LGBTQ+ Therapy
The Gay and Queer Experience
Being part of a minority group shapes how we move through the world; we have a different experience of both formal rights and informal social privileges impacting how we love, how we connect, and how we experience safety and belonging. LGBTQ+ individuals and relationships often face pressures that heterosexual, cisgender people do not encounter. Whether it’s dealing with internalised shame, family rejection, social invisibility or hostility, or navigating complex relationship dynamics, these stressors can have a significant impact on how we relate.
Queer and gay relationships are not fully reflected in society. It is difficult to become what we can’t see, making it harder to navigate dilemmas and conflict, such as negotiating open relationships or chosen family structures, to facing discrimination and trauma, these realities can influence how we relate to ourselves and to each other.
We also carry with us a cultural and historical legacy and an ongoing struggle for equality. These experiences, whether lived directly or inherited through community and family, can leave deep emotional imprints. And none of this happens in isolation. Ethnicity, culture, gender identity, class, disability, religion, and other aspects of who we are intersect and overlap with our sexuality in powerful and often complex ways. Every person’s story is unique.
Navigating Life As An Outsider
I offer individual therapy and couples counselling for gay men who feel stuck, anxious, or disconnected. Growing up in a world that often taught survival rather than connection strategies, many gay men fall into patterns of disconnection and isolation, breaking these can feel like a radical act and be difficult to do alone. Research shows us how gay and bi men continue to experience worse mental health overall:
“risk of moderate-to-high depression in gay and bisexual men is 28%, and their risk of moderate-to-high anxiety is 45%, which is significantly higher than in heterosexual men, whose risk is 18% and 30% for depression and anxiety, respectively.”
Some of the main issues that clients seek therapy for include:
Relationship conflict and dating issues
Identity and self-acceptance
Self-esteem and body image
Struggles with intimacy
Anxiety and stress
Depression
Loneliness
Gay Couples Counselling and Relationship Therapy
Gay and queer relationships often carry emotional layers that heterosexual couples may not encounter. Many gay men grow up without the kind of emotional modelling or affirmation that supports healthy relationship skills. Instead, early experiences might have created an environment where secrecy, shame, or self-protection became the norm. This can make adult relationships feel like unfamiliar territory, where the desire for closeness is met with fear or self-doubt.
In therapy, you are not expected to have all the tools already in place. Instead, we work together to understand how your past might be influencing your present and how to build something more secure and nourishing in your relationships now, with yourself and with others.
Resources for gay and queer men
Below are a few recommended books that many have found helpful in exploring identity, connection, and emotional well-being. Each offers a different lens on the experiences of gay men, touching on themes of shame, sexuality, and authenticity.
The Velvet Rage by Alan Downs
An exploration of how secrecy, rejection, and internalised shame often shape the early experiences of gay men and how these patterns can continue into adulthood as perfectionism, over-achievement, and disconnection. The Velvet Rage offers both insight and practical tools for moving beyond these cycles, towards a life grounded in authenticity, self acceptance, and deeper connection with others.
Straight Jacket by Matthew Todd
Written from a UK perspective, Straight Jacket looks at the emotional impact of growing up gay in a society that is still homophobic. The author explores how shame, addiction, and aspects of gay culture can reinforce self-destructive behaviours, while also pointing to the power of compassion, community, and honest reflection as paths to healing.
Tell Me What You Want by Justin Lehmiller
A very thoroughly researched and refreshingly open exploration of sexual desire, based on one of the largest studies of sexual fantasies ever conducted. The author is a social psychologist and sex researcher; he offers a non-judgemental look at the diversity of human desire, sexuality, and gender. Tell me what you want encourages curiosity, open dialogue, and a deeper understanding of one’s own sexuality, helping to challenge shame and foster sexual confidence. There is a podcast by the author you can find here.
Out of the Shadows: Reimagining Gay Men’s Lives by Walt Odets
An exploration of the psychological and emotional lives of gay men, particularly those who came of age in the wake of the AIDS crisis. Odets, a psychologist and psychotherapist, looks at the gay experience with a particular focus on early experiences, building on the work of the developmental psychologist Eric Ericson, who developed the psychosocial developmental model in the 1950s known as the Stages of Development. Out of the Shadows explores how early experiences of isolation, both within families and wider society, shape how many gay men experience the world in adulthood.