Assessment of Therapists' Attitudes Towards BDSM in 2014

I have begun the outline of my second chapter, which I am writing first, and this article came to my attention. What is significant to note is that it was published in 2014 and because studies take time to publish it was written just before kinky behaviour was removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). I will further explore this event in a future post. The DSM is a book which is used to diagnoses mental health disorders. That means that this article provides a historical reference for therapists attitudes at the time when kink was about to transition out of a being considered a disorder.

The article was written by a team of 4 (Kelsey, Stiles, Spiller, & Diekhoff) and is based on a survey comprised of 766 American therapists. The researchers discuss how the inclusion of paraphilic disorders in the DSM likely negatively influences therapists attitudes towards BDSM practices. Additionally, the now disproven myth that those that engage in BDSM are more likely to have traumatic pasts is still being dispersed. Educational opportunities on the topic of BDSM have been limited in the past and as therapists we would most likely need to know to seek them out ourselves.

The study found that most of the 766 clinicians did not pathologize BDSM behaviour as something to be resolved unless it was the direct request of the client. At the same time, a significant number of clinicians were uncertain about whether or not they condoned folks practicing BDSM. Another significant finding was that out of 76% of clinicians who were seeing at least one client with a kinky lifestyle, only 48% of those felt competent to support these individuals. The authors hypothesize that some clinicians may not have referrals to offer, especially in more secluded areas. Finally, younger clinicians were on average more likely to be accepting of BDSM lifestyles. 

Mixed reviews I'd say. I look forward to learning more on this particular topic and I hope to personally draw some of my own conclusions after becoming more and more familiar with the literature that has been published so far. In regards to not having referrals in more rural areas, I wonder how the explosion of online counselling will impact those seeking compatible services within the rural kink communities. Likely I won't see any studies on this by the end of my project, but I may include it in my discussion section at the end of my paper!

Until tomorrow my glorious audience!


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