LGBTQ-Affirmative Therapy in Los Angeles, CA
Evidence-Based · LGBTQ-Affirming · Psychodynamic + Narrative Integration · In-Person & Online
Something from your past keeps showing up in your present. Maybe it’s a specific memory that still hits with the full force of the original moment. Maybe it’s a hair-trigger response — the way certain situations send your nervous system into overdrive before your brain has even caught up with why. Or maybe it’s quieter than that: the accumulated weight of years of feeling wrong, different, unsafe, or not quite enough.
You’ve probably tried to address it. You may have talked about it extensively. You might understand it perfectly well. And somehow — somehow — the understanding hasn’t changed the way it still lives in your body.
EMDR — Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing — is one of the most rigorously researched and genuinely transformative therapeutic approaches available for trauma healing. In the hands of a skilled therapist who deeply understands your specific history and identity, it can change what has felt permanently written into you. David Strah, M.A., LMFT brings to this work not only clinical training in EMDR, but a psychodynamic depth of understanding and deeply personal lived experience in LGBTQ+ identity — a combination that is exceptionally rare in Los Angeles.
What Is LGBTQ-Affirmative Therapy?
LGBTQ-affirmative therapy — also called queer-affirming therapy, gay-affirming therapy, or LGBTQ+ counseling — is a therapeutic approach in which the therapist takes an active, intentional stance in support of their client’s sexual orientation, gender identity, and all aspects of LGBTQ+ experience. Unlike conventional therapy, which may treat LGBTQ+ identity as neutral background information, affirmative therapy places that identity at the center of the therapeutic work: understanding how it has shaped the client’s experiences, how it intersects with their mental health challenges, and how it can be a source of resilience and authenticity rather than something to manage or minimize.
LGBTQ-affirmative therapy is grounded in the recognition that the mental health challenges disproportionately affecting LGBTQ+ people — higher rates of depression, anxiety, trauma, substance use, and suicidal ideation — are not caused by being LGBTQ+. They are caused by minority stress: the cumulative psychological impact of discrimination, rejection, internalized homophobia or transphobia, family non-acceptance, and the ongoing experience of navigating systems and social environments built for cisgender, heterosexual lives.
Effective LGBTQ-affirmative therapy addresses these stressors directly and explicitly, rather than applying generic therapeutic frameworks never designed with LGBTQ+ experience in mind. It requires cultural competency, genuine familiarity with the specific challenges of LGBTQ+ life across identities and life stages, and — ideally — the lived understanding that comes from being part of the community.
At David Strah Therapy, LGBTQ-affirmative care is not a specialty add-on. It is the foundational orientation of every session — shaped by David’s own identity as an openly gay man, his personal and family experience in the LGBTQ+ community, and his nationally recognized published work on LGBTQ+ family life. Sessions are available in person at 321 N. Larchmont Boulevard, Suite 808, Los Angeles, CA 90004, and via secure telehealth anywhere in California.
Why LGBTQ+ Clients Choose David Strah?
- Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist (LMFT) — California
- Openly gay therapist — community member, not just an ally
- Published author — Gay Dads: A Celebration of Fatherhood (Penguin/Putnam, 2003)
- Psychodynamic, narrative, and EMDR approaches tailored to LGBTQ+ clients
- Specialist in gay men, queer individuals, LGBTQ+ couples, and gay dads
- In-Person in Los Angeles | Telehealth throughout California
- Free 15-minute consultation — no pressure, no commitment
You’re Tired of Explaining Yourself to Your Therapist
You know what therapy is supposed to feel like. You’ve probably even experienced glimpses of it — the sense of being genuinely seen, heard, and understood without having to translate yourself. What you may not have experienced yet is therapy with someone who actually lives in the world you’re describing, not just professionally acknowledges it.
You’ve Had Therapy That Was “Supportive” But Not Affirming
There’s a real difference between a therapist who says they’re LGBTQ+ friendly and a therapist who deeply, personally understands what it means to grow up gay or queer in a world that wasn’t built for you. The former can make you feel tolerated. The latter is the only kind that actually heals.
Your Identity Gets Treated as Incidental — Not Central
The frustration isn’t always obvious. Sometimes it’s the therapist who treats your sexual orientation as a side note rather than a through-line. Who applies frameworks built for heterosexual, cisgender experience and expects them to fit your life. Who has never actually wrestled with what it feels like to carry an identity the world has repeatedly told you is wrong.
You’re Carrying Things That Don’t Have Simple Names
The internalized messages absorbed before you had any defenses. The complicated relationship with your body and your desires. The particular exhaustion of coming out not once but repeatedly, in every new context of your life. The grief of relationships that required you to negotiate your identity rather than simply being loved. The ways all of this has shaped what you believe you deserve — in love, in work, in how you occupy space in the world.
You Want a Space That Is Genuinely Yours
Not a space where you’re “the LGBTQ+ client.” Not a space where you’re monitoring your therapist’s comfort level alongside your own. A space where your identity is the foundation of the work, not a variable to be carefully managed. That space exists. And it starts with a therapist who is part of the community you’re describing.
What LGBTQ-Affirmative Therapy Addresses?
This isn’t a single-issue modality. It holds the full complexity of a person’s psychological life — always within the context of their LGBTQ+ identity, experience, and history.
Internalized Homophobia and Internalized Shame
The messages absorbed in childhood and adolescence — that gay or queer people are lesser, broken, or wrong — don’t disappear when you come out or build a happy life. They go underground. They shape what you believe you deserve, how you relate to your own desires, and the specific quality of self-criticism that follows you through relationships and work. Real therapeutic work here doesn’t just reframe the thoughts. It traces them to their origin and does the deeper work of replacing them with something true.
Coming Out — At Any Age, In Any Context
Coming out is not a single event. It is a continuing process that happens in every new relationship, every new professional context, every new community. For those navigating coming out later in life, or still managing specific contexts — with family, at work, within cultural or religious communities — therapy provides real support and genuine understanding, not just a safe container.
Minority Stress and Its Accumulated Effects
The chronic, low-level hypervigilance of being a visible minority in most daily contexts — monitoring safety, reading rooms, calculating disclosure — takes a real physiological and psychological toll. It accumulates into anxiety, exhaustion, and depression that looks clinical but is actually a completely understandable response to a genuinely stressful reality. Therapy that understands minority stress doesn’t pathologize these responses. It validates them and builds genuine resilience.
Identity Exploration — Sexuality, Gender, and Relationship Structures
Some clients come to therapy knowing exactly who they are and needing space to work through how to live that identity fully. Others are in the process of understanding their sexual orientation, their gender identity, or their relationship to desire and attraction. Both are valid reasons to be here. Both deserve a space free from pressure or a therapist who has never personally wrestled with these questions.
Relationships — LGBTQ+ Couples, Dating, and Chosen Family
Gay and queer relationships carry all the universal dynamics of human intimacy — alongside specific LGBTQ+ relational realities: navigating relationship structures that don’t always have cultural templates, managing the specific dynamics of gay male relationships, processing how each partner’s individual identity history shapes the relationship, and navigating the complex role of chosen family alongside biological family.
Religious Trauma and Cultural Conflict
For LGBTQ+ people who grew up in religious communities or cultural contexts that explicitly rejected their identity, the wound is complex and deep. The messages of those communities don’t dissolve because you’ve intellectually moved on. They live in the body, in the self-concept, and in the particular quality of shame that follows you into relationships and daily life. Therapy that has never personally navigated this tension is limited in what it can hold.
Gay Dads, Same-Sex Parenting, and LGBTQ+ Family Building
Becoming a parent as a gay man — through adoption, surrogacy, or co-parenting — is one of the most profound identity and relationship transitions possible, and one that is almost invisible in most therapy practices. David not only has deep personal experience of this as a gay adoptive father — he authored the nationally recognized book on it: Gay Dads: A Celebration of Fatherhood (Penguin/Putnam, 2003). He understands this terrain from the inside in a way no other therapist in Los Angeles can match.
How Therapy Works — The Clinical Approach
Being affirming is the foundation — but it’s not the whole thing. What happens in the room, and how the therapeutic work actually produces change, matters just as much as whether the space feels genuinely safe. David’s approach is specific, integrative, and built on decades of clinical work with LGBTQ+ individuals, couples, and families.
Psychodynamic Therapy — Understanding How Identity Wounds Get Installed
Many of the most debilitating challenges LGBTQ+ clients face aren’t about their current circumstances. They’re about what got written into them long before they had any capacity to push back. Psychodynamic therapy traces the origins of those internalized beliefs, understands the developmental and relational context in which they formed, and creates the conditions for genuinely dismantling them — not just managing their effects. For LGBTQ+ clients, this often means explicitly exploring the family and cultural systems that transmitted homophobia, so you can truly get free from it rather than simply learning to live with it.
Narrative Therapy — Reclaiming Your Story
Every LGBTQ+ person has absorbed stories about who they are — from family, from culture, from religion, from peers. Many of those stories were written by people who didn’t understand or didn’t value queer life. Narrative therapy helps you separate yourself from those stories and begin authoring your own: a narrative of your identity, your history, and your life that reflects who you actually are rather than what you were told you were. For LGBTQ+ clients, this is one of the most fundamental acts of self-reclamation available.
EMDR for Identity-Based Trauma
For LGBTQ+ clients carrying the physiological and emotional residue of identity-based wounds — the stored impact of rejection, violence, chronic shame, or years of hiding — EMDR provides a direct path to healing that reaches deeper than insight alone. David integrates EMDR for clients where trauma processing is part of the work that needs to happen.
Culturally Informed, Personally Grounded
None of this is abstract for David. He is an openly gay man who has navigated every layer of the experience he is helping clients heal from. He is a gay adoptive father who has lived the specific terrain of LGBTQ+ family building. He is the published author of a nationally recognized book on that experience. His knowledge of LGBTQ+ life is not clinical at its root. It is personal — and the clinical expertise is built on that foundation.
Who David Works With
David works with adults across Los Angeles and throughout California navigating the specific psychological terrain of LGBTQ+ life. Here’s a closer look at who he works with.
Gay Men
David is an openly gay male therapist with decades of personal and clinical experience in gay male life. He works with gay men navigating identity, relationships, internalized shame, coming out in various life contexts, career and self-worth, the specific dynamics of gay male culture, and the full range of psychological challenges that arise in gay men’s lives. For gay men looking for a therapist who is genuinely one of them — not simply ally-trained — this is exceptionally rare in Los Angeles.
Queer, Bisexual, and Gender-Expansive Individuals
David works with queer and bisexual individuals navigating identity exploration, the specific dynamics of bisexual erasure and invalidation from both straight and gay communities, gender identity questions, and the experience of living authentically outside the binary. Every identity across the LGBTQ+ spectrum is genuinely welcome here — not as a variation to accommodate, but as a full, complex reality deserving thoughtful care.
LGBTQ+ Couples
David provides LGBTQ-affirmative couples therapy for gay couples, same-sex partners, and queer couples navigating communication challenges, intimacy, trust, relationship structure questions including open relationships and ethical non-monogamy, and the specific dynamics that arise in LGBTQ+ partnerships.
People Who Have Had Bad Experiences in Previous Therapy
For LGBTQ+ people who have already been in therapy with someone who said they were affirming but clearly didn’t understand the queer experience — who felt unseen, misunderstood, or spent sessions educating their therapist instead of healing — David’s practice offers a specific, documented alternative. The difference between saying you’re affirming and having genuinely lived the experience is vast. And it shows up in every session.
Gay Dads and LGBTQ+ Parents
For gay fathers, same-sex parents, and LGBTQ+ individuals navigating the path to parenthood and the experience of raising children in a queer household, David brings a depth of personal experience and nationally recognized published expertise that is uniquely rare in Los Angeles — or anywhere in California.
Why David Strah for LGBTQ-Affirming Therapy in Los Angeles?
There are thousands of therapists in Los Angeles who call themselves LGBTQ+ affirming. Here is what makes the clients who find David — especially gay men and LGBTQ+ people who have already tried therapy that didn’t deliver — choose him and stay.
He Is an Openly Gay Man — Not an Ally
David is not a therapist who took continuing education credits in affirmative care and added it to his specialty list. He is an openly gay man who has lived the experience of growing up gay, building a life and a family within the LGBTQ+ community, and navigating a world that has not always affirmed who he is. That is not a credential you earn in a training. It is the foundation of a quality of understanding that genuinely changes what is possible in the therapy room.
He Is a Nationally Published Author in LGBTQ+ Family Life
David authored Gay Dads: A Celebration of Fatherhood (Penguin/Putnam, 2003) — a nationally recognized, mainstream-published book that established him as one of the first and most prominent voices on gay fatherhood and LGBTQ+ family building in the United States. This level of public, expert authority in LGBTQ+ life is exceptional among private practice therapists in Los Angeles. It means that when David works with clients navigating parenthood, identity, or building an LGBTQ+ family, he brings something no other therapist in this market can match.
His Clinical Approach Is Specific and Differentiated
David doesn’t just create a safe space. He uses specific, evidence-based clinical approaches — psychodynamic therapy, narrative therapy, EMDR — each applied through an explicitly LGBTQ+-informed lens. The work is targeted, deep, and designed to produce genuine, lasting change. Not symptom management. Not the reassurance of acceptance. Actual transformation.
You Work Directly With David — Every Session
David does not run a group practice with a rotating roster of associates. When you work with David Strah, you work with David Strah — directly, consistently, for the full duration of your work together. In LGBTQ+ affirming therapy especially, where the quality of the therapeutic relationship and the depth of the therapist’s understanding are foundational, that consistency matters enormously.
Centrally Located in Los Angeles — Accessible for All
In-person at 321 N. Larchmont Boulevard, Suite 808, Los Angeles, CA 90004 in Larchmont Village — accessible from Hollywood, Hancock Park, Koreatown, Silver Lake, Los Feliz, Mid-City, West Hollywood, and beyond. Telehealth for any client in California.
Gay Therapy and LGBTQ Counseling Reviews
Session Details & Practical Information
In-Person Sessions in Los Angeles
321 N. Larchmont Boulevard, Suite 808 Los Angeles, CA 90004 Larchmont Village — accessible from Hollywood, Hancock Park, Koreatown, Silver Lake, Los Feliz, Mid-City, West Hollywood, and greater Los Angeles.
Online Therapy Throughout California
Secure, HIPAA-compliant telehealth sessions are available for any client in California. Whether you’re in Los Angeles or anywhere in the state, you can access fully affirming LGBTQ+ therapy from the privacy and comfort of home — which many clients find especially beneficial, particularly those in the early stages of identity exploration or not yet out in all contexts of their life.
How to Get Started
Phone: (917) 922-2650
Email: davidstrah@aol.com
Address: 321 N. Larchmont Blvd, Suite 808, Los Angeles, CA 90004
Hours: Monday – Friday: 11:00 AM – 8:00 PM
Frequently Asked Questions About LGBTQ-Affirmative Therapy in Los Angeles
What is LGBTQ-affirmative therapy and how is it different from regular therapy?
LGBTQ-affirmative therapy is a therapeutic approach in which the therapist takes an active, explicit stance in support and affirmation of their client’s sexual orientation, gender identity, and LGBTQ+ experience. Unlike conventional therapy, which may treat LGBTQ+ identity as neutral background information, affirming therapy places that identity at the center of the therapeutic work. It understands how LGBTQ+ identity has shaped the client’s experiences, how it intersects with their mental health challenges, and how it can be a source of resilience and authenticity rather than something to manage. In practical terms, LGBTQ-affirmative therapy means no pathologizing of LGBTQ+ identity, genuine familiarity with the specific stressors and cultural context of LGBTQ+ life, and therapeutic frameworks built for — not adapted from — heteronormative assumptions. The most meaningful affirmation comes from a therapist with genuine lived experience in the community, not just clinical training.
What is minority stress and why does it matter for LGBTQ+ mental health?
Minority stress is the chronic psychological stress experienced by members of marginalized groups as a result of their minority status. For LGBTQ+ people, it arises from discrimination, stigma, family rejection, internalized homophobia or transphobia, and the ongoing experience of navigating social environments built for cisgender, heterosexual lives. Research consistently demonstrates that minority stress — not LGBTQ+ identity itself — is the primary driver of elevated rates of depression, anxiety, trauma, substance use, and suicidal ideation in LGBTQ+ populations. LGBTQ-affirmative therapy directly addresses minority stress by validating its reality, helping clients understand how it has shaped their psychology, and building genuine resilience rather than simply treating symptoms rooted in an ongoing societal context.
What is internalized homophobia and how does therapy help?
Internalized homophobia is the process by which LGBTQ+ people absorb and direct toward themselves the negative messages about homosexuality, bisexuality, or gender non-conformity present in their family, cultural, or religious environment. It can manifest as shame about one’s identity, difficulty accepting one’s own desires, self-sabotage in relationships, a persistent sense of being fundamentally defective, or the belief that one deserves less. Internalized homophobia does not disappear simply by coming out or building a happy life. It lives in the body and in the unconscious patterns that shape behavior and relationships. Psychodynamic therapy — which traces the origins of these beliefs — combined with narrative therapy — which helps clients reclaim their own story — can genuinely dismantle internalized homophobia at a depth that lasts.
Do I need to see a gay or LGBTQ+ therapist, or is any affirming therapist okay?
Research consistently shows that therapeutic alliance — the quality of understanding and connection between therapist and client — is one of the strongest predictors of positive therapy outcomes. For LGBTQ+ clients, that alliance deepens significantly when the therapist has genuine familiarity with LGBTQ+ life through lived experience. A therapist who has personally navigated LGBTQ+ identity, community, and family life brings a quality of understanding that training alone cannot fully replicate. The difference shows up from the first session — in what doesn’t need to be explained, in what the therapist already understands about the specific emotional and relational landscape being described, and in the depth of trust that becomes possible as a result. While any genuinely committed affirming therapist can provide meaningful support, there is a specific quality of understanding that comes from a therapist who is genuinely of the community they are serving.
Do you offer therapy specifically for gay men in Los Angeles?
Yes — and it is one of the core strengths of this practice. David is an openly gay male therapist with decades of personal and clinical experience in gay male life. He works with gay men navigating identity, relationships, internalized shame, coming out in various life contexts, career, self-worth, and the full range of psychological challenges that arise in gay men’s lives. For gay men who have had the experience of working with therapists who were supportive but didn’t truly understand the terrain, working with David offers something fundamentally different: a therapist who is genuinely one of you and who brings both the lived experience and the clinical depth to do real, lasting work.
Do you offer LGBTQ-affirming couples counseling in Los Angeles?
Yes. David offers LGBTQ-affirming couples therapy and gay couples counseling for gay couples, same-sex partners, and queer couples navigating communication challenges, intimacy, trust, conflict, and the specific dynamics that arise in LGBTQ+ partnerships. This includes couples navigating open relationships, ethical non-monogamy, each partner’s individual identity history showing up in the relationship, and the experience of being an LGBTQ+ couple in a world that doesn’t always provide clear templates. For gay couples seeking a therapist who genuinely understands their relational world, David offers a rare combination of lived experience and clinical expertise.
What specific issues does LGBTQ-affirmative therapy address?
LGBTQ-affirmative therapy addresses the full range of psychological challenges that arise in human life, held within the specific context of LGBTQ+ identity and experience. This includes: internalized homophobia and transphobia; coming out at any age or in any context; minority stress and its accumulated effects; identity exploration across sexual orientation, gender identity, and relationship structure; anxiety, depression, and trauma rooted in identity-based experiences; relationship challenges in LGBTQ+ partnerships; family dynamics and family rejection; religious trauma and cultural conflict; gay dads and LGBTQ+ family building; self-esteem and self-worth; and any area of psychological life shaped by the experience of being LGBTQ+ in the world.
Do you offer therapy for gay dads and LGBTQ+ parents in Los Angeles?
Yes — and this is an area of particular personal depth and nationally recognized published expertise. David is a gay adoptive father and the author of Gay Dads: A Celebration of Fatherhood (Penguin/Putnam, 2003), one of the first mainstream-published books on the subject in the United States. He works with gay fathers, same-sex parents, and LGBTQ+ individuals navigating parenthood through adoption, surrogacy, or co-parenting, as well as the ongoing experience of raising children in an LGBTQ+ household. The psychological and identity terrain of gay fatherhood is specific and complex — and having a therapist who has personally lived it makes a profound difference in the depth of what is possible.
Is LGBTQ-affirmative therapy available online in California?
Yes. Secure, HIPAA-compliant telehealth sessions are available for any client in California. Whether you’re in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, or anywhere in the state, you can access fully affirming LGBTQ+ therapy without leaving home. Online therapy is equally effective for most presenting concerns — and for many LGBTQ+ clients, the privacy and convenience of telehealth provides additional comfort, particularly for those in the early stages of exploring identity or not yet out in all areas of their life.
How do I find and get started with LGBTQ-affirming therapy in Los Angeles?
Getting started is simple. Call or text (917) 922-2650, or submit a contact request through davidstrah.com to schedule a free 15-minute consultation. You will not need to explain or justify your identity to be heard in that call. You’ll share what’s bringing you in, ask any questions about David’s approach or experience, and get a genuine sense of whether this feels like the right fit. From there, you’ll schedule your first session in person at the Larchmont Boulevard office in Los Angeles, or via secure telehealth anywhere in California. The right therapeutic relationship — with someone who genuinely understands your world — can change everything about what is possible in your life. That starts with one 15-minute conversation.
You Deserve Therapy That Is Actually Yours
There is a version of your life in which you feel fully at home in who you are — in your identity, in your body, in your relationships, in what you believe you deserve and are capable of. For many LGBTQ+ people, years of therapy haven’t gotten them there. Not because change isn’t possible. Because the therapeutic work was never truly built for them.
Therapy with a therapist who is genuinely part of your community, who has lived the specific terrain you’re navigating, and who brings both personal depth and proven clinical expertise to the work — that is a fundamentally different experience. And it is available to you right now.
Your consultation is free. It takes 15 minutes. And it might be exactly what changes everything. Don’t wait.
