EMDRIA Members Respond: Community Cultural Wealth and LGBTQ+ Pride Month

EMDR therapists can celebrate LGBTQ+ Pride Month by intentionally using the lens of Community Cultural Wealth to identify internal and external resources in their clients. We asked EMDRIA members for video or written responses for the following:

“Describe ways that you incorporate community cultural wealth into your work with clients who identify as LGBTQ+. For instance, what internal or external cultural resources might you install or strengthen to help these clients?”

***NOTE: Play the video and click on the ‘CC’ icon in the lower right-hand corner for closed captioning on the videos.

*** Melissa Galiotto, LPC

“In my office, there is a collection of older and new children’s books. This has stimulated clients who have experienced childhood trauma to recall fond memories of childhood reading or singing. In turn, they work to install memories and positive images of either those times when they enjoyed a children’s story or series or identified a character from a book as part of their RDI. Some clients have had trouble floating back over those painful memories and were able to use the Puff the Magic Dragon song, loved by a grandparent or sibling, as a tether to a safe space. With all of my clients, we frequently discuss how we may pass on to a younger generation a means of coping or a skill, whether during a ride on the bus or mentoring a co-worker or being a part of a larger community project. Happy Pride Month! I am so incredibly proud of all of my clients but most especially when I hear about those that have felt maligned by family members that do not understand their identity and then form friendships that become healthy families. So happy for them.

*** Sue Genest, RCC

“One thing we forget to ask all those discriminated against is the question: “What wealth is there in your community? We need to be attuned to the difficulties, the hatred, the anti-laws, the hate crimes, unique challenges, etc….. all really important to know about. However, it is also useful to allow clients the space to speak about the unique offerings, strengths, resources, and benefits of their community/ies despite the worlds’ social exclusion. This isn’t to negate the harms society does, but to also recognize there are features of every community we could learn from as a greater society and enhance our clients lives. This kind of approach could have changed colonialism to perhaps a quest for deep wisdom gained from indigenous knowledge, practices, medicines, and morality around the world. I hope someday we all learn from the tremendous knowledge base of indigenous peoples and all who have experienced social exclusion and discrimination. Invite your clients to name the tremendous wealth of their communities as well as the pain of social exclusion and violence they suffer. I include the following in my consent form:

What, if any, social discrimination, oppression, exclusion, cultural or societal trauma have you experienced (e.g. racial or sexist oppression, homo/bi/trans phobia, micro/macro aggressions, social exclusion/s)? If yes, please explain (optional). You may speak about this at any time in our therapy.
What unique offerings, strengths, resources, and benefits are there in your community/communities?”

*** Daniel (Danielle) Godfrey, LCSW-R

*** horizon greene, LICSW/LCSW

“I am a queer fat femme who practices at the intersections of oppression, grief, trauma and liberation. My EMDR and trauma healing practice is deeply woven within liberatory practice culture and I come from a lineage of queers, witches, and healers dedicated to justice and liberation for all people with a lived experience of oppression.

Queerness in all its beautiful expressions is a well of resources our trans/nonbinary/queer/two-spirit/LGBIA+ clients can reach for in their lives and in their EMDR therapy. There is something so beautiful that happens when we co-create the relational space for people’s true humanity to be seen and genuinely welcomed—a necessary ingredient (belonging) to create relational safety in trauma processing. Anchoring therapy in the embodied knowingness of queer wisdom—that healing happens in the unique pathways our client’s systems intuitively know to follow—taps into the abundant cultural wealth of queerness.

Our queer clients show us over and over again that healing happens in brilliant, unique, collective, vibrant ways. And too, our queer clients stand in the lineages of queer ancestors and transcenstors whose hopes/dreams and cultural trailblazing are a lineage-resource our clients can access, weaving those visionary rainbow threads into the fabric of EMDR healing.”

*** Cathy Hanville, LCSW

*** Dr. Tiff Lanza

***Jamie+ Marich, PhD, LPCC

“One of the great pleasures in my EMDR therapy career, both as a therapist and as a trainer, was to be able to lead my company’s first ever basic training cohort specifically for LGBTQIA+ identified folks. We launched this training in 2022 after witnessing the success of cohort-based training models within The Institute for Creative Mindfulness. Part of my style as a trainer is to get folks to think outside the box (or to smash it altogether) about what we can use as resources in EMDR therapy preparation phase, with or without bilateral stimulation. As an avid music lover, working with music and helping clients make playlists to support their journey during a session or in between sessions has always come naturally. As an expressive artist/expressive arts therapist and as a queer person, music is a balm to my soul, and I’ve seen music be an important part of the coping and healing process for so many members of my LGBTQIA+ family. My usual style is to play music over break during in-person and online trainings, and during our inaugural LGBTQIA+ cohort, one of my assistants and friends Tammy Moore declared, “We should do a training playlist!” We invited any training participant who desired to submit a song to us over chat, and we assembled it into an “I’m Coming Out” Training Cohort Playlist. I’m happy to share it with you here; as the first, especially because it originated in this cohort, it remains the most special. Yet I have followed suit and have done a similar community-building exercise during standard EMDR therapy trainings as well. Here is the playlist on Spotify if you want to listen, dance along, or be inspired: https://spotify.link/bmGvcFr9eKb.”

***Amber McKinney-Morgan, LCSW

*** Terri Moser, LMFT

“At Heart of Peace Counseling, I work to provide a safe environment. While adding little touches into my office of the different community flags, colors, and designs in the LGBTQ+ community. I leave these in place so everyone can see. While also providing a place where they can process with a therapist who understands these are their stories and events. I continue to do trainings to help me stay aware of my biases and increase my knowledge and work in the community. I often think of a story I read over and over as a child: Horton hears a who. That book taught me that everyone has value no matter who they are. That everyone who comes to my office deserves my services. At Heart of Peace Counseling, everyone is welcome.”

*** Gail Neves, LMHC

“It has been a privilege and pleasure to guide my trans and non-binary clients through phase 2 of EMDR using social capital as a form of community cultural wealth. An example that comes to mind is how many of my clients are lovers of video games and gaming culture as a whole. There have been times where it’s challenging to identify a living breathing person to install as an internal resource and characters from video games such as Zelda have been an enormous cultural resource. As someone who has played the most recent Zelda games and identifies as Non-Binary this has been a way for me to build and strengthen connections and lean into cultural wealth with my clients. It’s been very rewarding to be able to reference and explore these imaginal characters that hold significance for both myself and my clients.”

*** Eslia Perez, Psychologist

“The clients that belong to the LGBTQ+ community have, like all human beings, a very valuable internal wealth, the particularities of their areas or parts female and male are complemented in such a way that activating and enhancing them is one of the resources that becomes a source to heal the early, intergenerational, war and exile interpersonal trauma in our countries. Taking into consideration its cultural roots, an integration of memory networks is made, profoundly healing the history of pain generated by psychological trauma derived from natural or man-made events.

An example in my country is discrimination based on race, language, and appearance that is identified as a reason for harassment and devaluation. Belonging to a diverse community is the very thing that can be strengthened as a cultural wealth for healing.”

*** Patrick Walden, LCSW, LICSW