Skip to main content
ABCT 2025 59th Annual Convention Main banner
Psychology Tools Ad
Final Program


Icon Legend
This session is not in your schedule.
This session is in your schedule. Click again to remove it.
Presentation Icons
Recorded Session
Recorded Session
Ticketed Session
Ticketed Session
ViewAttendees 8

Symposia

LGBTQ+

Implementing LGBTQ-affirmative cognitive behavioral therapy in community settings nationwide: Centering case formulation, provider perspective, and client impact

1 - (SYM 35) Advancing Case Conceptualizations Using Natural Language Processing: A Proof-of-concept Using Lgbtq-affirmative CBT

Saturday, November 22, 2025
10:05 AM - 10:22 AM CST
Location: Bolden 5, Level 2
Keywords: LGBTQ+, Implementation, Community-Based
Recommended Readings: Pachankis, J. E., Soulliard, Z. A., Seager van Dyk, I., Layland, E. K., Clark, K. A., Levine, D. S., & Jackson, S. D. (2022). Training in LGBTQ-affirmative cognitive behavioral therapy: A randomized controlled trial across LGBTQ community centers. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 90(7), 582.,   Pachankis, J. E., Soulliard, Z. A., Morris, F., & van Dyk, I. S. (2023). A model for adapting evidence-based interventions to be LGBQ-affirmative: Putting minority stress principles and case conceptualization into clinical research and practice. Cognitive and Behavioral Practice, 30(1), 1-17.,   Burger, J., & Pachankis, J. E. (2024). State of the science: LGBTQ-affirmative psychotherapy. Behavior Therapy.,   ,  
Abstract Body

Case conceptualization seeks to explain clients' current problems through their early and ongoing maintaining contexts. In LGBTQ-affirmative CBT, for example, clinicians conceptualize cases by assessing clients’ minority stress exposure to better understand their ingrained, inflexible psychological adaptations that can predict depression, anxiety, substance use, and HIV-transmission risk behavior. Yet, given the resource-intensive nature of human observational coding of therapy sessions, it remains unclear whether minority stress-informed case conceptualizations indeed improve outcomes and, if so, what types of minority stress should be addressed and how.  Technological advances can potentially overcome this persistent barrier to advance personalized treatment in LGBTQ-affirmative CBT and all evidence-based practices.



This study illustrates how natural language processing (NLP), a type of artificial intelligence that processes text, can advance case conceptualization in evidence-based practice. As a proof of concept, we demonstrate this using the example of addressing minority stress within LGBTQ-affirmative CBT. First, to identify what constitutes minority stress, we used NLP to identify themes that emerged when young gay and bisexual men (N = 77) explicitly described their minority stress experiences in a previous study. We then examined how the presence of these same themes in a separate sample of text – namely, sessions of LGBTQ-affirmative CBT delivered to young gay and bisexual men (N = 100) – predicted treatment outcomes. Preliminary analyses find that session content focused on coming out to parents predicted reduced sexual compulsivity following a course of LGBTQ-affirmative CBT, while session content focused on religion was linked to reduced acceptance concerns at follow-up. Analyses will be complete in July 2025.



Results will be discussed in terms of future uses of NLP for advancing personalized treatment, including identifying theoretically informed treatment targets heretofore not examined given the time-consuming nature of human observational coding of treatment sessions.