LGBTQ Counseling

Are You A Queer Person Who’s Struggling With Your Mental Health?

“I provide individual and group therapy to many queer-identified individuals. We resolve trauma and wide ranging concerns like those below.”

Do you feel like other people don’t accept you for who you are?

Are you tired of living in a society with such rigid gender roles?

Do you wish you knew someone who identified as queer and understood mental health issues?

Deep down, you probably just want to feel like you belong. Yet in a world rife with homophobia and transphobia, that sense of belonging is hard to cultivate. The rejection you face in the outside world can be traumatizing, causing PTSD symptoms and a deep sense of shame.

Because you don’t feel accepted by society, you may find yourself striving to build a “chosen family” out of your friends and communities. As a result, maybe you’re thinking about seeing an LGBTQ+ therapist like myself who can understand many of the challenges you’ve faced.

Perhaps You Feel Like You’ve Had To Fight For Your Identity

Let’s face it: if you’re a member of the LGBTQ+ community, chances are you’ve met your fair share of discrimination and disapproval. You may have dealt with harassment, bullying, church rejection, unequal access to healthcare and housing, and judgment from your own friends and family. All of these experiences may have taken a toll on your mental health, leading to struggles with anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem.

Yet because you’ve had to fight so hard for your place in the world, you probably have a remarkable sense of self-confidence, self-determination, and empowerment. As a queer therapist who works with LGBT+ folx, it’s my goal to help you recognize your strengths and harness them to achieve your hopes and dreams.

Many LGBTQ+ People Are Used To Dealing With Rejection Of The Highest Order

The homophobia and transphobia that afflict our society are not a queer problem—they are a heterosexual problem arising from the prejudices of straight individuals and the systems of power they control. Queer folx would not be stigmatized with shame if they had been born into a world free from ignorance and hate. They would not struggle with anxiety, depression, or low self-esteem at the rates that they do.

After all, we are social and relational creatures. And for those of us in the LGBTQ+ community, it’s hard for us to find relationships that are safe and affirming. Being queer often means the ultimate rejection—not just rejection from authority figures, but rejection from friends, siblings, and primary caregivers. This is why so many of us in the queer community have such a deep, abiding sense of compassion—we know what oppression feels like, so we find meaning in helping others who have also faced oppression.

If You’re One Of The Millions Of People In The LGBTQ+ Community—You’re In Good Company!

The backlash that we’ve see against LGBTQ+ people is not a result of the Pride Movement failing, but a result of it succeeding. The Pride Movement has empowered millions of people to proudly identify as queer and love who they love in spite of societal expectations. So if you’re one of these millions of people, you are not alone and you are in good company!

Therapy offers a path forward for healing the emotional wounds of the past and learning to love yourself on a deeper level. It gives you a safe, sex-positive, and queer-affirming space to be yourself and work toward a deeper sense of wholeness.

LGBTQ+ Therapy Can Help You Heal From The Past And Develop A More Empowered Sense Of Self

In 2015, I was fortunate enough to be selected through the Yale School of Medicine as one of the nine psychologists in the country chosen for specialized post-doctoral training in the care of LGBTQ+ veterans. Before and since, I’ve specialized in queer issues both through research and counseling. Most importantly, as a member of the queer community myself, I understand many queer concerns from the inside out.

I know both from research and lived experience that queer folx often learn to hide from an early age, since their families and communities just aren’t safe. Many of them couldn’t be fully socialized into their sexualities or gender expressions, which can cause years of relationship issues. As a therapist, my aim is to provide a healing and nurturing connection that reverses the hurtful relationships of the past.

Whether you’re gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or anyone else in the LGBTQ+ community, I’m confident that my approach to counseling can help you heal your shame, grow in your identity, and experience renewed freedom from internalized homophobia and transphobia.

What To Expect In LGBTQ+ Counseling Sessions

A huge part of therapy involves normalizing what was seen as abnormal and deconstructing the harmful beliefs of the past. I want to help you understand that being queer is normal—it is society that is sick. And I believe, as Martin Luther King Jr. once stated, that it’s better to be maladjusted to a sick society than to be part of it. That’s the benefit of being queer. Living a life that brushes up against society’s norms allows us to develop a more independent and empowered sense of self, or what King called “creative maladjustment.”*

I take a relational-cultural approach to LGBTQ+ therapy, prioritizing our growing bond of trust and sharing our tears and our laughter. We will look at the ways in which your relationships with me, other people, and your own cultural values intersect as a whole. Together, we’ll explore the intersection of different social identities so that we can get a fuller picture of who you are and understand how cultural forces impact your relationships, enabling you to create the kind of relationships you want.

Additionally, you and I may do “parts work” in therapy, examining all the subpersonalities within you. There may be parts of you that are shamed, traumatized, afraid, angry, and used to rejection. I want to help you have an interactive encounter with all of your parts, allowing you to taste wholeness and integrate all the conflicting elements of your personality. This method is born from my training in Gestalt, Internal Family Systems and EMDR.

By fostering this deep encounter with all of your parts and providing a compassionate therapeutic relationship, I believe that I can help you transcend your perceived limits and reverse the psychological harm that may have brought you to therapy. The humanist in me tells me that you need gentle nurturing, unconditional acceptance, and a healthy sense of attachment that may have been missing in your past. That’s what I’m here to provide.

You May Have Some Questions About LGBTQ+ Therapy…

I’ve already worked through the struggles of being a queer person. Do we have to work on that?

No, definitely not. I’m happy to meet you wherever you are in life—we don’t need to make everything about you being queer. I presume, however, that many of the issues you want to address are in some way affected by being an LGBTQ+ person. I may be more sensitive to these nuances of queerness due to my background, but I will not focus on them any more than you wish to.

I feel deeply conflicted about my religious beliefs as a queer person. Can you help me reconcile my beliefs with my identity?

I have an unusually strong background in queer religious issues. I have a BA in religious studies and an MA in transpersonal (spiritually-informed) counseling psychology. I did most of my PhD research on queer religious conflict and have practiced in many diverse religious and spiritual traditions from which I learned immensely. I am confident that I can support you in this process, helping you expel stigmatizing beliefs about yourself. You can be religious and queer—counseling can help you see that these can both happily coexist in you.

Even though I’m seeing you for individual counseling, can you still help me with relationship issues?

Relationship issues are my specialty. In a sense, all LGBTQ+ therapy is relationship therapy—our friends, families, and partners are always part of our journey. Since we are social creatures, we always doing family and relationship counseling on some level. After all, neither our pain nor our healing exists in isolation. Just as our emotional wounds often stem from relationships, healing and restoration takes place in the context of relationships. That can happen in a nurturing and compassionate connection that begins between you and me in therapy.

You Have The Power To Take Command Of Your Life

I want to help you tap into that power by healing your emotional wounds and harnessing your strengths. To learn more about me and my approach to LGBTQ+ therapy, you can email me or call 614-859-5994.

*https://hoodmuseum.dartmouth.edu/news/2021/01/directors-letter-creative-maladjustment-reverend-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-and-arts#:~:text=In%20September%201967%2C%20the%20Reverend%20Dr.%20Martin%20Luther,significant%20antonym%20to%20the%20psychological%20concept%20of%20adjustment.