Experts Information

Rebecca G. Harvey PhD

Expertise:

• “Coming out” issues
• LGBT youths and their families of origin, especially sibling relationships
• Same-sex couples
• Same-sex marriage
• Lesbian and gay parenting and child development
• LGBT issues in schools
• Mental health in LGBT populations
• Substance abuse in LGBT populations
• Transgender issues
• Religion and LGBT people

Additional Information:

Dr. Harvey is a licensed clinical social worker in the state of Pennsylvania, a clinical member of AAMFT and an Approved Supervisor.  She has been providing individual, couple and family therapy for over 10 years.  Trained in a sex therapy clinic she developed a specialty in sexuality including (but not limited to) LGBTQ treatment issues.  She was a participating member of the SUNY Upstate Medical University Transgender Treatment Team, a multi-disciplinary team brought together to coordinate medical and mental health interventions for transgendered people.

As a family therapist Dr. Harvey is especially interested in the relational contexts (family, community, etc) of her clients and the effect of these on mental health. She has worked extensively with queer youth and their families and was a co-founder and co-facilitator of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered youth group at AIDS Community Resources in Syracuse, NY.

Dr. Harvey, an assistant professor of Marriage and Family Therapy, has recently been most interested in training and supervising clinicians to better handle sexuality issues.  She regularly speaks and conducts workshops/trainings about these topics and she serves as an “out” clinician and faculty member using her experiences to dialogue with clinicians,colleagues and students about LGBT issues. 

Dr. Harvey has co-authored a book utilizing family therapy to support and nurture queer youth in the hopes of helping clinicians improve communication and connection between queer youth and their parents.