Hey everyone.
I am working on my masters in clinical mental health counseling, and I want to be multiculturally sensitive, including regarding the LGBTQ+ community.
I am a straight, cisgender male, and I have only had a handful of gay and trans friends/acquaintances. Multicultural awareness is certainly part of my education, but I don't believe it is close to enough. I want to hear from communities themselves, not just textbooks.
If you feel comfortable, I would really appreciate your feedback to make me a more effective counselor working with people in your demographic.
How can I best serve you?
What have you wished a past counselor could have understood?
What really pissed you off in a therapy session?
What is the most important thing for me to try to understand?
I hope this is received well. I genuinely want to be able to effectively serve all people.
I'm gay and been to counseling. The big one I can think of is just reassuring clients that you're an ally. That may depend where you practice, but it really matters in conservative areas like mine where that can't just be assumed.
And I've also had a couple counselors who seemed really fixated on heteronormative/cisnormative gender roles, so probably avoid that (although the fact that you made this post leads me to believe you already know this)
I appreciate you sharing your perspective.
I am currently living in a Midwest city. Since it's a big college town, it has a mix of support and hate... The surrounding countryside is certainly intolerant. I was originally going to include that in the text body, but didn't want to make it too long.
I definitely plan on being up front about being an ally in my bio once I'm practicing. I plan on getting involved with a local LGBTQ+ youth organization downtown as well.
As for gender roles, I don't really support them. I believe in egalitarian relationships and gender fluidity.
It looks to me like you got this! I suspected as much just based on the fact that you created this post
I wish you the very best in your practice