Trauma Therapy for Queer and Trans Adults
LGBTQIA+ Affirming Trauma Therapy
Sacramento and online in California
Maybe you have found yourself asking:
Why do I keep ending up in the same kinds of relationships?
Why do my partner and I keep having the same fight?
Why does setting a boundary feel like a threat to my survival?
Why do I keep working until I’m burnt out?
Why is it so hard to give myself permission to rest?
The ways you respond to stress, relationships, and difficult emotions often make sense in the context of what you’ve lived through. These are patterns that once tried to protect you, parts of you who are trying to help you stay safe.
But sometimes the ways we’ve learned to protect ourselves are no longer aligned with the ways we want to our live our lives.
Trauma therapy can help you understand these parts of yourself: understanding what they are trying to protect, listening to the burdens they’ve been carrying, and creating new possibilities for how you want to live your life.
Trauma-focused therapy can you find agency, meaning, and fulfilling relationships
“Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness.”
— Peter Levine
Going Beneath the Surface
Many forms of therapy focus on learning coping skills or managing symptoms. These approaches can be incredibly helpful, especially when you’re feeling overwhelmed.
But sometimes people reach a point where they want to go deeper than coping skills or symptom management.
Depth therapy, or depth psychology, helps you understand the patterns that are continuing to show up in your life and create new experiences to help you feel deep, lasting change.
Approach to Trauma Therapy
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We’ll explore how past life experiences, relationships, and unconscious patterns continue to shape your life. You’ll be guided to make sense of these experiences and increase your ability to make decisions that help you live your life in a more authentic way.
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Attachment experiences (our early childhood and past relationship experiences) impact how we experience relationships, conflict, vulnerability, and safety. We'll work to understand the emotional patterns that developed in relationships and begin creating new ways of connecting with others.
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Parts work, informed by internal family systems, can help you understand the different parts of you that took on protective roles to help you survive. This may include parts that feel self-critical, avoidant, or perfectionist.
Underneath these protective parts are more vulnerable parts of you, parts that often carry the pain of past experiences.
In therapy, we’ll work to increase compassion for your protective parts and build the emotional safety to connect with the more vulnerable parts of your experience.
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Experiential therapy helps you create new emotional experiences. Instead of just telling a narrative of events and analyzing (or intellectualizing) them, you’ll be guided to explore what is happening on an emotional level. Over time, you’ll be guided to express the emotions you’ve been holding inside (in other words, feeling your feelings)
Trauma this work can help address
Relational trauma
Family conflict or dysfunction
Emotional abuse
Complex trauma (C-PTSD)
Healing from abusive relationships
LGBTQIA+ identity-based trauma
Religious trauma
Chronic shame
Grief and loss
What to Expect
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Therapy As a Container for Growth and Change
Many relational wounds developed through relationships, which also means healing often happens through relationships.
The therapeutic relationship becomes a place where you experience connection differently: curiosity instead of judgment, with honesty, and with consistency.
Because of that, finding the right therapist matters. I encourage ongoing feedback and collaboration so we can make sure this process is working for you.
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Seeing What Has Previously Been Unseen
Many of the patterns showing up in our lives happen outside our conscious awareness.
In therapy, we’ll slow things down to notice:
The stories you automatically tell yourself
The expectations you’ve been carrying
The emotions underneath those stories and expectations
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Feeling Instead of Avoiding
Past life experiences have often left the impression that certain emotions aren’t safe to feel. You may have learned to hide your sadness, push away your anger, or ignore your own needs.
Through therapy, you can build the emotional safety to make space to express these emotions.
As you learn that you can experience these more vulnerable emotions without it feeling overwhelming, you’ll be able to move through the emotions, rather than continuing to carry the weight of them.
FAQs
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This practice is a good fit for adults seeking trauma therapy that goes beyond coping skills and symptom management, and instead delves deep into their experiences. Many of my clients are looking for an LGBTQ+ affirming therapist, are recovering from relational or childhood trauma, and want to understand and change long-standing emotional and relationship patterns.
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My style is compassionate, authentic, honest, and direct.
We’ll begin by getting to know you, exploring your history, your relationships, and beginning to recognize the ways you’ve learned to survive.
As we get to know each other, I’ll point out things you may not be noticing yourself. When helpful, I believe in the power of care-frontation: being direct and challenging you in a way that comes from care, compassion, and curiosity.
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This practice may not be the best fit if you’re currently experiencing an acute mental health crisis or need intensive structure and stabilization. Please see my Resources page for a list of support that can better serve your current needs.
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Andy Price, LMFT provides support for people who have experienced:
Relational traumaFamily conflict or dysfunction
Emotional abuse
Complex trauma (C-PTSD)
Healing from abusive relationships
LGBTQIA+ identity-based trauma
Religious trauma
Chronic shame
Grief and loss
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Andy Price provides LGBTQ+ affirming trauma therapy in person in Sacramento and online across California.
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I offer convenient online scheduling. If you’re ready to get started, go here to schedule your first session. If you have any questions, feel free to email me at andy@andypricetherapy.com
Hi, I’m Andy (they/them)
I’m a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. I am passionate about helping people build authentic, connected, and affirming relationships—with themselves, their partners, and their communities.
I specialize in working with queer and trans individuals, couples, and non-monogamous relationships, supporting them as they navigate challenges of identity, sex and intimacy, relationships, political stressors, and life’s tough moments.
Beyond my clinical work, I’m a researcher and speaker. My research centers queer and trans well-being and relationships. I have presented at professional and academic conferences on topics such as gender identity, LGBTQIA+ chosen family, and experiential and narrative therapy.
I value authentically showing up as myself, which means I’ll show you my personality, share my sense of humor with you, and also sit with you in moments of pain. I hope that authentically showing up as myself empowers you to authentically be yourself.