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.
Honestly just the fact that you're asking and are showing the self awareness is pretty great.
I haven't been brave enough to actually seek therapy past a few very generic counselling sessions in university, but I think the most important thing to me would just be someone who doesn't invalidate my existence. I identify as asexual and one of my biggest fears in going to therapy is for my sexual identity to be medicalized and dismissed, as I've heard many others like me have experienced.