Many of my colleagues loudly declare their love for gay people, and then make public outings or give advice, after which people feel emotionally disabled. It is easy to call yourself an LGBT specialist, but this often hides a complete lack of understanding of the real experience with which homosexual people live. I myself am a supertherapist and a sex consultant, and over the years of practice I have seen how this topic has become a convenient tool for hype and a set of views.

Why only a gay man can understand a gay man

I will say frankly: only a gay man will understand a gay. When I am approached by colleagues who are talented, intelligent psychologists who genuinely want to help, they often ask naïve questions about fear of persecution or difficulties of coming out. And these are the specialists who lived in Europe, went to gay pride parades and have much more formal resources than me, who have never seen parades live. But they still do not understand this life from the inside.

A heterosexual specialist undergoes a very different emotional training within his culture. He has never experienced the level of fear when for sending a valentine to a classmate, you face not just social condemnation, but a real threat to physical safety.

He doesn't know what it's like to face a cloud of restrictions from society just for being a natural manifestation of biology. Just as a man will never fully understand the physiology of a woman's period, a heterosexual therapist is not able to fully understand the depth of a homosexual person's frustration.

The main mistakes of helping practitioners

A number of professional mistakes grow out of this fundamental misunderstanding. The first and most common is banal devaluation. The client comes with anxiety before the start of the relationship, and the specialist brushes it off: "What are you afraid of, go for it, everything will work out!". He simply does not see the scale of the inner tension and the trauma of rejection that a person goes through throughout his life.

The second mistake is inappropriate jokes and jokes on the part of the therapist. Not understanding the structure of someone else's life, the specialist begins to joke at his level, in the meantime traumatizing the client.

A separate pain is the certified specialists who studied clinical psychology at universities for four years, where they were taught in black and white that homosexuality is the norm, but remained dense homophobes.

They sit with diplomas at the ready and continue to treat people through the "karma of the family" and esoteric delirium. If you go to psychotherapy, rely on science and facts, and not on your own prejudices.

Shyness in the office and pseudo-support

Another barrier is the fear of talking about sex. Gay culture is quite open, in it you can and should discuss anatomy, lubricants, anal sex features and personal preferences without shame. But when a shy heterosexual therapist and an anxious client meet in the office, a normal dialogue does not work. People sit and crumple, because the specialist himself is afraid to say elementary things out loud.

When a popular psychologist publicly reveals someone's orientation without permission, this is pure outing and destructive aggression. A natural question arises: what kind of love is it if a specialist cripples people for the sake of viewings? I want to urge everyone to be more careful and not to take the word of everyone who declares their tolerance. Rely on real facts, take care of yourself, and choose those who truly share your experience.