Coming to terms with our sexuality can be a huge process. Being honest about it, connecting to it, and feeling confident in how you define your sexuality and carry it in the world is an important thing. And one that can feel overwhelming and distressing for many, many people.
Sometimes it feels as if sexuality is something to hide. Something just for you. Sometimes it feels impossible to talk about, particularly when it does not fit what was expected of you, or what you were told you should be doing.
We start from a place where you are allowed to be who you want to be.
From there we work out what is right for you.
The effects run deep. Shame, guilt, loneliness, isolation. Even when someone chooses to come out, the process carries weight: worry about rejection, fear of losing what is already there, judgement, the ways others may react.
We still live in an environment where, if a sexuality is different, the response can be hostile. Discrimination exists. Sometimes the judgement comes from inside. The internalised stigma that says you do not deserve this, that you should feel disgust, anger, or sadness about who you are.
The work here is non-judgemental and unhurried. There are no rights and wrongs. We do not take a position on what is acceptable in sexuality.
We help you explore the barriers to feeling comfortable with your sexuality, be honest about them, and work alongside the distress that comes up, so that expressing who you are starts to feel safer. We take time to think about the steps that are right for you, without pressuring decisions or asking anyone to come out in ways that don’t feel safe.
We work with shame: to reduce it, to reduce the threat the world can feel, and to increase hope, connection, and safety around your sexuality. People come out the other side able to operate in the world in ways that feel good, and that allow them to thrive.
Just come in and tell us where you are. From there we work out what is right for you.
LGBTQ-affirmative therapy is therapy that does not pathologise non-heterosexual identities and is informed by minority stress, internalised shame, and the specific developmental experiences of LGBTQ people.
Yes. Many men come out in their thirties, forties, fifties, or later. The shift in sexual identity later in life has specific clinical features that are well understood and worked with.
Internalised homophobia is the absorption of negative cultural messages about being gay or bisexual into one's own self-concept. It often shows up as shame, avoidance, or anxiety around sexual identity.
HOCD (homosexual OCD, or sexual orientation OCD: a form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, an anxiety condition driven by unwanted intrusive thoughts) is a pattern of intrusive, unwanted doubts about one's sexual orientation that cause significant distress and are treated through the OCD framework. It is distinct from genuine questioning of sexual identity, which is worked with very differently and with full affirmation of all sexual orientations. A careful assessment at the outset determines which kind of work is right.
Yes. Many heterosexual men work on questions of sexual identity in this practice. The frame is the same: non-pathologising, non-prescriptive.