[Episode 83] In today's Social Work Podcast I speak with Dr. Gail Wyatt, pioneering sex researcher, award-winning teacher, mentor, and researcher, and the first African-American woman to be licensed as a psychologist in the state of California. I spoke with Dr. Wyatt in April 2010 when she was at Temple University giving a talk about her research with African American HIV serodiscordant couples. Serodiscordant couples are those in which one partner is HIV positive and the other is HIV negative. Dr. Wyatt and her co-investigators had just concluded an 8-years investigation of a couples therapy intervention that they hoped would reduce HIV/STD risk behaviors in African American HIV serodiscordant couples. They called the intervention
Eban which is "a traditional African concept meaning 'fence,' a symbol of safety, security, and love within one's family and relationship space" (
El-Bassel et al., 2010, p. 1596) The
Eban intervention combined components of social cognitive theory, historical and cultural beliefs about family and community preservation, and an Afrocentric paradigm. If you want to read more about the
Eban intervention or the
results of this clinical trial I’ve posted the links to those and related articles on the
Social Work Podcast website. So, you’re probably wondering, after 8 years did it work? Yes. At the end of 8 years, and 535 couples later, the couples that were part of the
Eban intervention used condoms more frequently and more consistently and reported fewer sexual acts without condoms than the couples in the health promotion comparison group. And I have no doubt that when the researchers finished running those analyses, they went "Phew! Thank Goodness!"
For today's interview, Dr. Wyatt and I talked a bit about the research, but mostly we talked about two of the techniques that were used in the clinical trial. The first was a way of having couples plan and enjoy safe sex. The second had to do with addressing past histories of abuse within the context of a consensual sexual relationship. It was at this point that the conversation moved away from couples therapy into a conversation about healthy sexual behaviors. Dr. Wyatt made the point that most health and mental health providers ask about a client's "age of first sexual contact" without distinguishing between consensual and non-consensual sexual contact. She pointed out that adolescents sometimes do not distinguish between the two. She encouraged providers to be more precise in their questions, and to find out if their clients are current victims of sexual abuse. We about how to include adolescent clients in mandated abuse reporting calls if current abuse is uncovered, and how to address the issue of sex among adolescents who are victims of past or current sexual abuse. And, as usual, I asked Dr. Wyatt if she could provide some resources for people who were interested in learning more, and she was happy to oblige.
