If you're asking yourself whether therapy will work for you, Hannah Dickey MSW, an LGBTQIA+ affirming therapist in Virginia, responds to: Will therapy work for me?
Woah, those questions are stingers! Let’s break them down a little more.
What’s the question “is this going to work for me?” asking, really?
When I hear that, my mind automatically goes to:
This person may really be struggling with self-doubt.
I wonder if they think they’re broken.
If you think that you need to be fixed, change who you are, or get rid of part of yourself in order to get better...
My internal response is that my mind might yell: AHHH! YOU’RE NOT BROKEN!
As an affirming therapist, and a queer neurodivergent human, I believe this to my core: You are not broken even if there are loud, self-critical parts of your brain that are screaming that you are. You are not broken, even if oppressive institutions tell you that you are somehow less-than.
In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and indeed at our practice, we’ve got a fundamental, unwavering belief that you’re not broken and you don’t need fixing.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that you don’t want to change or shift things around in your life. It is okay for you to want things to be different. To answer the question of whether therapy will work for you, we need to start with an understanding:
In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT, we’re not trying to “fix” you.
ACT is about helping you move toward a life that feels authentic and meaningful. It’s about learning to embrace all parts of yourself - the parts you’re proud of, the parts you’re still figuring out, and even the parts that might feel uncomfortable. When you're working with an affirming therapist, all of you is welcome.
In our work serving people in Virginia at Divergent Path Wellness; your messy, healing, beautiful, cringey, weird self is affirmed and celebrated.
Whether you’re newly coming to terms with a queer identity, processing past trauma from rigid religious teachings, or simply making sense of how your brain works in a world that often feels overwhelming, therapy should feel like a safe, supportive space that meets you exactly where you are, with support to guide you out of your comfort zone toward living in alignment with your values.
If you’re asking yourself, “Is this going to work for me?” - the answer depends on what your definition of “working” is. If "working" means finding a safe, supportive, affirming, sometimes awkward, place where you can be your full self without judgment, where your experiences are validated and respected and your feelings are met with understanding, and where your growth is guided by what truly matters to you, that is what Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is!
You can find a directory of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy practices through the directory at the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science. There you'll find ACT providers all over the world.
If you’re in Virginia and are interested in working with a trauma-informed and neurodivergent-affirming therapist, you can schedule a free 15-minute consultation with a member of our team. At Divergent Path Wellness we combine the evidence-based model of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy with a commitment to LGBTQIA+ & Neurodiversity Affirming, Religious-Trauma Informed therapy.
A final word on whether therapy will work for you: There are lots of different approaches to therapy. ACT with a commitment to inclusive, affirming services is the approach of Divergent Path Wellness. Even if one approach, or another, isn't a good fit that simply means exactly that: that approach, or therapist, may not be right for you. A mismatch does not mean that you are broken.
Hannah Dickey MSW
Supervisee in Social Work
Divergent Path Wellness
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