Identity Concerns

While a seasoned therapist should be able to work with diverse populations and people of different backgrounds, there is something to be said for sharing a sense of understanding with another person based on lived experience. That being said, two people with similar identity statuses may experience the same event and end up processing it very differently. Therefore, it is no easy task to hold at once the uniqueness of an individual while also understanding how they are perceived by society at large, and appreciating what this interplay means for their sense of self-hood. It takes a skillful and thoughtful therapist to effectively communicate this complexity to a patient and validate their experience.

Given the diverse identity statuses of our staff, we are in a novel position to understand you and meet you where you are at. Whether that is speaking the same native language or having shared in-group language, you save both time and energy that you would otherwise need to spend educating therapists who don’t have this knowledge and experience.