LGBTQ+ Therapy
LGBTQ Affirmative Psychotherapy
Seeking a therapist can be a difficult task when it feels like there's an endless sea of professionals out there. Therapy is an incredibly personal journey that requires you to vulnerable to get the most out of it, so it’s only natural to want a therapist that will understand important parts of you. Your therapist needs to be more than just LGBTQ+ friendly, but knowledgable too. It’s not your job to pay for a service but then end up spending too much time educating them about what it means to be LGBTQ. LGBTQIA+ Affirmative Therapy doesn't over-emphasize or ignore your sexuality and/or gender identity. You deserve to learn healthier coping strategies, heal old wounds, learn more about yourself and how to better navigate a sometimes hostile world. You deserve to thrive, love and enjoy your life more fully.
What is LGBTQ Affirmative Psychotherapy?
LGBTQIA+ Queer Affirmative Psychotherapy validates and advocates for the needs of sexual and gender minority clients. It's an approach to therapy that has a positive view of LGBTQ+ clients and addresses the negative consequences of homophobia, biphobia, transphobia and cisheterosexism on our lives.
Impact of Anti-LGBTQ+ Prejudice
There are multiple reasons why there’s a higher prevalence of substance use and addictions in our LGBTQ Community. The obvious overarching explanation is minority stress experienced with being scapegoated by society for our differences. We have been demeaned, devalued, ridiculed, patronized, blamed, incessantly criticized, and have also experience cultural sexual shaming for our very beingness. These are all qualities of an abusive relationship that we’ve been forced to experience first-hand or as a byproduct of being an oppressed minority. Who wouldn’t feel depressed, anxious or have a myriad of other mental health issues as a result of being in a toxic relationship that you can’t fully insulate yourself from and is ongoing?
When we want to feel relief, a sense of belonging, pleasure, or confidence we can turn to a temporary fix outside of ourselves, drugs. Illegal and prescription drugs can be used in ways that medicate and/or increase our psychological/emotional distress. At their best, they can give a temporary reprieve from what ails us in order to look more deeply at the underlying causes, to treat these. They can show us a window into what’s possible so that we can have this without them. At their worst, they can become a nightmare that adds additional shame, isolation and self-rejection.
When we want to feel relief, a sense of belonging, pleasure, or confidence we can turn to a temporary fix outside of ourselves, drugs. Illegal and prescription drugs can be used in ways that medicate and/or increase our psychological/emotional distress. At their best, they can give a temporary reprieve from what ails us in order to look more deeply at the underlying causes, to treat these. They can show us a window into what’s possible so that we can have this without them. At their worst, they can become a nightmare that adds additional shame, isolation and self-rejection.
Hope will never be silent.
— Harvey Milk
Rainbow Baggage
To sustain healthier and more rewarding relationships we need to become more intimate with ourselves, being compassionate with whatever we discover, even the aspects of ourselves we don’t necessarily like.
As LGBTQ people, we share one main thing in common—difference—that’s all too often the object of hate and oppression. Being a sexual or gender minority we experience life through a prism of color that’s different than our cisgender and straight counterparts. While we share far more of a common humanity, our inherent differences get magnified and pathologized. Being society’s scapegoats we can then re-enact these within our community by targeting each other for our differences.
Hearing all these shaming messages about our lack of worth or value, it’s no wonder we bring a little rainbow baggage with us into relationships. We need to unpack the many ways we’ve internalized these messages and the impact they’ve had on our relationships. Getting to know ourselves in this way can make it easier to navigate the natural ups and downs of relationships. When we wake up to ourselves we create an internal environment conducive to healing and growth. Alternatively, unchecked baggage can wreak havoc in our relationships because we’re operating under the influence of our plummeting auto-pilot and any internalized shame for being LGBTQ.
When we approach ourselves with curiosity and openness, instead of judgment, we can more freely learn the historical and unconscious ways we’ve tried to protect ourselves:
Knowing this, we can have a greater sense of choice, make new decisions and respond differently, fostering our relationships.
Our first relationships in life also inform how we seek to love and be loved in adulthood. Ask yourself:
Doing a deep dive into our rainbow baggage, being mindful of how it impacts our beliefs, views, decisions and actions, and responding in a kinder more compassionate way with ourselves, is the process of sustaining a life-long relationship with ourselves and anyone else we decide to be with along the way.
As LGBTQ people, we share one main thing in common—difference—that’s all too often the object of hate and oppression. Being a sexual or gender minority we experience life through a prism of color that’s different than our cisgender and straight counterparts. While we share far more of a common humanity, our inherent differences get magnified and pathologized. Being society’s scapegoats we can then re-enact these within our community by targeting each other for our differences.
Hearing all these shaming messages about our lack of worth or value, it’s no wonder we bring a little rainbow baggage with us into relationships. We need to unpack the many ways we’ve internalized these messages and the impact they’ve had on our relationships. Getting to know ourselves in this way can make it easier to navigate the natural ups and downs of relationships. When we wake up to ourselves we create an internal environment conducive to healing and growth. Alternatively, unchecked baggage can wreak havoc in our relationships because we’re operating under the influence of our plummeting auto-pilot and any internalized shame for being LGBTQ.
When we approach ourselves with curiosity and openness, instead of judgment, we can more freely learn the historical and unconscious ways we’ve tried to protect ourselves:
- Preemptively judging ourselves first before someone else has a chance to;
- Delivering the first verbal punch before we’re the target;
- Hiding or walling off more authentic and vulnerable parts of ourselves;
- Taking up lots of space.
Knowing this, we can have a greater sense of choice, make new decisions and respond differently, fostering our relationships.
Our first relationships in life also inform how we seek to love and be loved in adulthood. Ask yourself:
- Do I only show socially accepted parts of myself?
- Do I only show a curated image of myself that I believe will get the most likes and followers?
- Do I feel pressure to do far more than others to make up for self-doubt and insecurities?
- How much do I let my real-self show up in life?
Doing a deep dive into our rainbow baggage, being mindful of how it impacts our beliefs, views, decisions and actions, and responding in a kinder more compassionate way with ourselves, is the process of sustaining a life-long relationship with ourselves and anyone else we decide to be with along the way.
LGBTQ+ Affirmative Therapy with James Guay, LMFT
I've been providing LGBTQ+ Queer Affirmative Counseling since 1997 with individuals, couples, trouples, and polyfamilies from adolescent youth to older adults. I've provided workshops and online trainings to other therapists on how to be welcoming and affirmative toward LGBTQ clients. My commitment and passion is to guide and cheerlead your self-discovery where you don't have to compromise who you are. You deserve a space where you can be authentically you without the worry of judgment or ridicule. When you allow yourself to be open about your experiences, practice radical self-acceptance and self-compassion, you open up to a new world of endless possibilities.
Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
— James Baldwin
— James Baldwin
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