In a nationwide mail questionnaire survey, 600 lesbians and gay men reported on their experiences in counseling or psychotherapy.  One of the issues addressed was the impact of the sexual orientation of the counselor or therapist on adherence to therapeutic boundaries and on the benefit of treatment.  Respondents also rated the importance of the sexual orientation of the therapist, among other qualities, should they seek treatment again.

The sexual orientation of the therapist was found to have a significant impact on three areas of therapeutic boundaries:  gay or lesbian therapists were more likely to violate the sexual and social boundaries of their clients than were their heterosexual counterparts and were more likely to extend the boundaries to include extramural therapeutic contact.   In terms of the benefit derived from the therapy or counseling, respondents reported a significantly greater level of benefit from the therapeutic episodes when their therapist was gay or lesbian than when the therapist was heterosexual or the sexual orientation was unknown, a finding that held up at the multivariate level of analysis.  When asked their preferences for a therapist should they seek one now, most of the respondents did express the desire for a gay or lesbian therapist, but it was a strongly held view for only a third of the respondents, and nearly half of the sample believed that a therapist need not be gay or lesbian in order to provide gay affirmative therapy.

The implications for practice are in recognizing the potential for both beneficial and negative effects of sexual orientation matching for gay and lesbian clients and in utilizing that knowledge to enhance the treatment of gay and lesbian clients regardless of the sexual orientation of the therapist.