Finding a Therapist as an Aromantic
Written by the AUREA team
Word count: 1403 words
Estimated reading time: approx. 7 minutes
With time, mental health becomes less and less stigmatised. Everywhere still has a long way to go, but it is slowly becoming more acceptable to seek help. Of course there are concerns that still stand in the way of that help and a significant one for aromantics is the fear of being pathologized.
Psychologist Josh Muller works with a focus on LGBTQIA+ folks and confirms for us, unfortunately, that this fear of being pathologized is an appropriate fear.
How can we get help when the people we need are the ones who have the tools to undermine us? As a friendly expert in the field, Josh has laid what expectations you should have, how to best communicate your goals, what to do if you can’t get help, and why it’s worth seeing a professional.
Expectations
Josh is the current president of the Melbourne Bisexual Network. They are nonbinary, bisexual or bi+, and polyamourous.
“Before I was practising, I ran into issues with psychologists who I saw really hone in and focus on my romantic, especially relationship structure stuff, to ask me a lot of questions about that. When actually all of that was going fine and wasn't contributing at all to the thing that I was wanting to really talk to them about.
“That's a really common experience. And that's where their agenda of curiosity actually gets in the way of my agenda of getting effective help.
“As well as [their] subtle judgments, and a clear lack of education and understanding of even the most basic 101. [They don’t know] what terms mean, or all of the most basic myths that you know as queer people were always working on debunking.
“Some things for lesbian and gay people, I think have been relatively successfully debunked in the popular consciousness across the last like 20 or 30 years. But lots of stuff for bisexual folks, and I'm sure for aromantic and asexual folks, are not even on the horizon.”
Communication
Uncomfortable things could be said and conversation can go off track. This doesn’t mean that you have to follow where the therapist leads you.
“Have a prepared phrase, like ‘can I pause you for a moment?’, or ‘can I stop you there?’ And then take a breath, and refocus,” Josh says.
“I wouldn't want anyone to blame themselves if they weren't able to speak up to get around that. I'm a big fan of screening health professionals before you go to them. So if they've got an email address, sending them an email with a few basic questions. ‘What do you know about aromanticism? And what is your training and professional background in working with LGBTQIA+? And what's your level of comfort and competence, with working directly with these issues?’ And just see what they answer.
“Maybe they write: “I have no idea.” Or maybe they write: “I just googled it. And that seems fine to me.” Or maybe they write: “I've delivered conferences on it.”
“And that still won't get you to an absolute certainty of ‘this person will treat me really well and we'll have a good connection’ but it might give a little bit of a foundation of trust or let you let you know about what you're going in for.”
‘Getting to know you’
If you have the means, taking an initial session with a therapist, or psychologist, before committing to them is a sensible move to make.
“I fully support that. I suppose I would really encourage a kind of mixture of vulnerability and sharing what you're able to share as much as possible so that you're kind of working from the same handbook. Ideally you and your psychologist, like in a therapeutic setting, are on the same team. And so, a little bit of testing out is totally fine and expected,” Josh says.
“Even more than that. If a test goes well or poorly, talk about it, to try and give that feedback, whether that's in the session itself or after the session.
“So maybe you overall got a good vibe [and] seem like a good personality match. Say you're going to them for alcohol addiction issues. And they seem really competent and good in that area, but they made kind of a shitty comment about asexuality when you happen to mention that.
“Perhaps after that session you go home and you shoot them an email saying: ‘Thanks so much for that session. Looking forward to the one in a couple of weeks. Also, you made a crappy comment about asexuality, before our next session, I'd like you to have a look through this website and watch this YouTube video on what is asexuality, and how to treat us with respect.’”
“And that's a really reasonable ask. And a good psychologist will say: ‘thank you so much for that. I'm so sorry. I'll absolutely do that. And let's briefly check in about that next session together.’ And maybe briefly touch on it, have a little bit of a check in about what asexuality means means to you. And then refocus on the alcohol stuff. That would be my ideal situation.”
Reality
Even that ideal, however, is grounded in reality.
“That [ask] is partially unfair for clients, but that kind of unfairness? It's worthwhile holding, not just that individual psychologist, but sort of taking a step back and looking at all of the systems involved.
“Where are we at as a whole society? What training is that professional likely gotten from what educational institutions? What opportunities have actually had for professional development in this specific area? Because I'm a psychologist and I often look at different professional development, each development, kind of training and things going on. As far as I know, there are no ace or aro identified psychologists or therapists who have really good expertise in that area, who are going around [Australia], training psychologists, beyond just 101 level.
“They're just not there. And, yeah, although I wish every psychologist had that training, the training has to exist first before we can expect them to get that training. I think that's like such a difficult tension to hold, and it's across trans and nonbinary, it's across multi-gender attracted, it's across a whole lot of different things.”
Playing it safe
Sometimes we won’t have the dubious luxury of being out or having a therapist who can be all the way trusted. What then?
“It'd be worthwhile sharing [that]. ‘I can't tell you because if I do you might need to tell my parents, and that might really put me at risk.’ And so even being open about that, without talking about the specifics, can be a useful way to then work with that professional to help support you in other ways. And maybe you do get to a place where you can share it with that professional in a safe way.”
Finding help
Setting yourself up with a therapist, or any other mental health practitioner, can be a difficult task. Josh recommends looking into your local government funded programs and researching online for support systems.
“For folks who aren't able to access a psychologist or a therapist, which is a lot of people, I'm a big fan of recommending peer support online. Whether it's a Facebook group or Reddit pages or whatever it might be, [through] that you can learn lots and get a fair bit of support.
“That kind of sense of community and connection can be really important, whether it's like sharing memes, or sharing around lists of doctors who have been good, or sharing Twitter threads.
“As well as there are plenty of therapists now on different social media platforms, who are giving out therapeutic advice or tidbits or pearls of wisdom or reflections on good practice through TikTok or through Instagram. And so those can be some ways to access a bit of useful knowledge and things to reflect on in yourself if you're not able to access a psychologist personally.
“But it's important and powerful to contact [a professional] beyond just talking to your friends … or beyond just having a bit of a look on online message boards or social media. Because effective help is out there, and it might take a while to get to that effective help, but it's out there and it's worth getting.”
Aro Recommended is a website dedicated to recording aro friendly providers, professionals, and content creators. This is a fairly new resource so if you know of someone head on over and fill out the relevant information.