An understandable concern of people from minoritised communities such as LGBTQIA+, Black, Asian, Hispanic, disabled and religious beliefs among others, is if they will they be understood by their practitioner.
It may be the case that your practitioner and yourself have different identities. The most important thing is that they take the time to fully understand you as a person and adapt to your needs.
If there is something that is important for you to say or you wish for your practitioner to know about your identity, then please tell them. As practitioners typically work with a diverse range of clients in their experience, most of their training will include some form of how to work with people who may be different to themselves. The important thing to remember is that it is your session and the more honest you are able to be, the more you will get out of it.
Some questions you can ask your practitioner are:
- How do you think about culture in your work?
- Do you understand about LGBTQIA+ cultures?… This is what it is for me…
- I’ve found it easy/difficult to bring X part of my identity. How can we work on this?
You do not need to ask permission to bring aspects of your full identity to your sessions. It is more important that people bring their full selves to their sessions as the worst thing would be if you felt as though you had to leave certain aspects of who you are at the door.
If you feel like you are doing this, then this is the perfect thing to raise and talk about in your sessions as chances are you may be doing it in other areas of your life too. The difference is you may have an opportunity to look into something and work through it.
Remember, the relationship you develop with your practitioner is one of the most important aspects of the work and biggest predictor for overall success. If you have concerns about about any aspects of how parts of your identity are addressed, please speak to your practitioner about this or any other issues that arise. In doing so, it can have the effect of strengthening the bond between the two of you. If there has been no resolution after addressing, then do consider alternative practitioners or ending the work between you.