STUDY: EXPERIENCES OF CHEMSEX

Emil Thornton, clinical psychologist from Canterbury Christ Church University, tells us about their research into people’s experiences of chemsex

I came into clinical psychology as an LGBTQ+ person who did not see many people like me in psychology. Clinical psychologists try to make sense of individual and group behaviour and offer evidence-based interventions, such as talking therapies, and also try to find out new ways of understanding people’s mental health.

Historically, clinical psychology has a troubled history with LGBTQ+ people. Along with the criminalisation of homosexuality until 1967 in England, it was also classified as a psychiatric disorder. This began to change from 1973 onwards when it was removed from the ‘Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders’, however there was still widespread pathologising of homosexuality. Even today current attempts in the UK to ban conversion therapy remain controversial and have been stalled in parliament for several years.

Throughout much of the history of psychological research has been done to LGBTQ+ people, rather than with or by them. This can lead to perspectives that are othering and can miss out important information from people’s lived experiences. Work about LGBTQ+ people can also be neglected and left out of the picture by mainstream psychology. I think it is important that people can tell their own stories and conduct research themselves about things that concern them.

So, does clinical psychology have anything to offer us as LGBTQ people? There are some approaches which are more helpful. Liberation psychology is an approach that aims to address the oppressive socio-political structure in which we live. Through developing theories around issues such as ‘minority stress’ – the stress caused from stigma, prejudice and discrimination – we can better address the difficulties we face.

During the 1990s a researcher called Paul Flowers developed a new research method called ‘Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis’ in order to learn from research participants themselves. He has undertaken important work investigating health and romance in gay men and has found there are many differences in the way gay men themselves think about sexual activity and romance, and the way psychology and health services assume they think about it.

Here, there was an alternative story from a different perspective that was being previously missed. I think now more than ever it is important for people who are from minority groups, such as LGBTQ+ people, to be a part of the research that is about them and to do research that is relevant to issues they are facing.

One such often overlooked issue is that of chemsex, a phenomena affecting primarily gay men. Although some progress has been made in terms of understanding chemsex from a sexual health perspective, research considering the psychological aspects of it are lacking.

There is an absence of research specifically addressing how people themselves make sense of their experiences of being involved in chemsex and what chemsex means for them. I would like to address this by asking people to tell their stories. I hope to amplify voices who may not be heard and make space for a full range of experiences to be understood.

In this way, I hope I can be a part of clinical psychology reclaiming itself from some of its dark history to be used by, for and within the LGBTQ+ community to improve our lives.