Expertise

Common Disorders

Compassionate Counseling

Depression

One of the most frequent psychological disturbances in our community is also one of the most treatable. Clients often enter therapy with an overwhelming sense of hopelessness and helplessness, common symptoms among many depressed persons. However, for those dealing with sexual orientation or gender identity issues, they are often left without a solid sense of connectedness to what would typically represent a person’s support system within our society. Treatment for depressed clients in the LGBTQ+ populations includes reconnecting the individuals in significant ways to appropriate and healthy support.

Anxiety

This type of disorder can take many presentations from sleeplessness to eating disorders to low self-esteem, to obsessive-compulsive behaviors, to posttraumatic symptoms. For those in the LGBTQ+ community, there is the added issue of learning to live at peace within the margin of society. Therapy can be very beneficial for those clients who feel they have lost a significant measure of control over their own lives or feel overwhelmed to a point where they cannot move forward in more normal functioning patterns.

Compassionate Counseling
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Sexual Orientation

Sexual orientation refers to the gender one finds oneself sexually attracted. It may or may not include acting upon these attractions. Being drawn to another human being is often more complex and dependent upon other variables than gender alone. Many times people will find themselves wanting to be sexually close to others more because of traits or characteristics of personality than simply another’s anatomical presentation....

Gender Identity

Gender identity refers to how one perceives one’s own gender, from the inside out. This perception may or may not align with how one’s physical anatomy is constructed. It may, therefore, differ from how society might perceive the individual. Physical anatomy, made obvious at most births, does not necessarily correlate with how one perceives one’s own gender. In fact, the two may be vastly different....

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Nonbinary Identity

While the prefix in transgender, Trans, comes from Latin meaning across, beyond or through; it implies movement from one place to another in terms of male or female. The concept of identifying as nonbinary references just the opposite. It is a declaration of being both stationary as well as a distinction of not being defined by any place on the transgender continuum. A person who claims to be nonbinary is reporting that they feel no affinity for being male or female. Most often their pronouns are chosen to be they, them, or theirs. When experiencing pressure to choose a gendered identity to suit someone else’s preference or convenience, they will sometimes balk, shut down, or become agitated as this request is akin to asking the nonbinary person to choose a different color skin.