Table of Contents
I used to think I had it all figured O.T. Early in my career as a therapist, I was determined to be the kind of practitioner the world needed more of—especially for my LGBTQ+ clients.
My office was a carefully curated sanctuary of affirmation.
The intake forms were models of inclusivity, with expansive options for gender and sexuality.1
A rainbow pin was a permanent fixture on my lapel, a small but public declaration of safety.1
My bookshelf groaned under the weight of the latest clinical guides on affirmative practice, texts I had studied with the diligence of a scholar.2
I was following the map, checking every box on the list of “best practices.”
And yet, something was profoundly wrong.
Despite my meticulous adherence to the protocols, the work often felt hollow.
I was validating identities but not truly exploring them.
My sessions felt like we were confirming a location on a pre-printed map.
“You are here,” the map seemed to say, “and that’s okay.” But it offered no guidance on how to navigate the treacherous, un-charted territory of my clients’ actual lives.
The breaking point came with a client I’ll call David.
He was a queer man of color, brilliant and kind, who came to me for help with a crushing anxiety that was constricting his life.
I unfurled my map.
I affirmed his identity.
I validated his experiences of being marginalized.
But we stalled.
My checklist-based approach had no tools for the complex terrain he was trying to navigate: the subtle but constant sting of racial microaggressions within the very queer spaces that were supposed to be his refuge 4; the suffocating weight of his family’s cultural expectations; the internal war between his identity and the shame he’d been taught to feel.
My map had no roads for that landscape.
In fact, it didn’t even acknowledge that such a landscape existed.
After several months, David left therapy.
He wasn’t angry.
He was just…
unhelped.
He left not because I was malicious, but because I was ineffective.
That failure was devastating.
It was a clear, painful signal that my maps were useless.
I had been acting like a tour guide with a glossy, inaccurate brochure, pointing out landmarks that weren’t really there while my client was lost in the wilderness.
I had to face a humbling truth: I didn’t need a better map.
I needed to learn how to be an explorer.
That failure forced me to burn my old charts and begin a new journey, searching for a way of working that honored the true, wild, and sacred complexity of a human life.
Part I: The Old World – Charting the Landscape of Harm and Hope
To understand why a new approach is so desperately needed, we first have to understand the maps we’ve inherited.
The history of therapy for LGBTQ+ people is a history of cartography—first of malicious map-making that deliberately drew monsters where there were none, and then of well-intentioned but overly simplistic charts that flattened the landscape into something barely recognizable.
The Cartographers of Pathology – A Legacy of Harm
For much of its history, the mental health establishment was not a source of healing for LGBTQ+ people; it was a source of harm.
It was an institution of cartographers who, armed with the authority of science, drew maps of the human psyche that explicitly labeled homosexuality and gender non-conformity as pathologies—illnesses to be cured, deviations to be corrected.5
This wasn’t a passive judgment; it was an active, violent project.
The tools of this project, now known as “conversion therapy” or “reparative therapy,” were instruments of torture disguised as treatment.
From the late 19th century onward, doctors and psychiatrists subjected LGBTQ+ individuals to a horrifying array of pseudoscientific procedures.
There were crude surgeries like lobotomies and testicle transplantations.6
There was aversion therapy, where individuals were given nausea-inducing drugs or painful electric shocks—sometimes to their genitals—while being shown images of same-sex couples or cross-dressing.6
The goal was to create a conditioned disgust, to literally shock the “deviancy” out of them.
These practices, rooted in the pathologizing work of figures like Richard von Krafft-Ebing, were not fringe experiments; they were mainstream medical practice for decades.5
Even when the methods became less physically brutal, the psychological violence persisted through psychoanalytic approaches that framed LGBTQ+ identity as a developmental failure or a symptom of neurosis.9
The result was a legacy of profound trauma, shame, and self-hatred, the echoes of which still reverberate in our communities today.10
This history is the reason so many LGBTQ+ people approach therapy with a deep and entirely justified mistrust.12
They are carrying the memory of a time when the people meant to help them were instead their tormentors.
It was not until 1973 that the American Psychiatric Association (APA) declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder, a monumental shift driven by the activism of LGBTQ+ people themselves.
In the years since, the APA and every other major medical and mental health organization have unequivocally condemned conversion therapy, concluding that it is not only ineffective but also poses a significant risk of harm, including depression, anxiety, and suicide.13
The old maps were officially declared fraudulent, but the scars they left on the landscape of countless lives remain.
The Climate of the Journey – Understanding Minority Stress
Even with the most harmful practices discredited, a fundamental truth remains: being an LGBTQ+ person in our society means undertaking a journey through a uniquely challenging climate.
The Minority Stress Model, first articulated by Ilan Meyer, provides the essential “weather report” for this journey.16
It posits that the higher rates of mental health issues in the LGBTQ+ community are not caused by the identities themselves, but by the chronic stress of living in a society that stigmatizes and discriminates against them.18
This is a critical distinction.
It moves the “problem” from inside the individual to the external environment.
The model breaks this stress down into two key categories:
- Distal Stressors: These are the external, objective events of prejudice and discrimination. They range from violent hate crimes to the daily barrage of microaggressions, rejection from family, and systemic discrimination in housing, employment, and healthcare.16 These are the storms and harsh winds that directly batter a person on their journey.
- Proximal Stressors: These are the internal reactions to distal stressors. After being exposed to a lifetime of negative messages, a person can begin to internalize them. This leads to internalized homophobia or transphobia, a constant state of hypervigilance and anxiety about being discovered or judged, and the exhausting effort of concealing one’s true identity to stay safe.16 This is the psychological equivalent of trying to navigate treacherous terrain while carrying a heavy, invisible backpack filled with fear and shame.
This constant, grinding stress is the engine behind the stark mental health disparities we see.
LGBTQ+ individuals are more than twice as likely as their heterosexual and cisgender peers to experience a mental health disorder in their lifetime.1
For transgender and gender non-conforming people, that risk is nearly four times as high.24
Rates of depression, anxiety, substance use, and suicidality are alarmingly elevated.18
These are not signs of inherent weakness; they are the predictable and tragic consequences of navigating a hostile environment.
The First New Maps – The Rise and Limits of Checklist Affirmation
In response to this landscape of historical harm and ongoing stress, a new school of cartography emerged: affirmative therapy.
This was a courageous and revolutionary act.
For the first time, therapists began to draw maps that were not about “fixing” but about validating.27
The core tenets of this first wave of affirmation were clear and powerful.
They established that LGBTQ+ identities are normal, healthy variations of human experience.13
The therapist’s role was to create a safe, supportive, and non-judgmental space; to use inclusive language and respect pronouns; to understand the impact of stigma; and to celebrate the client’s identity.1
This approach was, and remains, a vital corrective to the decades of pathology.
However, as I discovered in my own practice, when this model is applied too rigidly, it can become a new kind of trap: checklist affirmation.
It’s an approach that focuses on the external signifiers of safety—the right forms, the right words, the right office decor—without necessarily cultivating the deeper internal skills of the therapist.
It can lead to a performative allyship that, while well-intentioned, falls short of true therapeutic work.
A therapist can check all the boxes and still make critical errors, like assuming all of a client’s problems stem from their identity, failing to see the person behind the label, or burdening the client with the task of educating them.32
This is where my pre-printed map failed David, and it’s where the affirmative model reaches its limits.
To truly grasp this evolution, it helps to see the models side-by-side.
| Feature | Pathologizing/Conversion Model | “Checklist” Affirmative Model | Narrative Cartography Model |
| Core Assumption | Identity is a disorder to be “fixed” or changed. | Identity is a fixed, valid point to be confirmed and supported. | Identity is a dynamic, evolving landscape to be co-explored. |
| Therapist’s Role | Expert/Corrector who diagnoses and treats the “illness.” | Ally/Validator who provides safety and confirms the client’s identity. | Co-Explorer/Cartographer who provides tools and travels alongside the client. |
| Client’s Goal | To conform to heteronormative/cisnormative standards. | To receive validation and acceptance for their identity. | To explore, understand, and author a preferred life story and identity. |
| Primary Tools | Aversion therapy, psychoanalysis, religious counsel.6 | Inclusive forms, safe-space signals, psychoeducation.1 | Externalizing conversations, identity mapping, re-authoring, intersectional analysis.36 |
This table shows a clear progression, but it also reveals the subtle flaw in the middle column.
While a vast improvement, “Checklist Affirmation” still positions the therapist as the holder of a correct map, and the client’s identity as a fixed destination.
It can confirm a location, but it can’t equip a person for the journey.
For that, we need to throw out the pre-printed maps altogether.
Part II: The Epiphany – Discovering the Compass and Blank Parchment
My failure with David sent me into a period of deep professional disillusionment.
I had followed the rules, I had used the approved map, and I had still left my client feeling lost.
It became painfully clear that the standard affirmative toolkit was insufficient for the real, messy, beautiful complexity of my clients’ lives.
Their stories were too rich, too non-linear, too full of intersecting rivers of experience to be plotted on a simple grid.
Driven by this sense of inadequacy, I began to look for answers outside the established literature of affirmative care.
I needed a new language, a new way of seeing.
My search led me to the work of Michael White and David Epston, the founders of Narrative Therapy 36, and to the rich, evocative metaphor of
Cartography as a way to understand the therapeutic process.41
And that’s when the epiphany struck, clear and resonant.
The problem wasn’t my clients.
It wasn’t even my maps, precisely.
It was the very idea that a map could be pre-printed at all.
I had been trying to force their vibrant, three-dimensional lives onto a flat, one-size-fits-all chart.
What I needed, and what my clients needed, was not a better map.
It was a compass and a blank piece of parchment.
This insight gave birth to a new paradigm, one I’ve come to call Narrative Cartography.
It’s a framework built on a simple but revolutionary idea: True affirmative therapy is not about giving someone a map; it’s about handing them a compass and a blank piece of parchment and teaching them how to chart their own world.
This paradigm rests on three foundational shifts in thinking:
- The Compass: The Person is Not the Problem. The core principle of narrative therapy is “The person is not the problem; the problem is the problem”.36 This idea is the compass. It completely reorients the therapeutic journey. A client is not “an anxious person”; they are a person navigating a region on their life-map called “Anxiety.” They are not “a trauma survivor”; they are an explorer who has passed through the treacherous “Swamplands of Trauma.” This simple linguistic shift is profound. It separates a person’s identity from their struggles, dissolving shame and creating the space needed for curiosity and action. The problem is no longer an immutable part of who they are, but an external force, a feature of the terrain that can be mapped, understood, and navigated.
- The Parchment: Identity as a Landscape. In this new model, identity is not a single, fixed point on a map—”I am gay,” “I am trans.” It is the map itself. It is a vast, living, dynamic landscape, unique to each individual.44 It has mountains of resilience, built from survived hardships. It has rivers of grief that have carved deep canyons. It has forests of community that provide shelter and sustenance. It has sunlit meadows of joy and hidden caves of fear. This landscape contains multitudes. It is ever-changing, shaped by experience, relationships, and culture. Acknowledging this complexity frees us from the tyranny of simple labels and allows for a much richer, more authentic exploration of self.
- The Expedition: Therapist as Co-Cartographer. My role, then, had to change dramatically. I was no longer the “guide” who pretended to know the way. I became a “co-cartographer”.43 My client is the undisputed expert on their own terrain; they are the only one who has ever walked it. I, as the therapist, bring the tools and skills of map-making. I know how to use a compass (externalizing conversations), how to survey the land (asking curiosity-driven questions), and how to draw the features we discover onto the parchment (thickening preferred narratives). The therapy room transforms from a classroom where I dispense wisdom into a cartography workshop where we collaborate on an expedition of discovery.36
This new paradigm also provided a crucial update to the established models of LGBTQ+ identity development.
Models like Vivienne Cass’s six-stage theory (Identity Confusion, Comparison, Tolerance, Acceptance, Pride, Synthesis) were groundbreaking and historically vital.47
They offered the first non-pathologizing framework for a process that had been misunderstood for a century.
They gave language and structure to a common journey, which was an immense relief for many.
However, seen through the lens of my old “pre-printed map” thinking, these stages could become a prescriptive itinerary.
They could subtly imply that there is a “right” way to come out, a linear path that everyone should follow.
If a client’s experience didn’t fit neatly into the stages—if they moved back and forth, or skipped a stage, or felt pride before full acceptance—they (or their therapist) might worry they were “doing it wrong.”
Narrative Cartography reframes this completely.
The stages of identity development are not a mandatory route.
They are potential landmarks, common regions that many people travel through on their unique maps.
A client might spend a long time in the “Fog of Confusion” or quickly ascend to the “Peak of Pride.” Their journey is their own.
The map doesn’t dictate the journey; the journey creates the map.
This shift from a linear itinerary to a personal landscape was the key that unlocked a more authentic, flexible, and truly affirming way of working.
Part III: The Principles of Narrative Cartography – A Practical Guide
Adopting a new paradigm is one thing; putting it into practice is another.
Narrative Cartography is not an abstract philosophy; it is a set of practical, actionable skills for co-exploring a client’s life.
The process can be understood as moving through four distinct but overlapping phases, each framed by the metaphor of a cartographic expedition.
Pillar 1: Establishing Base Camp (Radical Safety & Alliance)
No explorer ventures into unknown territory without first establishing a secure base camp.
In therapy, this base camp is the therapeutic alliance, and its foundation is radical safety.
This goes far beyond the superficial safety of a rainbow sticker.
It is built on the therapist’s deep, ongoing internal work.
The first and most critical component is what we call Self-of-the-Therapist work.32
Before I can presume to help a client map their internal world, I must have the courage to map my own.
This means a rigorous, honest, and continuous process of self-reflection.
I must unpack my own upbringing, my relationship to heteronormativity and cisnormativity, my biases, my privileges, and my areas of ignorance.
For me, this meant confronting the subtle ways my own cisgender, white experience had led me to make assumptions and overlook the specific challenges faced by my clients of color and my trans clients.
It’s an uncomfortable and humbling process, but it is non-negotiable.
A therapist who has not mapped their own blind spots will inevitably lead their client into a ditch.
This internal work leads directly to the practice of Cultural Humility.50
This is the antidote to the expert model.
It is the understanding that I can never be an “expert” on my client’s experience, especially when their identities differ from my own.
Instead, my role is to be a curious and committed lifelong learner.
Cultural humility is the strength to say, “I don’t understand.
Can you teach me?” It is the grace to acknowledge when I make a mistake—which is inevitable—and the skill to repair that rupture in a way that deepens, rather than damages, the therapeutic trust.
The goal of this pillar is to build an alliance so robust that the client feels profoundly safe—safe enough to be vulnerable, safe enough to get lost, safe enough to explore the most treacherous parts of their map without any fear of judgment, abandonment, or misunderstanding.30
This is the base camp from which all true exploration begins.
Pillar 2: Mapping the Problematic Terrain (Externalizing Conversations)
Once base camp is secure, the mapping begins.
The first task is to chart the difficult terrain.
This is where we deploy the core narrative technique of externalizing the problem.38
As mentioned, the problem is not the person.
So, we give the problem its own name and identity, separate from the client.
Together, we might decide to call a client’s struggle “The Perfectionist Tyrant,” “The Fog of Anxiety,” or “The Weight of Family Expectation.” Giving it a name makes it a tangible entity, a character in the client’s story that can be observed and interviewed.
We then begin to map its influence using a series of curiosity-driven questions 53:
- “When did The Fog of Anxiety first roll into your life? What invites it in?”
- “What are its favorite tactics? What does it whisper to you to keep you stuck?”
- “What does it steal from you? What relationships, joys, or opportunities has it cost you?”
- “Who are its allies? What societal messages or past experiences give it power?”
We chart the problem’s territory, its history, its methods, and its effects on every aspect of the client’s life.
This process is incredibly powerful.
It lifts the burden of shame from the client’s shoulders.
They are no longer a “depressed person”; they are a skilled and resilient explorer who is contending with a powerful force called “Depression” that has invaded their landscape.36
This separation creates agency.
Once the problem is on the map, it is no longer an all-encompassing identity; it is a feature of the terrain that can be navigated.
Pillar 3: Charting the Preferred Routes (Re-Authoring Identity)
A map that only shows obstacles is not very useful.
The next, crucial phase of our expedition is to actively search for alternative paths—the stories of strength, resilience, and value that have been obscured by the dominant problem story.
A problem story, no matter how powerful, is never the only story.
Our primary tool here is the search for Unique Outcomes.36
A unique outcome is any thought, action, or feeling from the client’s past or present that contradicts the problem’s narrative.
It can be a tiny moment of resistance, a flash of hope, an act of kindness, or a connection to a deeply held value.
These are not dismissed as flukes or exceptions; they are treated as significant discoveries—the trailheads of new, preferred stories.
Once we find a trailhead, we use a specific micro-mapping technique called the Actions-to-Identity Map to explore it.55
This is a scaffolding conversation that builds a bridge from a small, concrete action to a rich, abstract sense of identity.
It unfolds in layers:
- Action (The Unique Outcome): “Tell me about that time you corrected your uncle on your pronouns at the family dinner, even though it was terrifying.”
- Intentions/Purposes: “What were you hoping for in that moment? What was important to you about taking that step?” (e.g., “I wanted to be seen for who I am.”)
- Values/Beliefs: “What does that intention say about what you truly value? What belief about yourself or the world were you standing up for?” (e.g., “I value authenticity. I believe I have a right to be respected.”)
- Hopes/Dreams: “What possibilities does this action open up for your future? If you were to live more from this value of authenticity, what might your life look like?”
- Principles/Commitments: “Is this a principle you hold for others as well? How else does this commitment to authenticity show up in your life?”
- Identity: “So, what does this story—of taking this action, rooted in this value, in service of this hope—say about who you are, or who you are becoming?” (e.g., “I am a person of courage who fights for my own dignity.”)
By linking these unique outcomes together, we begin to chart a new, preferred narrative on the map.
We are “re-authoring” the client’s story, not by inventing fiction, but by uncovering the powerful truths that the problem story had tried to erase.38
This new story is one of resilience, agency, and authentic selfhood.
Pillar 4: Honoring the Ecosystem (An Intersectional Lens)
Finally, no map can be understood in isolation.
It is always part of a larger ecosystem of culture, history, power, and society.
A truly affirmative cartographer must constantly zoom out to see how these larger systems are shaping the client’s individual landscape.
This is where an intersectional lens becomes absolutely essential.17
A client’s identity is not a single continent; it is a dynamic confluence of multiple identities—race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, disability, religion, class, and more.4
These intersections create unique forms of both oppression and resilience.
Our mapping must account for this.
We must ask questions that explore the interplay of these systems.
For a Black transgender woman, for example, we must map the specific terrain created by the intersection of transphobia, racism, and misogyny.
How does racism within white-dominated LGBTQ+ spaces create a unique kind of pain and isolation?4 How does the strength and resilience drawn from Black cultural history provide a unique source of power? For a disabled queer person, how does ableism within the LGBTQ+ community intersect with homophobia in disabled spaces?
This pillar ensures our cartography is holistic and politically aware.
It prevents us from the critical error of drawing a map that is decontextualized from the real-world systems of power and privilege that shape our clients’ lives.
Without this ecosystemic view, our maps would once again be flat, inaccurate, and ultimately, unhelpful.
This entire process—from building a safe base camp to charting the complex ecosystem—is grounded in a deeper understanding of how we as humans make sense of our world.
The use of “mapping” is more than just a convenient metaphor; it is a therapeutic and cognitive act.
Cognitive linguistics shows that our minds fundamentally operate through “metaphorical mapping”—understanding abstract concepts (like identity) in terms of concrete ones (like a journey or a landscape).59
By externalizing a client’s internal world onto a conceptual “map,” we are leveraging this natural cognitive process.
We are taking a chaotic, overwhelming internal state and giving it structure, distance, and form.
The problem is no longer a terrifying fog we are lost in; it is a feature on a map that we can study, plan a route around, and ultimately, transcend.
Part IV: The Journey Home – A Case Study in Co-Authored Success
To bring this paradigm to life, let me tell you about “Alex.” Alex (they/them) came to therapy feeling completely lost.
A young transgender person in their early twenties, they were grappling with severe social anxiety and the deep pain of rejection from their family after coming O.T. Their world had shrunk to the size of their small apartment.
Their story, as they first told it, was one of pain.
“I think I’m just broken,” they said in our first session.
They were defined by their struggle, adrift without a map or a compass.
This was my chance to be the therapist I had wanted to be for David—not a guide with a faulty map, but a skilled and humble co-cartographer.
Establishing Base Camp: Our first several sessions were dedicated to building a foundation of trust.
I openly acknowledged my position as a cisgender therapist and the limitations of my own experience.
I didn’t pretend to be an expert on their life.
Instead, I expressed my commitment to learning, to listening, and to being corrected.
We established that our room was a workshop, and they were the lead explorer.
This act of naming the power dynamic and embracing cultural humility created a space where Alex felt they could finally exhale.32
Mapping the Problematic Terrain: We began by externalizing the forces that were dominating Alex’s life.
Together, we named them.
The constant fear of judgment and misgendering became “The Shadow of Rejection.” The intense distress they felt about their body became “The Storm of Dysphoria.” We spent weeks mapping the influence of these forces.
We charted how The Shadow silenced them in social situations and how The Storm drained their energy and made it hard to leave the house.
We traced their origins back to specific experiences of family rejection and societal transphobia.
By putting these forces on the map, they became separate from Alex.
Alex wasn’t broken; they were a person enduring a relentless storm and living under a persistent shadow.52
Charting the Preferred Routes: Next, we began our search for unique outcomes, for any evidence that contradicted the problem’s dominance.
It was slow at first.
But then, a small story emerged.
Alex recounted a time at a coffee shop when the barista used the wrong pronoun, and after a moment of panic, they quietly but firmly corrected them.
This was our trailhead.
Using the Actions-to-Identity map, we explored this single moment in depth.55
- Action: “I corrected the barista.”
- Intention: “I just wanted them to see me correctly.”
- Value: “It’s about respect. Authenticity.”
- Identity: “What does it say about you that you were able to do that, even when it was scary?” After a long pause, Alex whispered, “That maybe I’m braver than I think.”
This was the beginning of a new, preferred story.
We found other trailheads: a moment of gender euphoria when they wore a new binder for the first time; a time they shared a supportive message in an online forum for trans youth; a piece of art they created that expressed their identity.
Each of these moments was mapped and thickened, woven together to create a rich narrative of what we came to call “Quiet Courage” and “Authentic Expression.”
Honoring the Ecosystem: Our map would have been incomplete without charting the wider world.
We mapped the painful influence of anti-trans legislation and media narratives, acknowledging that The Shadow and The Storm were fed by these larger systems of oppression.
But we also charted the ecosystem of support.
We put Alex’s online friends on the map as a vital “Forest of Community.” We located a local LGBTQ+ center and marked it as a potential “Safe Harbor”.18
This contextualized Alex’s struggle and highlighted their resources, reinforcing that they were not alone in their journey.
After a year of this work, Alex was transformed.
The anxiety and dysphoria hadn’t vanished entirely—storms still roll in—but they were no longer the defining features of the landscape.
Alex was no longer lost.
They were the cartographer.
They had a rich, detailed map of their own life, co-authored in our sessions, that showed not only the difficult terrain but also the paths of courage, the rivers of creativity, and the mountains of resilience.
They had the skills and the confidence to continue charting their own course, long after our work together ended.
This is the goal of Narrative Cartography: not to “cure” the client, but to empower them as the expert and author of their own life.36
Conclusion: Your Expedition Awaits
My journey as a therapist has taught me that our field’s evolution away from the brutal maps of pathology was a necessary and life-saving revolution.
But it was only the first step.
The move to a simple, pre-printed map of “checklist affirmation,” while an improvement, still risks leaving our clients feeling validated but ultimately unseen in their full, glorious complexity.
The future of truly effective, deeply transformative LGBTQ+ therapy lies in embracing a new paradigm: Narrative Cartography.
It is the shift from giving clients a map to helping them draw their own.
For those of you seeking therapy, I urge you to look for a co-cartographer.
When you are interviewing potential therapists, go beyond the simple question, “Are you an affirmative therapist?” The answer to that should always be yes.
Instead, ask questions that probe for a deeper practice 1:
- “How do you approach helping a client explore their identity beyond just labels?”
- “Can you tell me about how you see your role in our work together? Are you a guide, an expert, or something else?”
- “How do you work with clients when their stories are complex or don’t fit into neat boxes?”
- “How do you ensure your own biases or background don’t get in the way of understanding my unique experience?”
Listen for answers that speak of curiosity, collaboration, humility, and a respect for you as the ultimate expert on your own life.
And to my fellow clinicians, I offer this as both an invitation and a challenge.
Let us have the courage to move beyond the safety of performative allyship.
Let us do the hard, internal work of mapping our own landscapes of privilege and bias.
Let us trade the comfort of being the expert for the profound honor of being a co-explorer.
The work of Narrative Cartography is more challenging, it requires more of us, but it is also infinitely more rewarding.
It is the work that our clients—in all their diversity, resilience, and beauty—have always deserved.
Every one of us holds the pen to our own map.
The journey to an authentic, meaningful life is the greatest expedition we will ever undertake.
The purpose of therapy is not to hand us a map that dictates our route, but to ensure that we have the tools, the support, and the self-belief to chart our own unique and magnificent path.
Your expedition awaits.
Works cited
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- The Growing Regulation of Conversion Therapy – PMC, accessed on August 10, 2025, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5040471/
- What does the scholarly research say about whether conversion therapy can alter sexual orientation without causing harm? – What We Know Project – Cornell University, accessed on August 10, 2025, https://whatweknow.inequality.cornell.edu/topics/lgbt-equality/what-does-the-scholarly-research-say-about-whether-conversion-therapy-can-alter-sexual-orientation-without-causing-harm/
- Study reveals harmful effects of conversion therapy on LGBTQ+ people – News-Medical.net, accessed on August 10, 2025, https://www.news-medical.net/news/20241001/Study-reveals-harmful-effects-of-conversion-therapy-on-LGBTQ2b-people.aspx
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