LGBTQ+ AFFIRMING Therapy
Have you struggled to feel included in the community or connected to your true self?
Have you struggled with identifying, understanding, and embracing your authentic self?
Have you struggled to come out to your family, friends, or at work?
Perhaps you’ve found the need to explain yourself over and over to others and they still don’t understand or accept you for who you are.
All of these topics as well as others can be helpful to process in therapy.
Coming to therapy can be hard for the first time, and finding someone that you feel seen, heard, and accepted for who you are can be scary. WellMinded Counseling prides itself on being inclusive and hopes that you will feel welcome working with one of our therapists. We value diversity and inclusivity at Wellminded Counseling and hope to serve as a conduit to change in society's landscape to move closer to those values.
Topics your therapist can cover
Gender-Affirming Care, Including Transgender-Related Care
Discovering and Exploring One’s Sexual Identity and Gender Identity
Sex Positive Sex Education
Dealing with Discrimination/Rejection or Social Isolation
Family Rejection and Chosen Family
Anxiety, Depression, and other mental health concerns
HOW THERAPY CAN HELP
Identifying within the LGBTQ+ community comes with both positives and hardships that people face throughout their lives. Members of this community represent a highly diverse, proud, and resilient community that requires extra knowledge, support, and open-mindedness when seeking health care. Research has shown that LGB individuals are twice as likely to develop mental health concerns throughout their lifetime and transgender individuals are four times more likely to develop mental health concerns throughout their life when compared to their heterosexual and cisgendered peers. Within the community, youth develop depression and anxiety related symptoms at twice the rate of their heterosexual and cisgendered peers. This leads to high suicide rate, struggles with substance abuse, hate crimes, trauma, homelessness, shame, and rejection being disproportionately high within the community. With all of that said, there is still so much hope and love for members of the LGBTQIA+ community and luckily, these are all areas in which a therapist can provide outstanding support and help.
In counseling there is a non-judgmental space for you to openly discuss your personal thoughts and feelings in a safe and accepting environment. We will review, explore, and process the situations, events, or triggers that may cause you to find yourself faced with some of these concerns and uncomfortable emotions. Collaborating to find the best personal coping skill for you to use. While helping you to recognize where the concerns are coming from whether external, internal, the positive and negative, and everything in-between. There are resources to help, and therapy can be one of many ways to help explore one’s identity, become the most authentic version of yourself, and find ways to love and accept yourself and overcome the hardships of life.
At WellMinded Counseling, our clinicians are dedicated to valuing diversity and strive to provide a safe, accessible, and inclusive space for those who identify within the LGBTQIA+ community to help uplift those within our community.
Goals in Therapy for LGBTQ+ Affriming Therapy
Exploring the ideas of gender orientation and sexual identity in an accepting and safe environment.
Discussing pathways for supporting positive character strength and development.
Recognizing the care in family and friends and creating positive and healthy support systems.
Exploring issues of depression, anxiety, substance use, self-harm etc. and what may be leading to these concerns.
Exploring ways to express one’s gender or sexual identity in an authentic manner.
Learning new ways of coping with difficult situations while still staying true to oneself.
Recognize when bullying/discrimination happens and how to respond to these situations in a healthy and safe manner.
Focusing on inner resilience and positive supports/resources.
Identifying and addressing internalized homophobia and transphobia that may be causing feelings of shame and stress.
Providing WPATH aligned care for members of the transgender community.
Exploring the Mind Body Connection and how our physical bodies and mind are connected and influence one another, especially with individuals who identify as transgender.
Check out our resources page for more information
“I believe that telling our stories, first to ourselves and then to one another and the world, is a revolutionary act. It is an act that can be met with hostility, exclusion, and violence. It can also lead to love, understanding, transcendence, and community. ”