Skip to main content
Mental Health

Affirming Therapy for Queer-Identifying Clients Experiencing Anxiety: My Approach

By January 14, 2025No Comments

This blog is authored by Owen Morse, MA, QMHP, a member of the IntraSpectrum Counseling clinical team.

_____________________________

Anxiety is a common mental-health problem that many people, queer-identifying and otherwise, struggle with today. As a therapist, to help my clients understand their anxiety and where it may come from, I put stock in a theory of biological /environment factors. This theory suggests that when we’re exposed to major or minor threatening events during our early years, the parts of our brains that help us prepare and stay safe in threatening events – our “natural alert systems” – can become highly or even “over” sensitive. In other words, when we are exposed to frightening events at an early age, it triggers our biological systems for managing fear – the parts of our brains that help us to prepare and stay safe.

After repeated instances of this happening, those parts of ourselves can become triggered more and more easily. As this sensitivity stays with us into our adult lives, this extreme awareness of and focus on threats is the very essence of what anxiety is, at its core. Our brain’s alert systems go into overdrive, causing us to perceive, worry about, react, and even respond to threats that may – or may not – be present.

For most people, growing up LGBTQ+ in our society unfortunately does expose us to very real threats and / or trauma – in the forms of harassment, discrimination, negative messages about who we are, etc., which can work to increase or exaggerate anxious thinking. Anxious folks are scanning their environment for potential threats and even sometimes perceiving them where there aren’t any, but for anxious queer-identifying folks, there are additional logical reasons to be on the lookout for threats, alongside that anxiety.

For these LGBTQ+ folks with anxiety, this back-and-forth between identity-based trauma (the trauma and threat of trauma we face because of our identity) and anxious symptoms (fear, perception of threat, avoidance, worry) can easily become overwhelming. It’s for these reasons that a safe and affirming therapy environment is crucial to exploring and working on anxiety in therapy.

With my queer-identifying clients who present with anxiety, my first goal is to support their sense of safety, collaborating with them to create a shared, non-judgmental understanding of who they are and what their needs might be. This is a process that takes time and includes developing a real connection with my clients as well as working to personalize our approach to their therapy together. If a client’s safety feels supported, their identity feels understood, and they feel confident they’re being seen in our work, it will ease and nurture their ability to observe, question, or let go of ways of thinking that may no longer serve them, including anxious thinking.

Anxiety controls folks, causing us to avoid certain places, people, and circumstances. Through engaging in deep reflection on what drives us to avoid those things, along with understanding and support, individuals can begin to expose themselves to situations they previously feared – testing out their brain’s alert systems slowly, and hopefully, allowing them to adapt. The goal isn’t to turn off a person’s alert system (because we need those parts of ourselves for protection), but to reduce our alert system’s sensitivity, which increases their sense of self confidence and safety in the world. As an LGBTQ+ identifying and affirming therapist, it is my pleasure to do this powerful work with my clients.

______________________________

This blog is authored by Owen Morse, MA, QMHP, a member of the IntraSpectrum Counseling clinical team. IntraSpectrum Counseling is Chicago’s leading psychotherapy practice dedicated to the LGBTQ+ community. Every day, we strive to provide the highest quality mental health care for clients of all ages and across the spectrum of identities. For anyone needing affirming and validating support or healing with any issue, please click here or email us at help@intraspectrum-chicago.com.