#queer therapists

[thistherapylife]

When our Pride planning committee is out of ideas

[anotherlightcounselling]

Need for Queer Affirmative Therapy in India

Homosexuality is no longer illegal in India, despite that, the LGBT community still finds it difficult to exercise its rights and access institutions that still remained inaccessible to them.  One such area is medical care, for both physical and mental health issues. Due to the LGBTQ+ community's continued underrepresentation in society and among professionals, there continue to be many misconceptions surrounding it.

Now more than ever, Indian youths are increasingly getting more accepting of homosexuality and queer identities. However, it continues to be a challenge for the queer community to openly express their gender choices and accept their sexuality within the confines of school, home, and family.

Lack of family support for LGBT persons can be a serious blow to their mental and physical health in a society where stringent social and cultural norms control the terms and conditions for one’s education, employment, and marriage.

Due to this, LGBTQ+ population runs a higher frequency of mental health illnesses such depression, anxiety, substance misuse, among other issues. The likelihood of self-harming behaviour, suicide, and stress is further increased by psychosocial factors such prejudice, bullying, and social rejection. Even in terms of housing, job, education, and even basic human rights, the queer community faces blatant discrimination in India.

Countless members of the LGBTQ+ community experience prejudice, assault, and societal stigma on a day-to-day basis. Queer people may experience considerable levels of minority stress as a result of these difficulties, and many may need to remain "closeted," that is, conceal their true identities, in order to feel safe and accepted. Due to this, queer people require affirmative therapy techniques in order to feel secure enough to open up about their struggles and seek medical help.

When practicing queer affirmative therapy in India, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and Asexual (LGBTQIA) identities and expression are accepted openly and viewed positively. The clinicians are made self-aware about the multitude of ways in which their LGBTQIA clients' lives are negatively impacted by homophobia, transphobia, sexism, classism, etc.  This training aims to provide a clinician with an intersectional perspective so they can take into account the needs of those who are marginalized.

If affirmative therapy techniques aren’t practiced, the LGBTQ+ youth can be pushed into further psychological distress and even experience trauma at the hands of wrong treatment and discrimination. Due to these very reasons, often times LGBTQ+ people choose not to disclose their identity and fear being vulnerable, open and honest with their clinicians. Hence, there is an increasing need for queer affirmative therapy in India.

A big aspect of queer affirmative therapy in India is affirmation. Which means that the therapist's objective is to validate the experiences of their patients without giving them any medication or attempting to "fix" them. It embraces the patient's psycho-social reality as part of their affirmation process. In India, the queer community continue to live in the shadows and people who identify as queer, don’t feel safe to be out in the open due to stigma and fear of rejection. So to safeguard their mental health, counselors must provide their LGBTQ clients with a safe space.

Aanchal Narang, a queer affirmative therapist in India, founded Another Light Counselling, a mental-health organization that specializes in trauma, gender, sexuality, addiction, and kink affirmative therapy, in order to take into account the systemic challenges faced by queer people and to address their mental health concerns and needs. 

Counselors at this institution are educated to address the various forms of oppression that queer people may experience based on their gender, color, social status, etc., in addition to helping LGBTQIA+ clients reach their mental health goals. Another Light Counseling aims to transcend the stigma surrounding mental health care through accessible, affordable, and culturally-competent counseling services. Clinicians adopt in-depth affirmative therapy techniques and take into account the unique qualities and experiences of each client.

As a collective, Another Light Counselling not only provides queer affirmative therapy in India, but it also educates and supports other mental-health professionals on how to deal with the heteronormative bias of clinicians and how to recognize and counteract the pathologizing of queer identities in order to avoid misdiagnosis. With this knowledge, they are better able to support queer clients in their challenges as well as encourage them to embrace and take control of their healing process.

[howstrangethemusicsoundstome]

New App Helps People Of Color Find Therapists From Their Same Cultural Background - Blavity

A former investment banker and fashion entrepreneur from Senegal has launched an app that connects people of color with therapists from their own cultural background. According to Fast Company , Eric Coly came up with the idea for Ayana after his friend talked about her struggle to find a Black therapist. Coly's friend was especially in need of finding a therapist who can relate to her experience as a Black woman. “Take aside the stigmatization and the lack of access to insurance and resources, [minorities] tend to only find people whom they aren’t able to relate to quite well,” Coly told Fast Company. “And they essentially give up. They buy into the notion that there’s no one out there who can help them.” The entrepreneur focused on building Ayana for the past year, looking to connect marginalized groups such as people of color, LGBTQ communities and disabled individuals to licensed therapists. "We strive to address the strong lack of engagement between minorities and the mental...

This would have been very helpful to me a few years back

[thistherapylife]

Welcome!

I got a bunch of new followers on Saturday and Sunday - Welcome! Feel free to poke around. Normally, it's a blog that reflects my life as a therapist through gif-y goodness, mental health info and reflection, etc. Sunday hit me hard. I'm a therapist but I'm also a bisexual mixed race woman who lives in this world. I need/ed this space to connect to *my* community so I can go on and support my queer kid clients who are hurting and scared.

[forsythia37]

damn. I sure do like [new therapist]. Our first full appt was today, and for one thing they actually went a full 50 minutes (maybe even a little over), and I genuinely felt like we are building an attachment in a way that feels therapeutic for me. I have needed to have therapy back in my life so badly, and I am so glad to be starting back.

Also they already yielded me a gleaming piece of advice to add on to the headphones that act as my almost-constant visor of sound to block out intrusiveness when I’m out in the world, to also use the fierce love of what I do as a nurse to block out some of my anxieties as I go day to day and am nearly bowled over by the simple act of running into a stranger on the street.

bless you, [new therapist]. also you have really good hair and a really wonderful and genuine smile.