Affirmative Therapy

Affirmative therapy is a therapeutic approach that validates and advocates for the needs of sexual and gender minority individuals, those within LGBTQIA+ communities.

Affirmative therapists employ a positive and affirming stance that normalizes the wide range of sexual and gender identities.

As an affirmative therapist, I see my client as the natural expert on their identity and experience. It is not my job to question my clients’ identities, it is my job to help them explore and understand themselves and their identities, if that is part of what they want to focus on in therapy.

As an affirmative therapist, I do not attempt to center my client’s identity if they do not see it as central to our work. Nor do I ignore their identity as if it won’t flavor or influence their experience of themselves and the world and how the world treats them.

When their gender or sexual identity is related to the struggles, it is my job to also hold in mind the very real impact of queer and transphobias in the wider culture and how that is shaping my client’s struggles.

I actively work to create a safe enough space in the therapy office, and I recognize that this is aspirational. As an imperfect human being interacting with new, unique human beings, I own that I may inadvertently may say or so something that is received as negative or harmful. If/when that happens, I strive to own the harm I have done, to become defensive, and seek to remedy it.

As an affirmative therapist I see part of my duty to lower barriers to gender-affirming care and so I routinely provide evaluations and letters so that trans and non-binary adults can get the gender affirming medical care that they need. 

Another big part of my role as an affirmative therapist is outside the office, speaking about the issues facing LGBTQIA+ folx when and where I can, both within my personal life and within my social media presence for my business. And I actively work on unpacking and working on my own internalized queer and transphobia that is a natural result of being socialized in our culture.