Happy Pride. If you run a private practice and you want to be a better clinician for LGBTQIA clients, this episode is for you. I'm a gay man, I worked as a clinical psychologist in Moscow, Russia, I worked as a youth counselor and case manager at a homeless shelter where most of my clients were from the community, and I run my own private practice as a registered hypnotherapist in Seattle working with gay men.
I'm also the client who couldn't find a therapist. When I went through my divorce in Chicago, I had the money and I still could not find someone who could actually work with me. I eventually did, but I had to sacrifice the one thing that matters most: therapeutic alliance. That is what an "affirming" badge without real competency does to a person. This episode is me handing you the competencies so your clients never have to make that trade.
We walk through who the community actually is and why it is not one group, the language that builds or breaks therapeutic alliance, and the specific stressors that shape our mental health: the exhaustion of coming out again and again, hypervigilance as a survival response rather than a pathology, C-PTSD, the link between being gay and neurodivergence, and the unprocessed grief of coming out late in life. I also cover gender-affirming letters and why your willingness to write one matters more than ever, plus addiction in our community, chem sex, and party and play, which is the work I'm moving into as I begin my training as an addiction counselor.
If working with gay clients is your desire, or you want to attract more of them to your practice, book a consultation with me. And if you want more clarity, money, and joy in your business through better messaging, website optimization, and how you set your fees, my doors are open. I work with a small number of therapists one on one for six months.
👉 Connect with Me:
* LinkedIn™: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eugene-berezin/
* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eugene.berezin/
* YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@HeartAndProfitPodcast
PAID consultation ($350, 90 minutes): https://calendly.com/eugene-berezin/consultation
Website: https://www.lifepathtc.com/
⏱️ Chapters:
00:00 How to Actually Serve LGBTQ Clients in Your Practice
03:59 Who We Are
12:18 Gender-Affirming Letters
16:35 Coming Out & Hypervigilance
22:11 C-PTSD & Neurodivergence
23:51 Coming Out Late in Life
25:43 Addiction & Chem Sex
32:30 Work With Me
