities of being a Christian and a lesbian or gay has traditionally in mainstream society been considered to be an oxymoron. Yet upon review, a large number of homosexuals profess to be Christians and find strength in their faith. The purpose of this report is create a hypothesis that is developed as a result of a literature review and informal interviews on the identity development and synthesis that occurs for lesbians and gays in the areas of homosexual identity and spiritual identity. To accomplish this task a comparison was made between Anthony D’Augelli’s Model of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Development (1994) and Sharon Daloz Parks Spirituality Development Theory (1986, 2000). Within the confines of this report, key attention was paid to examining whether the developmental critical paths for each area can be visually constructed as parallel lines with independent critical paths occurring simultaneously, if there is only a one line with a singular critical path or if one critical path intersects the other and therefore certain development stage(s) of one model must be completed before the individual can progress in the other model. Findings revealed that in most cases individuals did not move simultaneously on the two developmental paths. Rather, it was necessary for most individuals to be high on either the spiritual identity development model or high on the homosexual identity development model in order to move forward on the other with the goal being to gain a reconciliation between the two identities.

Introduction: Visibility within advertising can generate acceptance and normalization in society, hence it is a powerful media that is of utmost importance for the homosexual group. Portrayals in advertising equal an admission as citizens, which homosexual women are currently neglected as media circumscribe male homosexuality as norm. Knowledge of how homosexual women identifies with portrayals in advertising is currently sparse. Aim: The overall aim of this study is to satiate the gap of knowledge of portrayals of homosexual women in advertising and how the dual identity of gender and sexuality influence the interpretation of advertisements targeting homosexual women. Method: A combination of quantitative and qualitative methodology. The sample includes self-identified homosexual women recruited consecutively during a two-month period. In total 113 homosexual women participated in the study. To provide a realistic interpretation, actual print advertisements portraying female homosexuals were used as stimuli within the contexts of mainstream media and gay media. Results: The female homosexual group appears to be heterogeneous since the perception of the individual sexual identity and lifestyle was not aligned but rather dispersed. However, the participants’ perception of the sexual identity and lifestyle of the female homosexual group is that is a homogenous group. Conclusion: Within the female homosexual group a stigmatization exist regarding gender behaviour that does not correspond with the recurrent portrayal in advertising of homosexual women as a homogenous group.

The focus of this work is to bring the idea of mindfulness closer, in terms of connection with other personality traits. Additionally it highlights the use of mindfulness in psychotherapy practice, specifically in regard to homosexually orientated clients. The study summarizes the main findings on the mindfulness phenomenon, highlighting the important aspects of adopting a new identity within this demographic. The study also monitors the connection of coming out process with particular aspects of mindfulness. In the empirical section the results of the FFMQ questionnaire, in which participated 294 persons of both male and female gender and of both heterosexual and homosexual orientation are compared using quantitative methods. By means of statistical analysis of variance (ANOVA) it was determined that the homosexually orientated do not differ significantly from those of heterosexual orientation. Furthermore there was no significant statistical difference in mindfulness between genders within the research sample. Keywords: mindfulness, psychotherapy, mindfulness definitions, Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire, sexual orientation, coming out, homosexual identity, personality