Importance of queer-affirming couples therapy
Therapy is important. Queer-affirming therapy is vital if you're in a queer relationship. Finding a therapist who understands your specific needs and can help you maintain your relationship is crucial. Queer-affirming relationship therapy can be a powerful tool for assisting queer couples in building healthy and sustainable relationships. In this post, we'll explore why queer-affirming therapy is so important, and we'll look at some of the specific benefits it can offer to queer clients.
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The therapist can address your concerns without you educating them…
Queer-affirming therapists can support and hold space for you while you explore unique issues in queer partnerships, like:
Coming out
Resiliency factors in queer communities
Heightened rates of mental health issues related to discrimination
Increased rates of suicide attempts
Historical trauma
Multiply marginalized identities
Queer-affirming couples therapy can be challenging but rewarding because…
you get to learn new communication skills
it allows conflict and repair to create more bonding
learn about and work with your attachment styles
increases self-acceptance and self-compassion
it can reduce shame and anxiety
you can openly explore kink and polyamory without being pathologized
Queer-affirming therapists can support you while you explore your gender…
Be sure to ask your therapist about their training and experience first and foremost. Still, queer-affirming therapists tend to make it their priority to stay up-to-date on training and interventions around sex, sexuality, and gender.
At Rouse Relational Wellness, we continually seek out and offer continuing education resources around sex, sexuality, and gender to ensure that we provide you with up-to-date care.
With a gender-affirming and trauma-informed lens, queer-affirming therapists can help you explore how you relate to your gender without ascribing any pathological, colonial, or oppressive lens to their work with you. Instead, we can help you identify the parts of yourself that are true to you, reduce shame by making space for them, and help you find your community for added support.
Furthermore, we can help you navigate the medical process and occasionally make informed referrals to our established partners and colleagues.
Acknowledge the sociocultural pressures impacting you…
Queer-affirming therapists tend to* (no guarantees, of course) utilize works from queer theory and critical race theory. Hence, they are usually politically informed and aligned so that they can acknowledge and/or hold space for the sociocultural and environmental stressors. Acknowledging these aspects helps put your stressors into perspective. This can let you identify how much of your concerns are connected to the relationship, and how much is related to being overwhelmed by other stressors.
Lastly, it is encouraged for you to ask your therapist about their experience when you are seeking queer-affirming and gender-affirming care. We are here to help provide you with the best possible care that you deserve, and if we cannot do so, then it is in everyone's interest to find the provider that can offer you that care.
If you are a queer couple seeking couples therapy, look for therapists who not only state that they are queer affirming but show how they are on their website or during an intake. Don't be afraid to ask around for referrals or contact local LGBT centers for recommendations.
Lastly, at Rouse we offer in person marriage and couples therapy in San Francisco, California. If you’re a couple in California apply for an intake with us today to see if we’re a good fit!