Embracing Your True Self: How LGBTQIA+ Affirmative Counselling Can Help
For many LGBTQIA+ people, the journey toward self-acceptance is long, complex, and often filled with both internal and external challenges. Even in an increasingly open world, questions around identity, safety, and belonging can surface in subtle and not-so-subtle ways—especially when it comes to relationships, family, or navigating spaces that don’t fully understand us.
Counselling can offer something deeply valuable in this context: a space where every part of who you are is welcome.
As a gay man and integrative counsellor, I know how powerful it can be to sit with someone who affirms your identity without question or hesitation. LGBTQIA+ affirmative counselling isn’t about reducing you to a label or assuming your experience—it’s about recognising how the wider world has shaped your story and offering a relationship where your full self can be seen, heard, and understood.
What is LGBTQIA+ Affirmative Counselling?
Affirmative counselling acknowledges the realities that LGBTQIA+ people often face:
The effects of coming out (or choosing not to).
Navigating rejection, discrimination, or microaggressions.
Internalised shame or doubt developed from growing up in environments where queerness wasn’t safe or visible.
The experience of living with intersecting identities (race, gender, culture, faith, class).
The deep longing to feel whole—and to feel loved just as you are.
In this type of counselling, we won’t pathologise your identity. Instead, we’ll explore how your identity has shaped your life, your relationships, and your sense of self. We might look at early experiences of hiding parts of yourself, or how trust has been built—or broken—in your relationships.
And beyond that, we’ll make space for joy. For self-celebration. For softness. For becoming.
What You Might Bring Into the Counselling Room
LGBTQIA+ people come to counselling for all kinds of reasons—not just because of their identity. You might be struggling with:
Relationship difficulties (romantic, familial, or otherwise)
Anxiety or persistent worry
Low self-esteem or body image issues
Questions around identity or life direction
Past trauma or painful experiences that still affect you
Feeling stuck, lost, or disconnected from yourself
Counselling can help you untangle these threads, explore them at your own pace, and move toward a version of yourself that feels more grounded and free.
Why Open-Ended Counselling?
In my practice, I offer open-ended counselling, which means we’re not racing against the clock or trying to “fix” you in six sessions. We take the time to understand the patterns that have shaped your life—and to notice what begins to shift when you feel safe enough to explore them.
It’s not always easy, but it’s real. And often, it’s in the deeper, slower work that real transformation happens.
You Deserve to Be Fully Seen
If you’re part of the LGBTQIA+ community and you’re thinking about starting counselling, I want you to know this:
You are not too much. You are not alone. And you don’t have to figure it all out on your own. Counselling can be a space where you begin to come home to yourself—and I’d be honoured to walk alongside you in that process.
Curious about starting counselling?
I offer a free 15-minute consultation to help you get a sense of whether we’d be a good fit.