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Tuesday, 23 January 2018

Understanding Different Types Of LGBTQ Counseling NY

By Steven Cooper


Individuals looking for guidance related to lifestyle issues often have a hard time knowing where to turn. When it comes to LGBTQ counseling NY, The Center provides a number of different Gay affirmative counseling options. Whether needing help with coming out to friends and family, dealing with health issues or recovering from an addiction, The Center offers these and other services.

New York has a number of gay affirmative psychotherapists working in and outside The Center. It should be noted that while this is the case, there are others whom are not supportive and only work to motivate individuals to live a heterosexual lifestyle, even if the individual has desires for same-sex partners. As such, it is important to know what type of counseling a counselor provides before making an appointment.

In most cases, counselors in this area are working from a Gay affirmative perspective. As such, most use a form of psychotherapy designed specifically for those living alternative lifestyles. In all cases, the focus is on making clients feel more comfortable in relation to identity. As such, self-acceptance and authenticity are often part of the curriculum.

While conversion counseling attempts to change an individual into maintaining a heterosexual identity or eliminate desires for same-sex partners, Gay affirmative counseling takes the opposite approach. While originally believed to have been a choice, research has now shown that homosexuality is nature rather than nurture. As such, the Psychological Association of America now has a guidebook for therapists working in this area.

While the Psychological Association of America has had mixed views in the past, the organization now provides a guidebook to help affirmative therapists working in this area. For, studies over the last several years have shown that a gene is responsible for bisexual and homosexual desires. As a result, science has also shown that individuals whom identify in this way can often overcome anxiety, depression, drug abuse and sexual addiction. For, only when an individual can live an open and honest lifestyle can these and other such issues be avoided.

Individuals whom hold religious beliefs in opposition to these lifestyles often hold a great deal of guilt when it comes to having attractions to those of the same-sex. In most cases, it is these individuals whom are sent to conversion therapy. While this is the case, there is often a return to the authentic self and lifestyle at some point in the future.

While the psychiatric field of medicine used to believe that bisexuality and homosexuality were related to mental illness, studies have now shown this not to be the case. As such, most in the field now promote affirmative rather than conversion counseling. For, it is often better to promote the authentic self and acceptance of an individual rather than teaching a person to be someone else.

Promoting acceptance and self-worth while encouraging therapists to study issues related to coming out are now priorities of the APA and other medical associations. For, it can often be obvious that an individual has an attraction to others of the same-sex yet difficult to come out. For, while many LGBTQ+ individuals have recently found freedoms not had in the past, there are those in the U. S. Government and elsewhere which are now backtracking many of those freedoms.




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