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Gender-Affirming Care in VancouverTherapy for Identity Exploration
First, let's zero in on what exploring identity in therapy could result in:This is a space for you to explore identity that heals fractured, defensive, or dissociated parts of you into a cohesive, authentic self. When we meet, all parts of your self are invited, even (ok, especially) the ones that contradict. You’ll find clarity and liberate emotional wounds into lasting change.
❋ Effective Emotional ProcessingPerhaps you are great at intellectualizing your emotions, but don’t know what it means to feel them. Maybe you were never equipped to even identify them. I trust that you can learn to move through emotional wounds to experience clarity and change. Deep emotional processing is the key to moving forward. I am here to move through it and equip you with this essential skill.
❋ Integrated Fragmented Parts of YouThe ways you learned to protect, fragment, and suppress yourself was once a necessary adaptation. Today, they might carry shame, fear, and hesitation to let go. We will find safety within yourself to allow those protective mechanisms to soften, to be right-sized, to trust you to lead with authenticity and confidence.
❋ Being Known, Being Whole❋ Clarity About Self, Gender, & SexualityYou will find answers to questions that you long to solve emotionally, not just logically. Here are some exact questions that I have been asked, and we have explored & found clarity for. Notice if any feel familiar:
It’s just a kink, right? Or, am I trans?
Am I trans enough?
Am I a bad person for having a crush on people other than my partner?
Am I still queer if I haven’t explored it?
Am I queer enough?
Is my kink bad? Am I re-enacting my trauma?
Am I allowed to grow out of a relationship?
I thought I was a safe person, then I caused harm in my BDSM dynamic. What now?
Why do I still have dysphoria after transitioning?
Who am I outside of my relationship?
How do I make a relationship work when one of us is asexual?
What is my own identity now that my partner has come out as trans?
How do I grieve the experiences I didn’t get to have?
How do I start Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT)?
Is it normal to imagine having different genitals to feel aroused?
Do I belong?
Is it too late for me?
When you’ve had to treat parts of yourself like it is separate, disowned, or suppressed, that means you can’t live as a whole person. You don’t need to label your experiences or feelings to prove their existence. To experience feeling known and whole (by yourself, by others) means that you are engaging in the process of change, meaning-making, and becoming. You are exploring all parts of you, including the shadow, and finding your core self.
Finding Yourself
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Courage To Change
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Find Belonging
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Overcome Defenses
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Heal Emotional Wounds
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Sexual Shame
Finding Yourself ✳︎ Courage To Change ✳︎ Find Belonging ✳︎ Overcome Defenses ✳︎ Heal Emotional Wounds * Sexual Shame
Your identity is my speciality.
Providing you with safe, affirming, sex-positive and up to date care is dearly important to me. If you are exploring identity or fall somewhere in the identities of queer, transgender, BDSM-involved/Kinky, or Non-Monogamous/Polyamorous, I want you to feel that the therapy space is where you can be your full self. That may include being unmasked, messy, contradicting, angry, or at times being in your own way.Outside of training in specific therapy models, I am committed to learning any nuance I can through specialized learnings, some examples are:
Dungeons & Dragons to explore identity; Supporting cisgender partners of trans people; Disenfranchised grief in the queer & trans community; The prevalence of kink in exploring trans identity; Fertility care for trans people; Re-scripting, not re-enactment of trauma in kink for post-traumatic growth; 7 Stages of queer relationship development.