Contemp Fam Ther (2007) 29:5769 DOI 10.

1007/s10591-007-9035-1 ORIGINAL PAPER

Narrative Therapy Pathways for Re-authoring with Parents of Adolescents Coming-out as Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual
Susan Saltzburg

Published online: 3 May 2007 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007

Abstract Narrative therapy with parents as they are coming to terms with their adolescent sons and daughters coming-out as lesbian or gay provides a framework for reauthoring stories and revisioning identities as they negotiate the challenge of becoming lesbian/gay-membered families. Recognized for complementing the elements of multicultural practice, narrative therapy offers therapeutic interventions that are culturally sensitive and acknowledge the role of power and privilege in socially imaging what it means to be lesbian or gay. In this article the familiar storylines that these families bring into therapy are illustrated, and family work with parents of lesbian, gay, and bisexual adolescents is conceptualized using a narrative therapy lens. Keywords Lesbian and gay adolescents Coming-out to parents Narrative therapy Family therapy

I was so scared to tell them [parents]. Really afraid of how they would react. You know it would really hurt them. It would be a big disappointment, I think a shock. I mean I know they love me. But, they werent brought up to think this was all right. I knew they werent going to kick me out, but its not something we can talk about in our family. We still dont say anything about it. I cant bring my friends home or talk to them about my life, really. Lesbian youth (Saltzburg, Raw Data). It is often difcult for parents just learning that their adolescents are identifying as lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB) to synthesize the new information and adjust (Herdt & Koff, 2000; Saltzburg, 2004). The complex of issues surrounding the needs of these families necessitates therapeutic interventions that are culturally sensitive (Van Den Bergh & Crisp, 2004) and recognize the roles of power and privilege in constituting the social discourse
S. Saltzburg (&) College of Social Work, Ohio State University, 225C Stillman Hall, 1947 College Road, Columbus, Ohio 43210-1162, USA e-mail: saltzburg.1@osu.edu

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about being LGB. Offering a relatively new paradigm for working with problems of the human experience, narrative therapy has been recognized for complementing the elements of multicultural practice (Laird, 1998), reecting the ideals of cultural competence. One typical practice in narrative therapy is referred to as situating ones thoughts and questions as to their origins in order to provide some understanding for why certain ideas are being raised above others within the context of therapeutic conversations (Freedman & Combs, 1996; White, 1995). By engaging in this process of open self-reection, we are able to join with clients in more authentic, collaborative ways. Situating my interest and involvement with LBG young people and their families as they navigate the coming-out process provides understanding for the intentions embodied in my work and for the pathways that have lead me to a narrative therapy approach. It was through my life-work with LGB adolescents and their families that I recognized the limitless possibilities that lie within the re-authoring framework of narrative practice. As the lives of these young people unfolded before me, I watched as they tentatively stepped into or around their LGB identities, looking for ways to bring others into their circle of knowing. For some, the process of coming-out to self and others was treacherous terrain, presenting obstacles along the way that stood to prevent progression forward. While for others the slope was less perilous, it still felt all- consuming in terms of the demands for emotional energy and stamina. For all of the young people, recognizing and claiming their sexual identity proved challenging, calling for strength, perseverance, and self-agency. Set against the backdrop of heterosexism, these adolescents found themselves crossing over into the socially constructed category of a devalued minority group. Enveloped by the dominant discourse, they recognized the stigma and risks attached to being in the LGB category, and tried to understand how the pejorative labels applied to them. These narratives of the two, parallel storied life-trajectories did not match for the youths, adding to their anxiety about how to positively story their lives as LGB in a largely non-accepting world. Fears of disappointing parents and facing emotional rejection kept these young people in a persistent state of worry. In my practice as a family therapist, youngsters and parents came looking for pathways to support and ease the coming-out process that would ensue for them. While in time most parents found their way back to their children, the period of time between coming-out to parents and parent adjustment, was emotionally difcult, leaving these young people at risk.

Contextual Considerations The literature on LGB youth points to an array of risk factors surrounding their lives during and subsequent to the coming-out process, including youth reports of: parental distancing, rejection, or incidents of abuse (Hammelman, 1993; Hunter & Schaecher, 1987; Kournay, 1987; Martin & Hetrick, 1988; Remafedi, Farrow, & Deisher 1991; Savin-Williams, 1989, 1994); sexual harassment, bullying, threats of violence, and physical assaults by peers in the school environs (Elze, 2003; Garofalo, Cameron-Wolf, Kessel, Palfrey & Durant, 1998; Pilkington & DAugelli, 1995; Savin-Williams, 1994; Smith, 1998) living on the street or in shelters (Cochran, Stewart, Ginzler & Cauce, 2002; Kruks, 1991; Sanford, 1989; Savin-Williams, 1994); and truancy, low academic achievement and school drop-out (Hunter & Schaecher, 1987; Martin & Hetrick, 1988; Sanford, 1989; Savin-Williams,

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1994; Uribe & Harbeck, 1992). Grasping for ways to cope with such life-compromising circumstances, many sexual minority youth fall into the throes of depression (DAugelli & Hershberger, 1993; Fikar, 1992; Hershberger & DAugelli, 1995; Remafedi et al., 1991; Rosario, Schrimshaw & Hunter, 2005; Rotheran-Borus, Hunter, & Rosario 1994; Safren & Heimberg, 1999; Whitbeck, Hoyt, & Bao, 2000). Many turn to drugs, alcohol, and sexual encounters in attempts to escape or remediate their sadness, fears, and loneliness (Kipke, Montgomery, Simon & Unger, 1997; Savin-Williams, 1994; Whitlock, 1989). All of these risk factors are associated with diminished self-esteem and low self-worth, for some youth resulting in both suicidal thoughts as well as attempts at and completed suicides (Fikar, 1992; Kitts, 2005; Morrison & LHeureux, 2001; Remafedi et al., 1991; Rosario et al., 2005; Rotheran-Borus et al., 1994; Safren & Heimberg, 1999). One can clearly infer from the circumstances surrounding the lives of youth that for every LGB adolescent who is vulnerable to the broad spectrum of risk factors, there are parents encountering a parallel set of challenges. For parents of adolescents just comingout, the effects of internalized homophobia result in a need to redene themselves as well as their children (Saltzburg, 2004). Knowing that others may now view their child as a member of this stigmatized and marginalized group creates an emotional vulnerability for parents and as such, the coming-out of the child becomes the coming-out of the parents as well (Boxer, Cook & Herdt, 1991). Given the stress that occurs within families when adolescent sons and daughters begin their process of coming-out as LGB (Saltzburg, 2004; Herdt & Koff, 2000), narrative therapy provides a responsive way both to help parents remain connected to their children and to support families in reconstructing stories of identity and relationships.

Narrative Family Therapy Narrative therapy has gained signicant recognition in the past decade as an important contribution to therapeutic work with individuals and families (Madigan, 1996, 1997; Nylund, 2000; White, 1995, 1997, 2004; White & Epston, 1990; Zimmerman & Dickerson, 1996) as they look for ways to transform their lives, relationships, and sense of self. Turning away from the practice of pathologizing people and relationships, a narrative approach creates an empathic and supportive therapeutic context for people to call forth other ways of knowing themselves and their lives in order to bring about change. The postmodernist assumptions underlying narrative therapy posit that reality is subjective, multiple and uid in nature, socially constructed through language within communities of people, and maintained through storied trajectories (Freedman & Combs, 1996). According to this view there are no absolute truths, but rather the interpretive meaning-making of language that creates perspectives of understanding (Pare, 1995; White & Epston, 1990). These interpretations become synonymous with what we come to recognize as our realities (or life as we know it), embedded symbolically in the words we use to talk about ourselves and others and to structure our lived experiences (Bruner, 1986). Narrative therapy assumes a socio-political stance in how we notice power, privilege, and oppression in the world. Recognizing that there are certain knowledges and practices that carry greater social inuence than others based on the power differentials that ourish in a given society, narrative practice looks to examine the effects of such social discourse on the meaning-making of individual lives (White & Epston, 1990). In understanding how life stories take shape out of these prevailing dominant voices, narrative work places importance on highlighting the voices of local, unique, or other knowledge.

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The Narrative Metaphors in Family Work It is through the metaphors of stories and re-authoring that narrative therapists talk about peoples lives and the pathways to change. Analogous to authoring a literary work, there are many potential storylines that might shape the course of our lives (as with the direction of a story). Authoring plots that produce the most complete and rich literary piece calls for developing certain storylines above others (White & Epston, 1990). As narrative therapists join with families in moving beyond problem-dened stories that are experienced as compromising, non-afrming, and defeating, we focus on creating space for alternative stories that illuminate other ways of being, such as those tied to feelings of hope, possibilities, afrmation, and connection. Asserting that each person possesses authorship of her or his life, narrative therapists view people as having the capacity to take agentive action towards developing and maintaining storylines of preferred ways of being (Freedman & Combs, 1996; Kelley, 2002). Joining with families to co-author these preferred lifenarratives is at the heart of narrative clinical work. Narrative practice uses the capacity of reconguring storylines through the constitutive nature of language (Freedman & Combs, 1996) as the means to bring about change, or re-authoring.

Deconstructing Problem-Dominated Stories Drawing from the inuences of French post-structuralism, narrative therapy incorporates the concept of deconstruction as a metaphorical principal for bringing about change in peoples lives (Freedman & Combs, 1996; White, 1993). Deconstructionist literary theory (for example, Derrida, 1981 as cited in Freedman and Combs, 1996) speaks to the phenomenon of de-constituting denitions and storied texts as they are explored and prodded from different angles of examination. This process of taking apart texts raises awareness of what lies within the words beneath the dominant or obvious meanings. As such, the deconstructing of story structure examines presumptions of absoluteness in how the story reads, allowing less recognized possibilities for storylines to reveal themselves (White, 2004). By using deconstruction as a therapeutic means to examine the dominance of certain stories in exerting control over peoples lives, opportunities open up for imagining lifenarratives from other vantage points. It is a process of critically challenging family (or personal) narratives that serve to de-spirit, immobilize, or de-energize vibrant and positive self-identities and life-stories. In doing so, narrative deconstruction also challenges the social narratives that selectively place value on some ways of knowing and being while devaluing others (White, 1993). Re-authoring takes place within the context of deconstruction conversations; they co-exist as a set of simultaneous, intertwined processes in which unhelpful stories become disassembled in the presence of developing and thickening the description of emergent alternative storylines.

Externalizing Conversations Synonymous with the process of deconstruction in narrative therapy is the practice of externalizing conversations (White, 1993; White & Epston, 1990). These conversations take the familiar ways we know ourselves, our lives and the lives of others around us, and bestow upon these customary knowledges and practices the objectifying process of

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externalization. As such, we are asking people who seek change, amelioration, or reconciliation to assume a relational stance with the stories (or externalized objects) that are exerting negative control over their lives. First asking objectifying questions to establish the effects of the problem on the life of the individual (or family members) and then examining the effects of the individual(s) on the life-of-the-problem (Weingarten, 1998) sets the externalization in motion. As the problem (or dominant) story is guratively extracted from the sense of personhood or family-unit makeup of our clients and redened as an external entity that people have the resources to keep from determining their lives, possibility space is established.

Re-authoring with Parents and Adolescents Coming-out as LGB Externalizing Homophobia and Heterosexism We cannot think about our work with LGB-membered families without considering the politics of heterosexism as a dominant voice afforded privilege and rights to oppressive practices in our society. Borrowing from the post-structuralist arguments of Michel Foucault (Madigan, 1992; White, 1990, 1993, 2004), narrative practice recognizes the processes by which practices of power (White, 1993, p. 50) become unknowingly or indefensibly internalized by people in their everyday lives, becoming their ways of knowing and practicing life. These techniques of social control (White, 1993, p. 50) permeate at the collective and individual levels, indoctrinating people into certain ways of evaluating and judging themselves and others, and politicizing the treatment and protection of people. Foucault asserts that creating change, or escaping from these oppressive ways of knowing, calls for deconstructing stories at the local, or personal, level of peoples lives. In translating this to our family work with LGB adolescents and their parents, deconstructing takes place within the context of tracing the effects of homophobia and heterosexism on how LGB adolescents perceive themselves and their futures, and on how parents think about their LGB children. By externalizing homophobia and heterosexism, we create a less vulnerable position for parents and children to talk about internalized beliefs and assumptions regarding what it means to be LBGexternalizing the voices of the wider social discourse. The focus of such externalizing conversations (White, 1993) might include: 1) identifying and acknowledging in what ways homophobia and heterosexism have come to be constitutive of their life; 2) recognizing how homophobic and heterosexist practices contribute to the diminishing of their own lives and through them, others lives; and 3) identifying how homophobia and heterosexism have enlisted them into adhering to (or believing in) certain prescribed ways of knowing and being watchful that others do so as well.

Re-authoring Life Stories Drawing from the interviews and interpreted understanding of a recent qualitative study (Saltzburg, 2001, 2004) with parents in the throes of learning that their adolescent children were lesbian or gay, I will illustrate the familiar storylines that these families bring into therapy, and conceptualize family work with LGB adolescents and their parents through a narrative therapy lens.

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Echoing the voices of homophobia and heterosexism. It wasnt anything youd ever think about for someone in your family. It is considered a sin. And just because some people are now saying its all right, doesnt mean that it is. I havent stopped loving my daughter. Thats the hard part. And I didnt know how to reconcile this. So far, it hasnt been easy to nd a way to live with this. Im depressed a lot of the time. I cant stop the thoughts I have about homosexuality. This is what Ive learned and what I believe. And now these apply to my child. Its awful to have these thoughts about one of your children. Its so painful. (Saltzburg, 2001) There was a consensus amongst the parents regarding feeling stunned by the actual disclosure because of what they understood being lesbian and gay to mean. The immediate sense of catastrophe assigned to their childs circumstances was derived from the homophobic messages that they had internalized over the course of their lifetimes. The socially constructed negative elements attributed to being LGB created a state of crisis for these parents. Helping parents in the throes of the coming-out experience externalize homophobia and heterosexist bias provides them with some needed distance from their emotions and allows them to examine what such inuences mean to their own lives while still validating the parents lived experience within the context of the broader social discourse. Working with parents to create a vivid and palpable picture of how homophobia and heterosexism inuence their lives brings their experiences into a richly detailed focus, allowing them to get in touch with the real effects. In this experience-near presence of homophobia and heterosexism, we join with families in supporting them to challenge these inuences that devalue and denigrate peoples lives (including their own children) and that are getting in the way of parents supporting their children. Voices of cognitive-emotional disorganization. So far, it hasnt been easy to nd a way to live with this. Im depressed a lot of the time. I cant stop the thoughts I have about homosexuality. This is what Ive learned and what I believe. And now these apply to my child. Its awful to have these thoughts about one of your children. Youre torn - and there are moments youre caught up in feeling sad and embarrassed about it. Its so painful. (Saltzburg, 2001) The period following rst knowing that an adolescent son or daughter is LGB is one that is riddled with uncertainties, personal moral conicts, and fears of losing ones child. For these parents it was a time of unremitting, internal struggles consumed with the feelings triggered by years of internalizing homophobic messages and the realization that the target of these disparaging beliefs were their own children. The socially constructed elements of homosexuality that dened being gay as abnormal kept the parents from being able initially to look beyond the sexual behaviors to the other aspects of identifying as gay or lesbian. Trying to assimilate the deluge of negativistic images with the deeply ingrained, loving thoughts that they carried for their children was a disorganizing and incongruous process. Impinging on the parents feelings of pride for their offspring and the endearing thoughts of affection were the self-effacing, harsh messages internalized from the social environment (Saltzburg, 2004). Questions used to externalize homophobia and heterosexism and begin the process of deconstructing their inuences might start off with establishing the connection between the politics of heterosexism and oppressive practices that result in social injustices, human pain and suffering, and human hardship. For example:

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What argument does homophobia make to justify marginalizing and victimizing LGB people in the name of morality and family values? How does this argument make sense to you in light of the acts of victimization, violence, and social injustices carried out against LGB people? How does prejudice and intolerance based on difference make sense to you and how you live your life? How did homophobia become such a loud voice in your life? How do homophobia and heterosexism argue against the value and worth of your child? How does this argument t the child that you know and love? What effects does this argument have on how you are thinking about your child? And how does this affect how you are feeling? And your current relationship with your child. Who else whom you know is being convinced by homophobia and heterosexism? What does homophobia say that others are thinking about your child and about you?

Re-Authoring Conversations Re-authoring begins with mapping the inuence of the person or family members over the life-of-the-problem (Freedman & Combs, 1996; White & Epston, 1990; Weingarten, 1998), reversing the externalizing process. These conversations provide space for noting and exploring glimpses of experiencing life without the inuence of the problem (dominant) story-plot, and in ways that reect self-agency in displacing the problem (Freedman & Combs, 1996; White, 1993). Such moments-of-difference provide the entry point for developing new or counter-stories (Freedman & Combs, 1996; White, 1993). Building new stories is about reconnecting with or recognizing storylines that have always been present in peoples lives, but unnoticed, concealed, denied, or subjugated. As such they are regularly passed over by other stories that represent the more familiar or dominant knowledge that people learn through family discourse, cultural discourse, professional discourse, or social discourse. In joining with families of LGB youth to develop other versions of stories than the ones that are currently dening their lives, the narrative therapist begins to listen for the moments-of-difference (what White [1990, 1993] refers to as unique outcomes) that counter the assumptions of homophobia and heterosexism. Initially, this constitutes reconnecting parents with the internal imagery and stories they have carried about their child and the parent-child relationship prior to coming-out, gradually integrating this into the emerging stories of LGB sons and daughters. Voices of Sadness and Loss. After that moment when he told me, I just cried for weeks and weeks a few months. It was like everything reminded me that my son was not like other young men it was a terrible sadness. I thought about the wife, house, kids all the things you think about for your child now gone forever. Yeah, I lost the dream I had been dreaming. (Saltzburg, 2001) The parents spoke to the deep sense of despair and loss that they experienced directly following disclosure. Embedded in the sadness were the lost idealized dreams that they held both for themselves, as parents, and for their child, as an extension of themselves. Believing that their preconceived dreams were no longer a part of their reality left parents feeling deeply saddened, propelling them into a state of grieving. There was the sense of

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disappointment that comes with believing that they would not experience the traditional nodal markers of adolescence as remembered from their own adolescent journeys. The parenting dreams and plans that they understood to be in order for an adolescent child suddenly seemed irrelevant to their own childs circumstances. Developing threads of the new storyline through tracking their origins, presence, and meaning through time (White, 1993) is a means of integrating the remembering-of-the-past and envisioning-of-the-future into the developing story. Cultivating this emerging narrative encompasses moving back and forth between two realms of story development: 1) the action and structure, the who, what, when, where, how (Freedman & Combs, 1996, p. 97) establishing the plot, and 2) the signicance embodied in such actions or ways of knowing, the values, beliefs, and motivations (Bruner, 1986; White, 1993). Re-authoring of the sadness and loss occurs as the parents are connected to the enduring stories of their children that do not change because of sexual orientation and whose vision can be carried into the future. Linking parents to the qualities and personhood (or their storied-version of the child) of their children that stand outside sexual orientation provides a level of familiarity and comfort to the parents and begins the process of synthesizing the narrative of the child that they know with that of the young person coming-out as LGB. Joining with parents and their children to construct the story possibilities of adolescence for LGB young people is fundamental to the re-authoring for parents as well as for their sons and daughters. This might begin by weaving a story that includes those common elements important to the coming-of-age of all youth such as, school, friends, recreation, family support, a sense of self, romance, and dreams for their future. In doing this we are exploring with the parents the similarities shared with other adolescents regardless of sexual orientationmaintaining the connection to normative aspects of adolescence, such as recognizing these youngsters as just kids who are exploring their worlds to nd where they t, where their strengths and talents lie, and what values have meaning for them. We also are maintaining the parents sense of connection with their self-concept, roles, and functions as parents at the family life-stage of adolescence. It is a process of asking questions that will serve as a scaffold for bringing parents back to the familiar storylines that dene their children and the parent-child connection while at the same time weaving new directions into the existing stories. Shifting conversations to reconnect to and honor the history of knowing their children and establishing the ways in which these known contexts and imagined dreams are still intact are at the crux of re-authoring stories of sadness and loss with those of connection, gain, optimism, and possibilities. Both parents and LGB young people need to know that there is actual precedence for uplifting, promising, and positive stories to be woven about their lives. These accounts chronicle stories in which LGB adolescents get to grow into adults like all other children, remain connected with their families, pursue careers, have families of their own, build and maintain friendships, and cultivate interests. Weaving the ordinary stories of everyday life back into the lives of these children and parents becomes the re-authoring work, and provides a new audience for contextualizing their lives. Developing stories of difference in ways that portray diversity rather than pathology is important for this re-authoring, establishing the non-essentializing of normative adolescence (Cohler & Hammack, 2007). Voices of aloneness and marginalization. It was that the difference was something the world looks at as unacceptable. Its like with an illness people give you sympathy and understanding for that. Its the moral judgment that now separates your precious child from the rest of the world. And this

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makes you as a parent feel like no other sadness. Your child becomes a part of something that is looked at as morally wrong. I felt suddenly separated from the world And all of a sudden, I felt so different from everyone else. My child was gay and therefore, I am no longer like other parents. Standing out as something negative and no one to stand with me. I felt all alone. (Saltzburg, 2001) The parents described feeling suddenly and dramatically cut-off from other parents and other people in their day-to-day environs because of their childs coming-out. This phenomenon initially represented an irreparable schism between themselves and others of the world. There was a daunting sense of existential aloneness and social isolation. Believing that no one could possibly understand who had not, themselves, experienced this with their own child, left them feeling utterly alone and without support (Saltzburg, 2004). Posing externalizing questions related to how heterosexism positions the parents alone in their circumstances, how heterosexism talks them into thinking that there is no one like them or like their child, or how heterosexism convinces them to believe that there are no common threads connecting them to other parents of adolescents (gay or straight) and to normative adolescence serves as the springboard to re-authoring from the narrative of aloneness to the narrative of relationships and connection. Developing alternative storylines might begin with facilitating conversations that bring forth meaningful stories of relationship and support, including the actors in those scenarios. Using the history of these relationships provides the memories of knowing such support and lays the groundwork for the current, unfolding story. Bringing into the story of support those persons who have known the parents, cared for them, and helped them or stood by them in other ways throughout their lives elucidates for the parents the signicance behind such support, and what it says about them as people, parents, sons or daughters themselves, to have garnered such support. Questions might focus on asking: What do these supporters of your life know about you as a person that keeps them in relationship with you? How have they known that your enduring qualities as a person will not change with the changing of life circumstances? What might these supporters say of your current life circumstances and those of your child? How might they coach you to stand up to the ways of homophobia and heterosexism? In developing this story, we would further expand the narrative of support to include more exploration about the people in their lives who have recognized the value of their children and supported their children as well, inquiring about what these people knew about both parent and child that would result in them not listening to the voices of homophobia and heterosexism and rallying in their corner. Voices of doubt and fears of estrangement. Its very hard to get close to her now. I think shes built that wall around her - and yes, I do feel on the outside of that wall. She keeps telling me, You dont know what its like to be gay. Like I cant understand. And maybe I cant. She doesnt come to me for advice the way the other three do. I cant tell her about boys and dates and all that. She doesnt think I can understand her life because Im not gay and its true, theres so much I dont understand or know or dont want to know. So, there is this wall between us.(Saltzburg, 2001)

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Devoid of information and life experience of what it means to be gay, these parents felt at a loss as to how they would maintain a place in their childs life as she or he stepped into the gay world. Central to these fears of estrangement was the awareness that in many ways they would not be able to serve as the role models and teachers-of-life as parents normally do because of the differences that now stood between themselves and their adolescent sons or daughters. There was an emergent sadness that came with realizing that there were aspects of their childrens worlds that they would never come to know rst-hand or share in because of not being LGB themselves. There also was a very real sense of estrangement born out of believing that their inherent differences related to sexual orientation and identity would create an impermeable barrier in their relationship. These fears of losing their daughters and sons to a lifestyle and subculture that might not include them further exacerbated a sense of distancing from their children, in what felt like defeat. Helping parents to retrieve their sense of condence in knowing their children and believing that they will always remain a part of their lives, and reafrming their competence in parenting regardless of their children coming-out, might come through remembering those narratives that speak to actions of investing in, protecting, caring for, teaching, and advocating for their children across the vast landscape of life circumstances, regardless of the difculty, their uncertainty, or risk. Therapeutic conversations might explore questions (adapted from White, 1993) such as: What other times in your life or circumstances have you felt new to parenting or unsure about what to do in caring for your child? Perhaps when he or she was a baby and you were a new parent? Or, when he or she encountered life obstacles that were unfamiliar to you? How were you able to overcome fears of not knowing in order to remind yourself of all that you do know? What were the actions you have taken at other times to provide direction, protect, watch over, or advocate for your child, even when you were unsure of the best ways to do this? What steps did you take to do this? Where did you get the information or support to take such steps? Who might have noticed what you did? What would they say about you doing this? Who else might not be surprised that you were able to do this? What does it say about you as a parent, that you were able and wanting to do this?

Denitional Ceremonies Borrowing from the cultural anthropology work of Myerhoff (1982, 1986), and applied to therapeutic practice (White, 1995, 2003), narrative therapy incorporates the process of the denitional ceremony into work with families to engage people as active participants in their own history (White, 1995, p. 177). This work is specically relevant to parents and children in the circumstances of coming-out as LGB-membered families at adolescence. Understood as an organizing structure for persons to share in a community of others, the denitional ceremony provides a context for talking about the signicance of being a member of that group. As such, people are sharing and witnessing testimony of a particular lived-experience. In Myerhoffs study of an elderly, impoverished Jewish community, the members of the community did not nd any images of themselves reected in the world outside of their small enclave, leaving them to feel invisible, or of no matter, and in fear

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that they would not be remembered as having lived. They thus perceived their lives as lacking a sense of existential meaning and relevance to the larger world. The denitional ceremony provided the context for a sense of legacyfor memorializing the existence and meaning of their lives. In a similar way, the parents of adolescents coming-out as LBG view themselves to be an invisible group and perceive their lived experience of reconciling this information about their children as not mattering to the world-at-large. The denitional ceremony can become a context for self-denition and recognition. The shared stories become a way to create a sense of existential presence, of mattering, a voice, and a constituting of their lives. Using the denitional ceremony to link parents of LGB adolescents to other parents of LGB young people provides a sense of community and an anthology of stories, creating images and impressions of their lives.

Re-membering Practices Also drawing from the anthropological work of Myerhoff (1982, 1986), narrative therapy has adopted the metaphorical practice of re-membering to signify the process of people selectively choosing those persons who they want to enroll as life-long members in their club-of-life (White, 1997). Using the analogy of club membership, we recognize the importance of people taking charge of knowing and deciding who will best support the ideals and ambitions of their club. In working with parents of LGB children coming-out, this practice speaks to considering the criteria for their familys club membership, interviewing prospective candidates, using externalizing questions and outsider witness practices such as a reecting team (White, 1995), or letter writing (White, 1995; White & Epston, 1990) in which the candidates reect on how they understand the re-authoring story (or preferred) story for the parents and their children, and thinking about how these people have touched their lives in afrming, validating, and inspiring ways. As parents and children reect on the array of people who make up their worlds of yesterday, today, and tomorrow and who they consider to be support persons, life-coaches, heroes, and role models, the club membership process unfolds. Membership consideration also may entail introducing families to people removed from their day-to-day lives who represent the ideals or lived-experiences that they are wanting to integrate into their preferred life stories, such as humanitarians, human rights activists, and people just like them whose lives have inspired books. Certainly many of the people who participate in the denitional ceremonies might take active, invested roles in the re-membering process as well.

Conclusion Currently, the body of literature chronicling the lives of LGB youth is being enhanced by stories that note the strengths and normative lived experiences of these young people in the various contexts of their lives (Cohler & Hammack, 2007; Savin-Williams, 2005). These alternative stories depicting the lives of LGB young people reect all of the possibilities that lie within a life-afrming vision of youth. Recognizing their spirit, leadership, varied interests and talents, and heterogeneity across a vast array of adolescent-life contexts heightens awareness of the set of normative developmental and environmental circumstances surrounding the lives of these adolescents. The lens of such discourse normalizes the LGB youth experience as representative of just one other pathway of cultural diversity.

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Rather than dwelling on the effects of homophobia and heterosexism in dening the lives of LGB adolescents and their resilience in the face of such oppression, these counter stories honor their strengths, optimism, and achievements in spite of adverse social forces (Cohler & Hammack, 2007). Using such narratives as the signposts for LGB youth, narrative therapy offers afrming ways to contribute to these new stories and to the lives of children and their parents.

References
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