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Andrea Gutiérrez-Glik, "Healing the Oppressed Body: A Therapeutic Guide for Radical Self-Liberation" (Penguin, 2026)
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- [00:00]
A
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B
Hello, this is Helena Wiesing, your host on the New Books Network. Today I'm talking with Andrea Gutierrez Glick about her new book Healing the Oppressed A Therapeutic Guide for Radical Self Liberation, published by Penguin. Welcome to the show, Andrea.
- [01:34]
C
Thank you so much.
- [01:35]
B
Elena and I want to open with our traditional opening question. To the extent that one can know one's motivations. What motivated you to write this book?
- [01:47]
C
Well, I just love the way that you asked that question in the first place. To the extent that one can know. And I have recommended so many therapy books to clients and to other therapists, to students of mine when I teach workshops. And most of them are incredible and life changing and I have never been able to recommend one to clients and students and therapists in my network that has case examples that represent the clients that we work with when it comes to specifically sexuality and gender, but also just sort of more complex than those two identities, more intersections and that has always felt like this gaping hole in the field and the lack of attention and attunement to the way that oppression can lead to exacerbating trauma and other presenting issues that clients have. There's been a lot more work done on oppression, generally speaking, but less so with the way that a lot of my clients experience it as Queer and trans folks. So that was the, the main motivating factor. But also, I have written my whole life. I started keeping a journal when I was, I think, like six. So I've always wanted to write. And what's been the most incredible, humbling experience about this process is that it turns out I'm not a very good writer. And I don't mean that in a bad way. I just like to take pen to page or fingers to keyboard and just write. And it's not very succinct or clear. And so that was a really fascinating part of this process, was to really reckon with where my skills are, which, luckily is mostly as a therapist versus as a writer.
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B
Well, that's interesting you say that, because I was. My experience was that I thought you were a great writer. I mean, for this book, for this, the type of book that it is. And what I mean by that is that I feel like this is. This is like an engaging psycho educational text. Right? Yeah, it's very conversational. Like, I, I sense your writing style is very conversational. And in that you also, you're, you're very generous with yourself. You start off, you know, you started with bringing yourself into it. And I, I. And you make it really clear why that is so important for, for the topic of the book.
- [04:27]
C
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And, you know, my clients and when I do teach workshops, my students like, the reason that they are choosing me as a therapist is definitely the modalities that I'm trained in, but I think is also is that more casual, conversational approach. It's just sort of. It's personality. I talk about personality so much with my clients about. They're like, why did all of these horrible things happen to me? And I'm, like, able to laugh and be funny and enjoy life. And it's like a lot of that just comes down to personality. So I'm glad that my personality came through in the book. That's definitely what I wanted. Because I think the other piece of this is, is the lack of self that gets included in a lot of therapeutic texts. The therapist writing it as the expert, as the healer, versus as a co. We are. What is the term? We are on this journey together. We are, like, going through this at the same time. And I had to go through and learn. Fellow traveler. That's the term that was really eluding my postpartum brain. But I had to go through everything I went through to be able to be the therapist that I am, but also write the book. So I'm gl. That was clear. Thank you for seeing that.
- [05:37]
B
Yeah. And there's one term you used in the introduction. You write about your own experience of finally finding a therapist that really was a therapist you needed, someone who you could relate to in a deeper way. And then you write about this process of finally to give myself over to the queer unknown and all it held. And I thought that was so touching and poetic, the queer unknown. Because you talk about this enormous uncertainty and how scary it can be, but you talk about it in the context of also offering hope that even though the big unknown that is a particular experience for a queer person is so scary and overwhelming, there's also this kind of excitement about the journey of healing that you've been on and that you guide your clients on.
- [06:42]
C
Yeah. Thank you. I was just thinking about an article I want to write about being a queer person who is attracted. Personally, I'm attracted to people of all genders, but opting out of dating cisgender men my age, which is not a criticism of all cisgender men, but there is a certain way that I was raised and that my peers were raised to treat each other when it comes to heterosexual relationships and opting out of that dynamic. Not that it doesn't exist for the younger generations, but I do see it changing quite a bit, which is beautiful. But opting out of what I thought I was supposed to do or what I was told to do when it came to romantic partnerships. And to me, the queer unknown was this opting out. And so from that place of doing that, even though it was terrifying, it also meant that I got to opt out of a lot of other things. So like opting out of. Of having kids because you're supposed to versus because you want it. Opting out of having a traditional career path. I've had a very non traditional career path that I'm very proud of and then also just sort of opting out of anything you don't want to do, as long as it doesn't hurt anybody. So the queer unknown really unleashed me into being so able to give myself everything I needed. And then if I did want a partner, which I ultimately did and have, then I would be choosing that versus I have to be with a man is that I can't take care of myself or I have to be with a man because I need that validation or I'm. I'm not worthy. So, yeah, it was a big journey and I watch my clients go through it all the time. Same with my clients who are trans and who are ready to come out whatever that means or transition for them. It really is like the, the trans unknown, the gender unknown, whatever that looks like. And it's terrifying, but it's the most liberating experience one can have. Yeah.
- [08:30]
B
And I love the way you're holding both that it is both terrifying and liberating. And you also mentioned, like, it's about finding the space to question what a queer life would mean for me, that there needs to be an exploration where you're questioning and exploring. But what is my life, for example, as a queer person, what is my queer life going to be? And there's such a, there's such an expansion to that way of holding and giving space for that exploration. And I think that's.
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C
That.
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B
That feels powerful in a time where there's so much pressure on us to constantly arrive at, be arrived at answers already. All the time.
- [09:18]
C
Yeah, exactly. Right, Absolutely. Yeah. And I talk with my clients and honestly my friends in my community, even more so. It feels about how everything that we do, it feeds our life, whether it feeds our creative practice, our lives as therapists, really figuring out your shit in your 20s, 30s, sometimes 40s, sometimes even 50s, that is part of having a non traditional path in life. And it really does end up making our lives so much richer. And the things that feel really hard in life end up becoming these places where we grow. I'm thinking specifically for, for me right now in this moment, like parenting, the person I was when I had my first child compared to the person I am now, is a radically different person. And I see that with my clients after any gender affirming surgery, big breakups, grad school, moving, coming out, you know, separating themselves from an abusive partner or biological family, even chosen family, like, it hurts so bad. And then your whole life opens up to you and that can happen 20 times over. It's pretty incredible.
- [10:29]
B
Yeah. You talk about this, the transformations, a lot of healing in life. And I love how you really open up this topic of what is healing, what does it look like and feel like, what can it be? And so you, you talk about or you operate with like three big core themes of healing, compassion, freedom and community. And I wondered if you would speak a bit to these three and how they connect and how you use them.
- [11:04]
C
Yeah. So I was trying to find some structure for the book. Again, this is me figuring out that I had a lot to learn as a writer, which I do feel like I did in writing this book. It definitely was like a crash course in writing. So I was really struggling with. I have all of these modalities that I want to offer and discuss. But I don't want the book to feel too clinical, and I want there to be takeaways that people can really touch on and remember easily and offer something new. And so I was thinking about what are some threads throughout all of the chapters? What are some threads throughout all of the modalities that I'm presenting that can be connected, that can really bring it all together? And in thinking about my practice and my own life and the lives of my community members, what are the experiences? What are the. What's the felt sense of healing, of liberation? And that's really where I came to those words. And that if you really look at any transformational experience, any healing that we do, any act of self liberation, it can be drawn back, connected back to one of those concepts. And especially what I think of as queer embodiment, which I talk about in the book quite a bit through the lens of these alternative methods of getting into your body. That felt like a very loud theme throughout the book. And so those themes were really drawn also from that concept as well.
- [12:34]
B
Yeah. Because the book is filled with all kinds of very rich exercises, both experiential reflection, you. There's such a variety, like you can use it as like a little kind of toolbox in that way and go back and mix them up. I mean, in that way, the book is really a rich resource, I think, certainly for clients or people on their healing journey, as well as for therapists or clinicians. And I was struck by how you weave together, like the part about freedom is where you really bring in the importance of embodiment and the semantic pieces of healing. But then you, you really weave it in with community and self compassion. So it's like I. I read it as like, you, you're really presenting like an integrative framework.
- [13:33]
C
Does that resonate? Absolutely. That's. I really draw from so many different modalities, but also not even modalities like traditions or concepts in my practice. And a lot of it is also gleaned from my own life experience. Yeah. So the being able to name certain practices as somatic healing feels so important in. Especially in this moment right now, where a lot of my clients will come and they'll say, like, I need to do somatic therapy. I'm like, oh, well, you already do it all the time. And also therapists feeling pressure to do some sort of magic trick with their clients or have their clients experience some sort of catharsis or a transformational experience in every session. So it felt really important to highlight all of the ways that specifically because again, this is the perspective I'm running from queer and trans people. Anyone at the margins has been experiencing healing in their body in a multitude of ways for hundreds of years, if not thousands.
- [14:36]
B
Yes. And I love how you're, you're here, you're speaking to how there's not one modality, that's the only medicine, and you just apply that one medicine and that's it. Like you're really showing how we need to. You, you're integrating from different modalities in very specific way for the specific people that you're serving here in. For you, it's, you know, queer and trans people that this, this integration where I had a wonderful kind of insight, I hadn't, I hadn't thought about it, but you really make it so clear why you, among all the many things you integrate, you also draw on ifs or specifically part. More broadly, parts work.
- [15:25]
C
Yeah, yeah.
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B
Because of the way parts work is crucial for queer and trans people. And I was like, of course it is. But I wonder if you could speak some more to that, because that really felt like an important part.
- [15:40]
C
I had this really funny experience of being invited to teach at, I think it was nip, the National Institute of Psychotherapy. And they wanted me to do an EMDR MDR credits workshop on using EMDR with queer and trans folks. And I basically presented the book, right. So everything I drew, I drew from the workshop for the book and vice versa. And at the end, it was so fun to read people's feedback. It was great. But a couple people were like, this was just about using IFS or parts with emdr. And I'm like, exactly like, that was the whole point, right? Was you can't. And I would also say the same goes for anyone with complex trauma, which is most queer insurance people, most of our clients, that you really can't use EMDR without including working with parts or using that perspective to even do the reprocessing. But yeah, for any person that's been fragmented and the focus typically has been on people who experience complex trauma, which is spot on. But also I think being able to add in the way that any oppressed body is forced to fragment every day, that could be a lot louder. So I'm glad that you really heard that in the book.
- [16:49]
B
Yeah, that's the thing, right. Obviously parts work can be good for anyone and certainly all kinds of trauma, complex trauma. But there was something really pressing for people with oppression related trauma. You also write, you had this very clear kind of clarification of oppression. You write to be oppressed is to be forced into experiencing a diminished sense of self and worthiness. And I thought that clarification also really reflects back on the importance of parts work. And you also mentioned kind of the ways that the different modalities, they all have different backgrounds. I like how you kind of. You also touch on the backgrounds for this and it's not lengthy, it's very nicely, kind of just a little bit of the background, not a whole long, long lecture, but it kind of gives that kind of overarching look around like where these modalities come from, how they develop. You also draw an attachment theory, a bit of the origins of psychoanalysis and psychodynamics. And I just love how that helps the reader to kind of zoom out a bit to look at both trauma and healing in a bigger perspective.
- [18:10]
C
Yeah, I'm really grateful to hear that that resonated with you because that is a part that is missing so often from trainings is like, how did this get created? What was the purse? Who was the person who created this modality? What were they drawing on? What is their theoretical framework that they're
- [18:29]
B
working with and why their blind spots be.
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C
That's exactly right. Exactly. What are they missing? Or where have they even co, opted? You know, indigenous healing traditions, ancestral healing traditions. Yeah. So I love to name that and I. This is a soapbox that I always say, like don't get me started on this one because I'll go for a long time. But I feel really passionately that these institute trainings can and should be made accessible financially. And so I love looking at how simple and easy it is to use certain modalities that you can pay $16,000 to get trained in or you could read a really good book or go to a two hour workshop. And so until those institute trainings are made accessible for therapists because especially those who are in marginalized bodies can't afford them. That's a big place where I like to come in and be like, hey, this is actually a modality that you can use with your clients as long as you have a license and you're going to use it ethically. So that was another part of the book, was wanting to bring in some modalities that a lot of my supervisees, because I do also supervise therapists, are like, oh, I can't use ifs with my clients because I haven't done the three level training. And it's like, oh, that's simply not true.
- [19:40]
B
Yeah, yeah. And this is a big issue in the field, the way that these barriers operate. Yeah. And you also address this, I think, think in a way indirectly by talking about you. You have several cases where the, your. The cases you use are like amalgamations.
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C
Right. Or
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B
composite cases where you speak about their journey and their work with you. And then also you kind of bring in these stories about how they are already engaging in work outside of the therapy with you and you kind of showing how that is central to their healing process. Like for example, the way that you know nature as holding environment and crucial for healing. For the healing process for many people, certainly with complex ptsd where the trauma was in. In relation to caregivers, there's just always going to be an element of that pain where the natural world is. Offers a sense, a type of holding that is just always going to feel safer.
- [20:50]
C
Exactly. Always going to feel safer. And so uncomplicated. I don't have to bump up against my grief if I'm held by the ocean. And I do have to bump up against my grief. I'm held by a friend or a lover in a way that my parent never held me. So nature is a really neutral, safe place for a lot of people to experience regulation and attunement and attachment. Every time that I have a client pick a safe place for EMDR are, it's always somewhere in nature. It is rarely, rarely not.
- [21:21]
B
Yeah. And I think it's good to see more and more focus on this. I mean, I think there's a bit of a eco shift or ecosomatic shift in the field of psychotherapy. There's much more renewed interest in this where we're kind of also, I would say maybe we're dismantling the human exceptionalism has been. That is really prevalent in our time and for the way late stage capitalism is operating.
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C
Right. For sure.
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B
I also wanted to maybe speak to this thing of the way you bring in community and the collective because you really weave in the individual's healing journey with the collective. That's like a theme throughout your book of constantly weaving them back and forth. And there were some things I was really touched by.
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C
You.
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B
You bring in your own experience or you're very generous and you talk about how you felt saved by the queer community. Community. And you had that experience of a queer community being crucial for your own healing process. And then you mention that, you know, you listen, you talk about all the many things that are important for healing and then when it comes to community, very important for healing. You then bring in the kind of the classic psychodynamic concept of the good enough. And then you apply it to community, the good enough community. And you write, when we're turned away by those who raised us, community becomes our good enough caregiver. It's rarely perfect, but it's often good enough. And that sentence blew me away because I think you're touching on something very important and also really tender and difficult for many people.
- [23:20]
C
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Wow. I really come from a community myself of good enough slash deeply imperfect, as I think most people do. And I think about my clients who, whether it's the coffee shop that they go to, an online community that they're a part of, a messy group of people dating each other, sleeping with each other, whatever it is, there's always this like, oh, this is so it's. It isn't what I thought it was going to be, or it isn't perfect and the grief in that. But that, that is, if you really think about the concept of the good enough caregiver, that's exactly right. And so when we stick it out when things are hard in community or when we hold space for people who are on their own journey, I think that's the biggest thing. Right. Is like, you want to join a community of people who, like, love you and accept you and have their lives together. And then typically there's rupture, and then there needs to be repair or there isn't repair. And sticking around for the repair when it isn't going to harm you psychically is so important. And there's been times in my life where I haven't stuck around for repair, and I'm really glad I didn't. There's times that I wish I had, but the times that I did, I definitely don't regret. And I see that with my clients who are grappling with rupture in community spaces all the time. Because the reality is, especially if you are queer and trans, any other marginalized body, you're coming into this with your own attachment trauma, and you're going to play it out with your friends and your lovers and your co conspirators and your comrades, and you see this all the time. What is the end of any great political movement? Well, I mean, other than, obviously, typically a cisgender man being sexually abusive or emotionally abusive or both. But other than that, the second most common one is this inviting and this inability for there to be space, to hold the complexity of the individual within the collective. So when I see it work, when I see people be Able to repair in community or even hold that it's not going to be everything they thought it was going to be. Really beautiful things happen.
- [25:33]
B
It's really fascinating to hear your experiences on this and your reflections because I mean, what's so hard is that when we're in group settings, I believe that the group can sometimes kind of be more activating and difficult to be in and more threatening or regressed, as we say, than on the one on one level. But. But at the same time, a group can also provide a much more intense type of holding and mirroring and containment and healing than one person can do. So it's like both directions. Right. So it's so complex to work with that, that tension. And I wonder about your thoughts on how, how to navigate that, what to keep in mind when we're working through things on the community level or the group level.
- [26:32]
C
Yeah, I struggle with this question too myself. Like I don't do couples therapy. I don't do group therapy for this reason. Like I really thrive in the one on one with my friendships too. Most of my friendships really are very one on one for this reason. But I, I really believe so strongly in doing your own individual work for the collective healing. And it doesn't say we can't heal collectively or in community, obviously. Right. I talk about that a lot in the book and I believe in that deeply. But when we say, hey, I'm really noticing that this is bringing up some work that I have to do on myself. And then we go and do that, whether it's with a therapist or a 12 step program or any other way that one can work on oneself and then come back a different person or come back with a different perspective. And this is something that I really, because I do talk about 12 step programs a lot in the book because in my experience, my clients experience, it is a space that is this therapeutic option that is so radically, wildly different than therapy. And it is free and it is available at pretty much any hour of the day. What I love about 12 step, which can feel really abrasive at first, is you always, no matter what has occurred, you own your own part in it. And that is a concept that I would have rejected very strongly in my twenties when I felt incredibly harmed by an ex girlfriend and my family and all of these other experiences that I had where I was like, I'm the victim. And I needed that experience, I needed to feel that. And I did for a long time. And then it wasn't until my 30s that I was able to say what part did I have on this? And that honesty with myself has pushed me to grow in ways that I never would have expected. And so it isn't to say that if someone harms you, you should go home and be like, what did I do wrong? But it's more so to really look at yourself when you do enter these relationships where there is tension or rupture, is to really what, you know, keep your side of the street clean, get right with yourself, whatever that means. And then also to look at what reenactment is happening. That's a favorite question of mine, again, for myself and for my clients. How is this familiar? How am I playing out stuff for my childhood here with this, you know, friend or colleague or person I'm dating? Where am I bringing all of my old wounding here, trying to have a different experience, but unfortunately just recreating the exact ways that I was hurt by my family?
- [28:55]
B
Yeah, I feel called to read this quote from the very end, actually, because you're speaking to it. And this was so beautiful and so beautifully captured, your book. You write, our individual healing is collective healing, and our collective healing transforms us on a personal level. There is not one without the other. And I was very touched by that. And what you're speaking to now here is. Is really to just sit with the complexity of that because we. We often throw around a lot of terms around connecting collective healing and liberation for all. And it's. It's very easy to kind of turn it into, like a nice, warm buzzword. But you're speaking to just how. How hard it is to live this truth that individual healing is collective healing. It's enormously hard.
- [30:01]
C
Yeah, it is. Especially when there. Because we live in such an individualistic society, it's so easy to say, oh, psychotherapy is just replicating that. Right. You're going off into your little room with your therapist, and you're not doing the hard work in community. And I think that's very binary as well. I think we need both. I love when I read the acknowledgement section of a book. Maybe it's not even a therapy book, it's fiction or it's a memoir. And the person thanks their therapist and is like this, you know, none of this exists without you. And I love how we are at the silent, sort of like silent helpers in the background or supporters, and that these artists, that we love their work, whether it's art in any way, whether it is trainers at your institute training, whether it's an artist at the MoMA, whether it's a writer, any movement worker there is a therapist typically standing in the shadows that no one knows about. I think that's awesome. Like, I love, love thinking about all of the incredible stuff that my clients do out in the world and how our work supports them. I'm not saying it's all me, it's mostly them. I'm just kind of there to hold the space, provide some tools when necessary. But that all of that ripple effect is so powerful. And I love when I hear from an old client from 10 years ago, whether I run into them on the street or I get a little message on Instagram or on an email where they're like, I'm doing great. I think about our work all the time. And here's all the like incredible stuff I've been able to do in the world because you held the space for me to become who I actually am. And so to me, that is a great example of the way that therapy is individual healing that feeds the collective. Yeah, yeah.
- [31:46]
B
It takes time. I think that that long term perspective there is so important. It's making me think about how your book is such a timely work on this period of we're in where there's so many changes happening. I'm thinking here of the changes towards more justice, more openings, more critiquing old systems that are not working, confronting systems causing harm in many ways. And I mean, there's something so liberating and powerful and expansive about this time. And many of us, you know, we're very aware and we study and we have this like, awareness of it, but then it's almost like similar to the healing work of trauma, that it takes time in the body. Like it takes time for the body to rework. And the neuroplasticity of healing takes time. Just like it takes time to work through the harmful systems and creating systems and improve. Like for, for example, the training institutes or higher education or workplace culture. It takes a lot of time. It's an ongoing work.
- [33:10]
C
Yeah, absolutely. I love what you said about like, it takes time in the body because I. Maybe you have this experience too, but there are moments where a client walks in to a session and because it's so slow over time, that integration piece of therapy, but also just integration of self. But you look at them and you're like, oh, there you are. Like you did it. You know, you're you now. And I see this a lot with my clients, obviously who are trans. And it's not about a physical representation of transition, but more a feeling of like, oh, you were always this person and now you can shine that outward. Or it's just the way that someone is holding their body. Or it's a way that someone dresses or has maybe modified their body with tattoos or piercings or dyed their hair, whatever it is. It's not just about aesthetics, but I think that's a very loud example. It's also that someone holds themselves or talks about themselves and you just think like, wow, you really have brought these pieces of yourself back together. And you can just see that it's such a beautiful thing to witness as a therapist. And yeah, it's. There's no measure, there's no assessment tool to be like, oh, you live in your authenticity now. It really is just a feeling. And I love when I get to experience that, witness my clients experience that.
- [34:32]
B
Yeah, we can't measure, measure that. This reminds me of one of the terms that you introduced that I thought was really interesting because it's like, I think you kind of completely reframed the use of the word. You introduced this term of mismatching. I would love for you to speak about that because it was a really interesting new use of the word.
- [34:55]
C
Yes, yes. And I got that reuse from Lana Epstein, who's an incredible psychotherapist. She's a trainer with sensory motor. She's an EMDR trainer as well. And I took a training with her eight years ago at the Cape Cod Institute, which was a really cool experience. And she talked about these attachment mismatches that we get to experience in therapy where we have a completely different experience than what we did as a child. And our brains heal and our parts heal. And really that is all we're ever doing in therapy is trying to set up a mismatch. But then something that she didn't touch on because it isn't her specialty, but that I really witness with my clients is the way that community and freedom in the body, self compassion too. Absolutely. But experiencing those out in the world in all these different ways again through that sort of queer embodiment lens of all these things that queer and trans people do all the time that are mismatches. Right. So I was shamed as a child for being gender non conforming and then now I'm celebrated because of it. It's a very easy example, but that is incredibly rewiring for the nervous system, parts attachment. So the mismatching is something that we can give ourselves, something that we experience in community. And then it's kind of the whole idea of therapy in the first place is getting to Have a new experience.
- [36:19]
B
Yeah, you talk about this. I mean, some people might recognize the term neuroplasticity. And I. You make this super simple obvious point, but I was so struck by it. Like you say, just the act of a weekly consistent going to therapy is its own. Like you're mismatching as in that, that you, you are creating a new experience.
- [36:43]
C
Right, right, exactly. Yeah, yeah. When. When I have supervisees who are like, I don't feel like I'm doing enough with my clients or a lot when I teach trainings, EMDR or OCD trainings, I just don't feel like I'm doing enough for my clients. And it's so important to remember, listen, if you really feel like you aren't someone is getting worse or is truly not getting better and they need something else, that's a different story. But apart from that, being that consistent loving witness to someone's life is incredibly helpful. I think about, you know, that therapist that I had who is queer and was the first time I experienced a therapeutic relationship with another queer person at the time, wasn't trained in a lot of things that I then later got that I really needed specifically OCD therapy at the time, emdr. And at first I, when I did finally get for myself that type of therapy, I was a little resentful. Like, hey, I could have used this 10 years ago. But at the end of the day, the thing that was really healing about that relationship, it was never going to be be that that would have been, I think is. Is something that is maybe more prevalent now. But I really just needed a consistent loving person who looked not like me per se, but was like me to be, who was like a little bit older and a little bit more settled. Just to be like, you are okay, you are good as you are, and just hear me, listen to me, hold space for everything that I was going through. And so if you can do that for your clients, that's awesome. If you want to add some other tools on top of it, great. But that alone is incredibly transformative for anyone.
- [38:20]
B
And this is also such an important shift we've seen in the field of at least like modern psychotherapy in the sense of there used to be a much more of that more conservative, authoritarian idea of the therapist role and neutrality. And we've really in this, this big shift because we can really see the importance of the mirroring and the attunement that not everyone can offer the same type of mirroring attunement, of course. And that is really important. And it's very valid when people are seeking out therapists because they need a very particular kind of mirroring. And you speak to that in a really solid way for, for just how, how, how crucial it is for any trauma healing.
- [39:14]
C
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. And I think especially if you. We also need to see ourselves represented in the world. And so a lot of my clients who are. I see a niche specialty of mine is I work with a lot of therapists. A lot of my clients are therapists. And so some of them became therapists because they're like, oh, I didn't realize that, like, we could do this thing meaning, like other queer people, you know, in their 30s. And so being able to see that I have my own practice and that I, I hold this space in the world has really opened that up for them, which is exactly what the therapist that I saw who was queer did for me. So I love being able to be that person. But then also there's, you know, I think that we, we have to see people that look like us, whatever that means, literally whatever that means, or who are like us, to know what's possible. So I think that's another huge shift that we're seeing is therapists who are not the stereotypical Freudian character being therapists. And, you know, I have so many people reach out to me, hey, I'm looking for a therapist who is blank as someone who's not me. I'm looking for therapist who's black. I'm looking for a therapist who's trans. Like, do you have any referrals? I love that that person knows I need that I need to see myself reflected back in that very specific way in order for me to do healing and feel fully seen. And that's something that we just didn't have the option of, you know, 10 or 20 years ago.
- [40:43]
B
Yeah. And it also points to, like you shared about your experience is that we will also need different therapies therapist at different times in our lives.
- [40:52]
C
Yeah, for sure.
- [40:53]
B
Depending on what the big life transitions we're going through. And that's bringing to mind for me one of the other areas of specialization. You have a perinatal client, which I also share that specialization. And I was thinking about because that's an example of you have this field, perinatal mental health or working with the perinatal population. But there's also these like, subspecializations because it's a very different experience for the queer perinatal client compared to a client who's not queer and going through the perinatal transition. And I mean, it's. We've had. I mean, there are more and more clinicians specializing in perinatal. We have, we have much. Just within the last 10 years, we've had like, enormous amount of growth and interest and training, which is great. And yet we see these sort of. Of sub specializations, if you will, where we're not seeing enough.
- [41:53]
C
Yeah.
- [41:54]
B
And I. I wonder your experience about that. And. And you're seeing the work ahead for that.
- [41:59]
C
Oh, my gosh, absolutely. Well, when you were saying, like, what's next? You know, and after the book that was allowed. That was a really loud one for sure. There's. I feel like there's two, maybe so many more than two. But just to get more specific kind of these two areas that I find myself specializing in completely from. Again, you go through really hard things and then you're able to use it at some point in your life. When you're a therapist, you can kind of use it right away, which is great. So from the queer perspective, there's such bad information out there about every part of it from beginning to end.
- [42:35]
B
The perinatal.
- [42:36]
C
Yeah, perinatal parenting. The legal stuff. I mean, truly just all of it. There is misinformation. There's just not. There's no information. We're literally just, you know, so I'll be in a session with a client. Well, they're. They'll say something that is just simply not true. Medical. Medically not untrue, legally not true about queer conception and queer parenting and family building. And I'll be like, listen, I. Can I. Can I say something or can I share something? You know, and they're like, I had no idea. Blank. Really important thing. Like, oh my gosh, we just don't know. Even these incredibly, you know, like, smart. Well, well, read on the subject. People who've read all the books and done all the things. It's like, oh, that's actually not. Not how that works, or that doesn't always work that way. And so I find myself sitting constantly with clients in the role as educator. And I'm like, this is simply from my own experience and my own research. And I would love for that to change. I don't exactly know how to. But then also this other part of it too, is the fertility component, for sure. Where. And I see this because I do see, you know, let's say queer people who are partnered in heterosexual relationships or heterosexual clients who are on fertility journeys. That's kind of the other side to it is not just queer Family building, but also just like fertility in general. And never would have seen myself specializing in this until my wife and I went through that experience because we had to as two women wanting to have a baby together. And so I also feel this, like, very intense hyper specialization that's emerged in my practice of fertility journeys and loss and trauma and grief and all of that. And that can impact literally anyone. It just happens to also impact queer people. So there's this really interesting tension here where you want to say, like, oh, straight people have it so easy, but that's really not always true. Not even close. And then obviously with the postpartum period, that can affect anybody, regardless of their gender or their. Their fertility journey. Definitely, if you go through more trauma in your fertility process, postpartum does tend to be. Can be a lot harder because you're kind of going into it traumatized, to be honest. Right. Birth trauma, things like that. So I really. Yeah, it has been such a loud calling to me since becoming a parent, but then also since going through fertility treatments and everything like that. And there's just very little support, very little information. And I think that as more. As more queer people become therapists and as more queer therapists build families, I think there will be more support available. But there definitely needs to be more on every front that I touched on.
- [45:25]
B
Yeah. And I think the whole question of the perinatal and family building and fertility, I mean, it is such a hot topic. I mean, there's nothing like these topics that can elicit some strong kind of politicized projections for some people. It kind of can shut down basic compassion, but it also means that it holds that potential for, like, expansion and liberation. I think to really reckon with it, how we need to have much more focus on it and widen our cultural understanding and our cultural practices around the compassion for it. Right. Because it's about caregiving. Right. It comes down to caregiving. And I think, you know, without getting too into a political discussion, I think it's a reflection of our culture's issues with care.
- [46:22]
C
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.
- [46:25]
B
That.
- [46:26]
C
It makes me think about this incredible book called Essential labor by Angela Garbus that is so, like, brings all of these concepts together about what, how mothering, mothering being a genderless term in her sort of presentation of it, caregiving, if you want to make it even more neutral. But how it. The political aspect of it is so far reaching. It's racial, it's about gender, it's about class. It's everything. And all of the ways that the comforts that any person experiences, has. Because you're being taken care of by someone, whether you see that person or you don't see that person. Yeah, it's very far reaching. Absolutely.
- [47:07]
B
Andrea, we are almost out of time. I just wanted to end us on. Just, just wanted to ask you any other projects or things you're working on or anything else you wanted to put on people's radar for your work in the world.
- [47:23]
C
Yeah. Thank you. I am really thinking about everything we just talked about, for sure. Absolutely. Parenting and motherhood and queer conception and all of that. And then also I was asked at the book event that I got to do when the book came out, like, would you ever write another book? And I was like, no, absolutely not. Unless it was about ocd. So that's sort of my. The other soapbox that I get on. And the amount of trauma therapists that are becoming interested in somatic therapists, because it's kind of the same thing. Right. That are interested in taking OCD trainings so that they can support their clients that have it, because at least 25% of them do. 25% of people with PTSD or trauma have OCD. So that is a train that I'm just going to keep writing, whether it's trainings that I'm offering or supervising, consulting, potentially writing. But I would love to see every EMDR therapist, every trauma therapist have icbt, which is the OCD modality that I use and trust the most in their toolkit, especially because the trainings tend to be about five hours. So it's really quite easy to knock out, especially when you need all those CEUs. So that's just like sort of a campaign that I'll be on probably forever.
- [48:50]
B
Yes, yes, of course. It's ongoing. Well, I hope one day there'll be a book on that from you and you know, that day. I would be delighted to interview you about that. Thank you so much, Andrea, for your time. It was a pleasure to talk with you. Thank you for listening to this episode of the New Books Network. We are an academic podcast network with the mission of public education. If you liked this episode, please share it with a friend and rate us on your preferred podcast platform. You can browse all of our episodes on our website, newbooksnetwork.com Connect with us on Instagram and BlueSky with the handle ew booksnetwork, and subscribe to our weekly Substrac newsletter at newbooksnetwork.substack.com to get episode recommendations straight to your inbox.