What Affirming Counselling Actually Means

Affirming appears on a great many counselling websites, and it is worth being specific about what it should mean. In practice it means you do not spend your sessions educating your counsellor, justifying your identity, or managing their discomfort.

It does not mean a counsellor who agrees with everything you say. It means one for whom your identity is context rather than the problem to be solved.

What It Looks Like in the Room

Your identity is not the default explanation. If you come in about work stress, the work is about work stress. A counsellor who routes every difficulty back through your being queer or trans has made your identity the subject when you did not.

You are not the teacher. You should not have to explain terminology, relationship structures or the basics of transition. A counsellor who needs educating should do that on their own time, and a good one will say so plainly if they are out of their depth.

Minority stress is understood as real. The research is consistent that the elevated rates of anxiety and depression in LGBTQ+ populations are substantially attributable to the experience of stigma, discrimination and concealment rather than to identity itself. A counsellor who understands that does not pathologise the response to a hostile environment.

Your relationships are taken at face value. Whatever their shape, they are the relationships you have, not a phase or an arrangement requiring justification.

They can hold uncertainty. Plenty of people arrive unsure about identity or orientation. Affirming means sitting with that without steering it in either direction, including toward a conclusion the counsellor finds more comfortable.

What It Should Never Involve

Any practice aimed at changing sexual orientation or gender identity. So-called conversion therapy is prohibited under Canada’s Criminal Code, and it is harmful. If anything in a counselling relationship moves in that direction, leave, and it is reportable.

Subtler versions exist: framing identity as trauma-caused, delaying support indefinitely on the grounds of needing more certainty, or persistently treating identity as the presenting problem when you have named something else. Those are worth naming when they happen.

Questions Worth Asking Before You Book

• What experience do you have working with LGBTQ+ clients specifically?
• What training have you done in this area?
• How do you handle it if I raise something outside your experience?
• What are your intake forms like, and do they allow me to state my name and pronouns?

The last one is small and informative. Forms that force a choice between two boxes tell you something about how much thought has gone into it.

A counsellor who answers these without defensiveness is usually a reasonable bet. One who responds with “I treat everyone the same” has, without meaning to, told you they have not thought about it much.

The Practical Side in a Smaller Community

Nanaimo is not a large city, and the counselling community is not large either. Concerns about running into your counsellor, or about who else is in a waiting room, are legitimate rather than paranoid.

Virtual sessions are worth considering for that reason alone, and our post on whether online counselling works covers the format. It also widens the pool considerably, since a counsellor anywhere in BC becomes available.

What People Actually Bring

The same things everyone else brings, mostly: anxiety, low mood, grief, relationship difficulty, work stress, family conflict.

Some things that are more specific: decisions about disclosure and to whom, family relationships that have changed or ended, navigating healthcare, the accumulated weight of small daily incidents, and in some cases the trauma of more serious ones.

None of these requires a counsellor who shares your identity, though for some people that matters and it is a legitimate thing to want. What all of them require is one who does not make you do extra work to be understood.

Practical Takeaways

Affirming means you are not the educator and your identity is not the diagnosis. Ask about specific training and experience, and treat “I treat everyone the same” as an answer in itself. Anything aimed at changing orientation or identity is prohibited and harmful. In a small community, virtual sessions widen the options and the privacy.

When to Reach Out

Reach out when something has been weighing on you for weeks, when you are carrying a decision alone, or when you want somewhere you do not have to explain the background before you can get to the point.

If you are in crisis: call or text 9-8-8, the Suicide Crisis Helpline, at any hour. The Vancouver Island Crisis Line is 1-888-494-3888. In an emergency, call 9-1-1.

Getting Started

The Counselling HUB offers LGBTQ+ affirming counselling in person in Nanaimo and virtually across British Columbia. A free 15-minute consultation is a low-stakes way to see whether a counsellor is a fit. Get in touch.