How Queer-Affirming Trauma Counselling Supports Healing in Vancouver

Finding a therapist who understands your lived experience can make all the difference in your healing journey. In Vancouver, there are many counselling and mental health options, but not all provide the safety, validation, and understanding that queer and trans folks deserve—especially when navigating complex trauma.

This post explores how queer-affirming trauma counselling supports healing in our community by looking at queer-affirming care, trauma-informed approaches, complex trauma, intersectionality, visibility, and accessible supports.

What Is Queer-Affirming Counselling and Why It Matters for LGBTQ+ Clients in Vancouver

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Have you ever been working with a professional and you are put in a position where you have to explain your pronouns, gender identity, or feel required to "come out" due to heteronormative assumptions? For many people, this is a regular occurrence.

Queer-affirming counselling is a therapeutic approach that seeks to be a support and validate individuals' lived experience as it relates to their queer identity. It acknowledges the diverse sexual orientations and gender identities. From this lens, folks can seek to explore their reasons for coming to counselling without feeling additional pressure or stigma within the therapeutic relationship.

How Trauma-Informed Care Strengthens Queer and Trans Trauma Counselling

Trauma-informed care is a framework that recognizes and responds to the impacts that trauma has on folks, looking to respond in a way that is safe and supportive rather than stigmatizing.

This framework often works hand in hand with trauma counselling, as trauma counselling is a specialized form of therapy designed to help individuals process and move through the impacts of traumatic events.

Some therapeutic approaches seek to work specifically with various types of traumas, such as Internal Family Systems (IFS), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Somatic therapy, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), and Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT).

Finding a therapist who takes on a trauma-informed lens to trauma therapy can create a more understanding and tailored experience to people's individual healing and processing needs.

Understanding Complex Trauma (C-PTSD) and Its Impact on the LGBTQ+ Community

The term complex trauma, or C-PTSD, is becoming more and more common as the world better understands the complexities of compounding traumatic events. Complex trauma is the psychological distress that results from repeated, prolonged exposure to traumatic events. Complex trauma is often seen when individuals have experienced abuse or neglect and highlights the themes of interpersonal and invasive harm.

The impacts of complex trauma on individuals who experienced this prolonged exposure to trauma in childhood/adolescence can have a multitude of impacts, including:

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• Impacts on attachment

• Brain and body development

• Emotional responses/regulation

• Behavioural impacts: reactivity or appear unpredictable

• Cognition: thinking, memory, problem solving

• Self-worth/Self-concept

• Economic disparities

Complex trauma is a specific sector of trauma that is common in those with intersecting identities, and finding someone who can take in all of the context and hold space for every layer of your lived experience can be a vital part of healing.

Intersectionality: How Multiple Identities Shape Trauma and Healing

How do all of these topics come together? Intersectionality is a social theory developed by Kimberlé Crenshaw to explore and understand how multiple identities and systems of oppression intersect, creating unique experiences of discrimination and privileges for individuals.

Identities such as race, gender, sexual orientations, gender presentation, disability, class, and education all can impact a person's experience with complex trauma, or leave that person at higher risk of experiencing complex trauma.

For example, a queer individual with complex trauma may have limited resources to address their trauma due to a lack of safe queer-affirming supports in their area.

Why Visibility and Affirming Supports Are Essential for Queer Trauma Therapy

Having inclusive, queer-affirming supports is vital, and having queer-affirming trauma supports can create a foundation of safety where deeper healing, self-acceptance, and empowerment can thrive. People deserve to have all of their identities seen and understood in the therapy room, and everywhere else.

Suggestions for exploring fit with a new therapist as a queer/LGBT individual looking to do trauma work:

• Do a free consultation and ask how they work with folks with your identities and lived experiences?

• See a queer/LGBT identifying therapist if this shared experience is something you are looking for.

• See what trauma-specific approaches to therapy they use?

• Ask how intersectionality informs their trauma work?

• Ask about virtual sessions if location, transportation, or feelings of safety are a concern?

If you have any further questions or would like to explore what queer-affirming trauma counselling could look like with me, feel free to book a free consultation!

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