Tom Kent

Minneapolis live: Man shot dead by federal agent in Minneapolis sparking fresh protests The shooting comes after days of protests in the city over the Trump administration's immigration enforcement operation there.

The US government is murdering its own citizens. I will not share the disturbing videos that are circulating, but there can be no other account.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cj...

This is no longer about priority-setting; it is a failure to meet a basic standard of public health investment.

What infuriates me is that there has long been strong evidence of LGB+ health inequities, now reinforced by new population-level data, yet research funding bodies have not invested at a routine or proportionate level in LGB+ health research, as far as I have observed.

-Among people aged 16–24 who died, suicide accounted for a much larger proportion of deaths in LGB+ people (around 45% of all deaths, compared with about 27% in heterosexual people).

- Deaths from any cause were about 30% higher in LGB+ people.
- Alcohol-related deaths occurred at almost twice the rate.
- Drug-poisoning deaths occurred at nearly three times the rate.

A major new ONS analysis linking Census 2021 to death records (2021–2024) shows that LGB+ people in England and Wales have higher mortality than heterosexual people.
www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...

This is appalling: Top DOJ officials are actively pushing for a criminal investigation into the widow of Renee Good, leading prosecutors to quit en masse, NYT is reporting.

Who in the White House ordered DOJ to do this? That's the next thing to establish.

PHQ-9, GAD-7, and PSS are discrete integer scales. Post-treatment SDs of ≈0.5–0.8 suggest that most people in intervention group ended up with the same or nearly the same total score — strikingly little between-person variation, both in a single summed score & across multi-item symptom measures! 😬

People with more severe depression probably benefit more from psychotherapy than those with mild depression. Read our new meta-analysis of almost 400 randomized trials of therapies for depression. With Mathias Harrer, Clara Miguel, Eirini Karyotaki, Davide Papola

doi.org/10.1016/j.ja...

The potential overturning of conversion therapy bans highlights something wider: therapy isn’t “anything goes.”
We don’t just say or practise whatever we think or believe — our work is guided by evidence, ethics, and professional standards.
#SCOTUS #therapy

We’re looking for LGBQ individuals who’ve had NHS therapy (in the past year) to share experiences of topics that felt hard to discuss. I’m supervising this project — see the poster in Millie’s post for details. #LGBTQ #Mentalhealth #Psychotherapy #NHS

NHS England » LGBT+ health evidence review NHS England » LGBT+ health evidence review

LGBT+ Health Evidence Review - NHS England

The evidence submission process will close on Sunday, 7 September 2025. #LGBT #NHS

www.england.nhs.uk/about/equali...

Statement Regarding Historical Published Articles on Conversion Therapy | BPS The British Psychological Society (BPS) acknowledges that in the past, our journals published articles by authors who explored and/or endorsed attempts to change sexual orientation and gender identity...

Check out this page: www.bps.org.uk/news/stateme...

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

LGBTQ+ in clinical psychology training in the UK: The sound of silence
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Sexual orientation differences in treatment expectation, alliance, and outcome among patients at risk for suicide in a public psychiatric hospital - BMC Psychiatry Background Sexual minority (SM) individuals (gay, lesbian, bisexual, or otherwise nonheterosexual) are at increased risk for mental disorders and suicide and adequate mental healthcare may be life-sav...

This is the 2017 study
bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....
Another study we did using data from a German clinic
journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...
After the many rejections of both manuscripts, which I did not experience before, I decided to move away from LGB-related research.

But our study, and international studies, suggest (good) psychotherapy may buffer these types of external stresses and help narrow disparities in clinical outcomes.

There’s likely regional variation in environmental stigma and community support — so it’s a natural hypothesis that these factors affect outcomes.

We really need updated national analyses to see whether those estimates have shifted — especially given improvements in data collection and social attitudes over time.

For gay men, national evidence already points to broadly equivalent outcomes. The real unknowns are bisexual people and lesbian women: an older national IAPT study suggested poorer results, but it had missing data and is nearly a decade old.

At the end of the paper, I suggest that rural areas or regions with smaller LGB populations would be a valuable focus for future research — to explore how local social and structural factors may shape therapy outcomes.

Thanks for the repost, André — and great question! Because our data come from urban London services, I’m careful not to overgeneralise.

UK study: LGB patients benefit as well from psychotherapy as heterosexual pts.
We did a similar study in 2017, it was very hard to get it published, maybe bc results didn't fit the narrative. Don't get me wrong, homophobia is real, also in healthcare. We need to get rid of biases in research, too

@thementalelf.bsky.social Would really appreciate a RT to help the findings reach a broader audience if possible. Thank you!

9/
🙏 Huge thanks to my brilliant co-authors at @uclpals.bsky.social & @uclpsychiatry.bsky.social
Thanks also to the NHS Talking Therapies patients whose care journeys made this study possible, the clinicians who provided that care, & the LGB service users & therapists we consulted.

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🗣️ We consulted LGB service users and therapists to help interpret the findings.
They spoke of openness toward therapy and strong motivation to engage.
Many saw it as a rare space to feel safe, understood, and supported — which may help explain these outcomes, despite high distress levels.

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📊 Bisexual men were less likely to drop out than heterosexual men (26.6% vs 29.7%).
Bisexual women also dropped out less often than heterosexual women (24.2% vs 26.8%).
Lesbian and bisexual women attended more sessions — but the difference was negligible (≈1 extra per 100 patients).

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📈 Gay men showed slightly greater reductions in depression and anxiety symptoms.
These differences are unlikely to be noticeable for most individuals — but at group level, recovery was higher (54.0% vs 47.5%) and dropout lower (25.5% vs 29.7%) than for heterosexual men.

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🔍 Want more detail? Here’s how outcomes varied slightly between LGB subgroups.
These differences were small overall — but worth unpacking.

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✅ The good news? LGB patients did just as well.
They improved at similar rates, were just as likely to recover, and just as likely to stay in therapy as heterosexual patients.

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🧠 We analysed 94,239 patients in NHS Talking Therapies across North and East London who disclosed their sexual orientation.
7,422 identified as lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB).
We compared their therapy outcomes and engagement to heterosexual patients.