I wonder how many of us have had really, really bad therapy. Like you find yourself spending the entire session explaining to your ever-so-interested shrink what a play party is; why drag is important to you; why you say “dick” and not “toy”; what ace or intersex is. What femme is and then what femme means to you. Seriously, what good is finally getting yourself to go to therapy if you can’t be fully yourself in your sessions? If you are constantly having to explain your daily reality to someone who thinks it’s odd, quaint, fascinating, or not-quite-normal? I know someone who is so isolated that they continue going to their straight therapist because they’ve spent so much time with her already; time spent educating the therapist on queer issues, doing intensive groundwork before the two of them can even get down to therapy business. I’m sure you’ve heard horror stories, as well, like the one where the butch goes to the highly-recommended queer therapist and is asked in the first ten minutes, “So, have you thought about transitioning? Because many people find the issues you’re talking about disappear when they transition.” For those of us whose queer identities can’t be synched up with “normal” straight behavior, those of us who aren’t “just like you” queers, finding smart, caring, skilled therapists can be pretty daunting.
Cindy Blank-Edelman, you get one pingy-dingy for your level-headed, kind-hearted, step-by-step blog posts about what a queer client should look for in a therapist.
http://blank-edelman.com/blog/2015/08/lgbtq-friendly-psychotherapy-part-1/
I’m a typewriter whompin’, card catalogue lovin’ white girl from back in the day, and I yearn for a time before the covers of trade paperbacks were all squidgy, so you can imagine that I don’t actually understand what a pingback is. I do know that it can in some way be part of spreading the love, and since that’s what I’m all about at The Total Femme… every Wednesday, I pay homage to the laughter and inspiration to be had elsewhere online.
The Total Femme 