Chris Gresch

My experience of counselling LGBTQI+ clients has continually deepened my understanding that therapy needs to be more than simply “inclusive” in principle. It needs to be actively affirming, relationally attuned and aware of the emotional impact of living in contexts where gender, sexuality, identity, relationship styles and ways of belonging may have been questioned, rejected, misunderstood or made unsafe.

I have worked with LGBTQI+ clients exploring a wide range of emotional, relational and psychological concerns, including shame, anxiety, low mood, trauma, family rupture, cultural and religious conflict, internalised stigma, relationship difficulties, grief, identity development, neurodivergence, body image, loneliness, discrimination and the impact of having to hide or adapt parts of the self. For many clients, the work is not only about sexuality or gender, but about the deeper emotional consequences of being seen, unseen, mis-seen or conditionally accepted.

My counselling and psychotherapy practice is integrative, psychodynamic and relational. I draw from different therapeutic traditions, but my work is held together by a strong interest in relationship, process and meaning. I am particularly influenced by Clarkson’s relational framework, which helps me attend to the many layers of the therapeutic relationship: the working alliance, the transferential and countertransferential dynamics, the reparative or developmental aspects of therapy, the person-to-person encounter, and the deeper or transpersonal dimensions that can emerge when two people meet with honesty and care.

In practice, this means I pay attention to what is spoken, but also to what is felt, avoided, longed for or communicated indirectly. I am interested in how early relationships may have shaped the way a person experiences closeness, difference, rejection, safety, desire, shame, anger, dependence or independence. Object relations and attachment theory inform this part of my work, particularly in understanding how past relational experiences may continue to live in the present: in the body, in relationships, in self-protection, in fear of being judged, or in the expectation that one’s needs will be too much.

My approach is also trauma-informed. I understand that trauma is not only located in major events, but can also be held in repeated experiences of invalidation, secrecy, bullying, rejection, discrimination, family silence, social exclusion or having to perform safety in unsafe environments. I work carefully with pacing, choice, collaboration and emotional safety, so that therapy does not become another place where a client feels exposed, rushed or interpreted without consent.

With LGBTQI+ clients, I aim to offer a space where identity is neither ignored nor reduced to a problem. I hold in mind the wider social, cultural and political realities that shape LGBTQI+ lives, while also staying close to the individual person in front of me. Some clients may want to explore coming out, gender, sexuality, intimacy or community. Others may want to focus on relationships, grief, trauma, work, family, ageing, spirituality or self-worth. I try not to assume what matters most, but to listen for what is emotionally alive.

At the heart of my work is a steady, reflective and compassionate therapeutic relationship. I see counselling and psychotherapy as a process of slowly understanding how you came to be who you are, what you have had to carry, how you have survived, and what might now become possible in a relationship where you are met with respect, curiosity and care.