ABSTRACT
Members of marginalized communities contend with multiple layers of stress and stigmatization. When such people are also struggling with mental illness, their situation presents great challenges. Interventions specifically designed to address and ameliorate stigma can have a powerful positive impact. Revising and revisiting this chapter, originally published in 2006, affords us the opportunity to present empirical evidence that bears out our anticipated outcomes. In the earlier version of this chapter, we had proposed that interventions specifically directed at stigmatized and marginalized individuals would dramatically improve quality of life, social support, and treatment compliance, and significantly reduce the use of emergency services such as psychiatric hospitalization. The empirical evidence of consumer survey data bears out these anticipated outcomes. The present chapter examines an innovative response to the needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) mental health consumers. In mainstream settings, LGBT consumers are often marginalized or poorly understood; they frequently react to this situation by not disclosing or discussing their LGBT identities, or the conflicts and challenges that they experience, either internally or interpersonally, because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Rainbow Heights Club was designed to be a safe and nonstigmatizing environment in which LGBT mental health consumers could form a community of mutual support and advocacy. The present chapter makes connections to recent work on stigma and how it operates, and documents Rainbow Heights Club’s impact and effectiveness. Although Rainbow Heights Club focuses on consumers’ sexuality and gender identity, we believe that it can serve as a paradigm for better meeting the needs of numerous marginalized and stigmatized communities of mental health consumers.
