ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses three themes that emerged from the interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) were nondisclosure of sexual identity, experiences of being pathologized, and experiences of being silenced. It explores final stage of IPA to arrive at a superordinate organizing device and lends to share aspects of people's mental health care experiences. The nondisclosure of sexual identity can be further understood by looking at the experiences of those who did disclose. This sets the fear of nondisclosure in its social context of likely homophobic reactions from health care practitioners and other reactions. It can be seen that the fear of being pathologized in those who did not disclose their sexual identity was realized by several of those who did disclose. Lesbians and gay men were silenced about their sexual identity in a number of ways during mental health care encounters: having issues relating to sexual identity ignored or trivialized, being told not to discuss such issues, and seeing caring relationships withdrawn.
