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How To Overcome The Challenges LGBT Couples Face When Planning a Wedding
Planning a wedding is can be exciting. But for LGBT couples, the process often comes with challenges that straight couples may not have to consider. Here are our LGBT therapist approved tips for couples to plan a wedding that truly reflects your love while minimizing stress.
Protecting Your LGBT Relationship Against Political Stress
The first half of 2025 has been particularly difficult for our LGBT community. As we are all aware, political unrest and targeted efforts to strip away our rights have accelerated in recent years. These forces have taken an especially heavy toll on our trans siblings. It’s in times like these that relationships within our community are tested. Here are ways to fortify your LGBT relationship against the political stress we are facing.
What To Expect When You're Seeing A Therapist To Get A Letter of Support For Gender Confirmation Surgery
If you're a trans person receiving gender affirming care, you know it sometimes involves jumping through some annoying hoops. While overall access to trans-affirming healthcare is getting easier in California, there are still some steps we wish weren't there. One of those is getting a letter from a mental health professional to undergo gender confirmation surgery. We hope this step is eliminated soon. But until then, we'll continue to offer our assessment and letter writing services. If you're considering coming to us for this kind of assessment, here's what you can expect.
8 Signs You Might Have Internalized Homophobia
No one should feel less valuable because of who they love or how they express their gender. Unfortunately, many people experience this pain. Internalized homophobia happens when people in the LGBTQ+ community believe negative things about their identity. This harms self-esteem, relationships, and mental health.
Five Ways Internalized Homophobia is Ruining Your Relationship
We can't live in a society that discriminates against us LGBT folks and not have it effect us. It also affects our closest, most sacred relationships. Here are subtle ways it might be showing up and what to do about it.
Managing Your Own Anxiety & Fear: A Guide for Parents of Trans Teenagers
It's natural to experience a range of emotions about your teen's identity. This is especially true if it feels unfamiliar or triggers anxiety. Ignoring or suppressing your emotions may hinder your ability to provide the support your teen needs. But it's also important that you process your feelings away from your child. Here’s what our teen therapists recommend.
Therapist Support for Gender Confirmation Procedures: What Everyone Should Know
For people who are considering gender confirmation surgery, the role of different professionals in the process can get confusing fast. We'd like to clarify the role of therapists in this process. Therapy during this journey not only supports you emotionally but also fulfills a role in the medical process itself. Letters from therapists are often required by medical providers and insurance companies. Here's what you should know.
Cozy San Francisco Bookstores That Celebrate Queer Literature
San Francisco has long been a hub of LGBT culture. As therapists who love to read, queer bookshops are a bit of weakness for us. These cozy corners offer a trove of queer literature and serve as hubs for connection, celebration, and belonging. The following bookstores invite readers to explore LGBT narratives.
Teen Identity: Is My Child Trans or Just Going Through a Phase?
Adolescence is a trying time time when your child is figuring out who they are and where they fit in. In recent years, gender has become a more common theme. You may wonder whether your teenager is experiencing a genuine exploration of identity or just going through a phase. Specifically, you may wonder, "Is my child trans, or is it just a phase?" Our teen therapists explain the research, the reality, and how you should proceed if your child is exploring their gender.
Internalized Homophobia in Lesbian Couples: Overcoming Through LGBT Couples Therapy
Life is a shared journey when you're part of a couple. Like any journey, it has its share of challenges. One significant challenge that can impact a lesbian relationship's health is internalized homophobia. Its effects can be simple but profound: feelings of shame, guilt, or self-rejection that stem from prejudices against non-straight people.
Celebrating Bisexual Identity And Mental Health
Bisexuality often doesn't get the attention it deserves. While much is said about being gay or straight or trans, being bisexual comes with its own unique experiences and challenges that aren't talked about. That's why we're going to look at what it means to be bisexual, the beauty and the challenges, and how celebrating this part of who you are can make your life better.
Places to Make Lesbian Friends in Los Angeles: A Guide For Queer Women
In a city as big and busy as Los Angeles, it can be hard to find places to make other queer friends. But if you know where to look, there are opportunities to meet and connect with other queer women. Whether you're new to the area or looking to expand your social circle, here are places to meet other lesbians and make new friends.
15 Meaningful Ways To Celebrate Pride As An LGBT Couple
Celebrating pride as an LGBT couple is about more than just waving rainbow flags. It's also about more than the music festivals most major cities have turned their Pride festival into. Pride is both a private and community experience. It's about affirming your identity, relationship and honoring the journey of an entire community.
Podcast: What Straight Couples Can Learn From LGBT Couples
Our clinical director is featured on the Empowered Relationship podcast with Dr. Jessica Higgins. She reviews what LGBT couples can teach straight couples and what to look for in a great LGBT couples therapist.
Improving Lesbian Mental Health: Overcoming Cultural Challenges
Taking care of your mental health is a deeply personal journey, and for lesbian women, this path can be particularly challenging. Navigating through mental health difficulties such as internalized homophobia, misogyny, discrimination, and violence, lesbians face higher rates of depression, anxiety, and social stress. Despite these challenges, there is hope and support available to build resilience and foster better mental well-being.
Podcast: The Importance Of LGBT-Affirmative Couples Therapy
Our clinical director is featured on the CalPsychiatry MindStories podcast talking about the importance of LGBT Affirmative couples therapy. Listen in as she talks about what’s different - and what’s the same - compared to straight couples therapy.
The Mental Health Toll of Underrepresentation: Lesbians and Media
Media holds a lot of sway when it comes to shaping our beliefs and views. Lack of representation in media negatively affects the mental health of lesbians. It may seem like a small issue, but it has far-reaching implications.
Elevating Lesbian Mental Health: The Power of Working with a Lesbian Therapist
Mental health is personal journey. It can be even more impactful when guided by someone who understands your experiences. For lesbians, working with a lesbian therapist can be transformative. The therapeutic journey, when guided by a therapist who shares your identity, can be profound.
Respectfully Asking Pronouns: Building a Trans-Inclusive Community
Creating a welcoming and inclusive environment is essential for building strong communities. No matter what you do or where you work, being respectful of people's gender identity is important. One simple yet powerful way to do this is by respectfully asking someone for their pronouns. Here's how to do so in a considerate manner, why it matters, and what to avoid so everyone feels seen and respected.
LGBT Couples Therapy: Things Your Couples Therapist Should Understand
Some well-meaning therapists say that LGBT couples therapy is no different than therapy for straight people. As great as that would be if that were true, it’s dismissive. Here are six very concrete ways LGBT couples therapy is different than therapy for straight couples.
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Our Holistic Therapy Services In California & Florida
We offer individualized teletherapy for a wide range of mental health and relational issues. Our San Francisco & Los Angeles therapists can help with anxiety, trauma therapy, EMDR therapy, LGBT gay and lesbian therapy issues, holistic therapy, enneagram therapy, therapy for lawyers, couples therapy, therapy for burnout, and therapy for teenagers. We serve many people in San Francisco, Santa Cruz, and Los Angeles, as well as throughout California and Florida. Our team is anti-racist, body positive, LGBT and trans affirming and sex positive. You deserve to feel good!