Latest / The Trauma Therapist / Episode 784: Empowering The Queer Community with Renae Johnson

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Episode 784: Empowering The Queer Community with Renae Johnson · The Trauma Therapist

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All right. Welcome back to the Trauma Therapist Podcast. My name is Gamiferson.
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My mission is to help trauma therapist be their incredible selves, to be
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human, to be real, not just a clinician. I'm a big believer
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in who we are is more important than what we know, and this requires
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cultivating authenticity, genuineness, and vulnerability, and that requires intention. Can learn
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more about my courses and workshops by going to the Trauma Therapist project dot com.
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That's the Trauma Therapist Project dot com. Let's get started, So five
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or three, two and one, our folks, welcome back to the podcast.
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I am very excited to have with my guest today, Renee Johnson.
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Renee, welcome, Thank you so much for having me all right. After
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years of running on profits and supporting the career growth of junior therapists, Renee
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is working in therapy practice and supporting the mental health and growth of queer trans
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artists and others who have complex trauma. Renee is excited to have launched the
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Open Space Collective and looks forward to seeing it grow as a hub for their
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community. They are licensed professional Clinical counselor in California, board certified as an
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art therapist and a certified clinical trauma professional. Renee received their master's degree in
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art therapy from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, and as additional Semitic
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focusing training with a Focusing Institute. Awesome, Welcome to the podcast. Thank
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you so much. So let's start off here well before we do actually share
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with our listeners where you're from originally and where you are currently learned from originally.
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How far back would you like me to come back? Way? Baack.
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I grew up in a tiny little town in the middle of Iowa where
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there are more paid some people, which was very quaint in in the eighties
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and nineties before there was all this this tech. And since then, I've
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lived in New York and California and Texas and Minnesota and Singapore and kind of
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traveled all over, and I've landed in LA and I came down here from
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San Francisco over the pandemic, and I've just really fell in love with the
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city and really found that there's a lot of wonderful queer artists here but really
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a lack of mental health support that's specifically for them. So we've really been
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opening up and branching out and trying to really build a community in a hub
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for that space, which was a big surprise to me that there was such
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a lack interesting And we'll get into that, but before we do, I
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lived. I lived in Los Angeles for about four years and moved there from
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San Francisco and really liked I mean, there's a lot to the town that
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I think a lot of people don't know about simply because they're blinded by you
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know, Hollywood and Beverly Hills. But there's so much there. Can you
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go into a little bit more about what attracted you to the city, you
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know, the being somebody who's not in the Hollywood industry, I get to
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kind of avoid all of the hustle and bustle in networking things. So as
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many of us are, we're not in the Hollywood industry, and people are
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very grounded here. There's a huge diversity of backgrounds. People are generally really
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really optimistic here and want to get to know people and want to collaborate and
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want to explore. And because of that, the city is just so vibrant
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where there's always like five hundred different types of things going on at any point,
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and so it's really it's kind of a continual treasure hunt and unfolding and
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getting to know more about different types of people and experience different types of things
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here that even living in New York, I didn't feel that same type of
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excitement and optimism. So that's been a wonderful thing about LA. That's been
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just really enriching, very cool. All right, so let's start here.
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How the heck did you get into this field. It was an accident.
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I had been working in hospitality for a long time and was totally burnt out
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as most people do after a while, and was like, you know,
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I'm going to go back to grad school. I'm going to go for painting.
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I love painting, that makes sense. And got about a year in
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and went, oh, no, I'm getting a lot of student modes and
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there's actually no career here because I don't want to be a teacher and that's
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kind of the only thing to do. But I was at Pratt, which
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also has an art therapy program, and so randomly as an elective, I
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was like, Oh, what's this persononality development course? That sounds interesting,
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And within a few weeks of being in that, in that course and with
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that professor, I was just like Oh, this is it, this is
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realicked and for me and switched over, what what about a clique? You
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know? I I grew up in a household where one of my parents was
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very had a lot of mental illness, and it was something that kind of
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just happened all of a sudden when I was a kid, and so I
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grew up in the culture of mental health and mental illness and how to talk
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that language and that type of personality and how people develop and how it makes
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people tick. And both of my parents did a good job of talking about
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what was happening instead of trying to hide it. And so there was always
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this piece of me who was like, Oh, I'm curious what this is.
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I want to know more about this. I like this, But therapy
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was always kind of shunned in my home sold at the same time, So
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it was this weird dynamic, but it was one of those things. All
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of my paintings were about people, the sculptures I was doing was about people,
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and so it was one of those moments where those two parts of me
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just kind of like clicked together, which is really exciting, very cool.
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So what happened? You take this course? Yeah, which is really cool.
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And interesting at the same time. Yeah. Yeah, And thankfully the
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professor that I was taking a class with, I was like, I think
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I want to switch over. This is great, and so she really helped
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me transition in and it was since this was a second career for me.
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They had a distance learning program so you could kind of do these intense chunks
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at a time and still have a job so you can pay your bills.
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And I worked with high schoolers for a while, and I worked with homeless
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population for a while through grad school and really got a lot out of that.
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Was really blessed to have some incredible mentors through that process. And then
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was over New York. It's I couldn't do the snow anymore. I couldn't
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do the tiny apartments anymore. And so it came out to San Francisco shortly
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after graduation. Okay, and how do things unfold there? What are you
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thinking when you land in San Francisco in terms of working with the population,
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What are you thinking or are you even thinking about that at all? Totally?
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Well, part of the dra to San Francisco was there's a huge artist
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population and it's known as this very creative space. It's known as a huge
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diversity in people, that it's a big queer community, and so I was
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really ready to kind of be be around more of my people and that it
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was more relaxed and less competitive as New York. So they of life was
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better and came in and started working in forensics and substance use and with the
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homeless population and loved it. I worked for about ten years there in different
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nonprofits and organizations, and the clients that we worked with were incredible, and
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I worked just by happenstance, ended up working with a lot of seniors,
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so I got to know a lot of people who were big in the career
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and trans liberation movements before my time and getting to know them in that process
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and what that experience was like and how they are later in life, and
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it was really meaningful to me. And I got to a point where I
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was running a few different programs and was really disconnected, to be really disconnected
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from the clients and getting really burnt out. So I took a break.
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You weren't working as a therapist in this context. I was. I was
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working for as a therapist until about the last two years. I started doing
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more program direction and really missed working with the clients, and so it was
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kind of set time just to step away and get back to working with our
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clients, and the pandemic hit, and so making the transition to private practice
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and to southern California really made a lot of sense. So you founded Open
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Space Collective with the goal of what I know, I said it in your
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bio, but just found on that a little bit more. Yeah, there's
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it's really important and I know you know this too, as you're working through
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your trauma, as you're working through that deeper stuff, to have a therapist
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who gets you, who understands somewhat of some part of your experience. No
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two people have the same shared lived experience, but to have community and connection
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in that space. And one thing that I've found through my work, and
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I think San Francisco is a great example of this, is there's incredible queer
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community there. There's incredible support groups and healing networks and in a way that
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I haven't seen in LA yet. And so part of that is, you
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know, offering queer and transd informed therapy for people who want to work through
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their trauma, who are going through that process, who can talk with therapists
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that understand what their process has been like in some level, but also be
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able to start making connections so people can build that community together outside of therapists.
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And so whether that's support groups or just community space where people can come
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together is our longer term goal because the community piece and that those healing reparative
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experiences together really make a huge difference in trauma healing. I'm kind of surprised
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to hear that LA is lacking to some degree in that support supportive area.
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What do you feel people who don't identify as queer, what do they need
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to understand or about delivering mental health care to queer people. This is tough
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because a lot of a lot of how we know our reality is really like
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intrinsic and subconscious, and how we go about the world is really beyond like
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how we consciously think about doing it. And so when someone who is not
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queer or SIS identifying moves through the world, there's not really questions. They're
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not questioning themselves, they're not getting questioned by other people. But somebody who
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is queer or trans has always had this kind of itch in the back of
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their head that something's not the same and done a lot and had to do
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a lot of that deeper work to really discover and find themselves and make those
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steps to say, no, this the reality that's set up isn't the reality
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that fits with me, and I need to work to find myself and figure
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out how to fit into the world with other people. And it's a really
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different process because people have to queer and trans people have to shift and move,
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so they're feeling safe all of the time, feeling like they aren't betraying
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themselves, and still feeling like they can understand and be crazy making. Yeah,
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it really can be. I mean, we're not even talked well,
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I was going to say, we're not even really talking about something traumatic happening,
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but then I'm thinking something about that could even feel traumatizing moving through the
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world, like you're constantly questioning this, I mean, I I can't imagine
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that. And now, of course, with the culture political culture in which
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we're living, it just seems like all these arrows and daggers are being thrown
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at people who are identifying it queer constantly consistently. Yeah, absolutely, I
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think especially now with all of the laws being passed and just all of this
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vitriol being targeted at the community. It's making that even more and more difficult
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and more and more scary, and people are struggling to travel to go see
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family or if they what parts of the city they can and can't go to,
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and like, can I actually go down to even Orange County that is
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an hour or two away and still be safe. And so there's and I
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think a question that is worth asking and I don't have an answer to is
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what you're saying is being queer and trans intrinsically entering into a traumatic experience because
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you have to navigate because there's very little guaranteed safe spaces and there's a lot
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about that life experience that can look like how we work with clients who have
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very explicit trauma. Let me just take a moment here and think our sponsors.
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Yeah, so we're back here with Renee, And look, I don't
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identify as queer, and I can't imagine just even going through that process living
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in a world where and look, everyone's got issues going on, but just
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just by the very nature of your existence, having to question alone your existence,
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but even safety. So yeah, I think an answer to your question,
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I think it can be traumatizing just to uh be going through that that
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what I don't even know if you want to call it a process, but
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that's a what being queer. Yeah, and it is, you know,
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I would totally call it a process because it's a continue self discovery and as
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we age that our identity changes and that then our queer identity changes with that.
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And I think one of the beautiful things about the last ten years is
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that there's been more non binary, gender, queer, gender fluid, trans
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icons and people talking about it, and it's more in the conversation and it's
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giving people language in ways to be like, oh my god, that's me,
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Like this is the thing that's been the itch in the back of my
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head, this is why I haven't been fitting in. And so as we
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continue to grow as a society, there's also going to be new discoveries that
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we make together. And so it's not just like you come out and I
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am this one thing and I have to figure out how to move around the
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world as this one thing. But we're all complex, ever evolving people,
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and so it's a continual process at the same time. So through through open
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space, collective, your organization, uh ho, what are you doing specifically?
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How are you bringing people when people come to you, what are you
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doing? What kind of community are you trying to create? So we opened
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just about a year ago, so we're brand new right now. We have
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therapists of all sorts of different intersectionalities. Our therapist and movement therapists, people
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that are bipock and all specifically work with trauma and are either queer or queer
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informed therapists. And so we're offering a lot of individual and couples and teams
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therapy now and our our goals over the next year to grow more into providing
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more groups and support groups and grow into a bigger space where we have a
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community space to start pulling that together. So our work in this moment now
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that we've kind of solidified the individual and relationship work is to branch out and
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build more of that community and find ways to collaborate with other queer spaces and
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other queer people and continue to really build that hub and that safe space.
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So is it for queer people only, No, we're allies are wonderful.
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Like the community goes beyond just your identity, and so whether you're a queer,
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or you're an ally, or you're a bypack person, or you're a
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white person. As long as everybody's allied with each other and safe together and
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willing to grow together, it's all one big family. Okay. For the
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listener out there, what does it mean specifically to be queer informed queer informed
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therapists? What beyond the generalities, what does that mean? It's really a
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lot of education about what that life experience is, the way that people move
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through the world, the way that you find your identity, the way that
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your relationships are different, the way that going through medical or career or dating,
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and how that life experience is is different, and what those experiences feel
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like. And so even if you're not a queer person, spending a lot
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of time taking in education from other providers or activists and really learning about that,
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because when a trans person goes to the doctor, that is already going
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to be an experience that's fraught with contradictions, and being able to know that
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ahead of time and know what traps are there, and being able to help
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the client navigate through that and find a medical provider who is transinformed or queer
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informed and not having your client educate you. A lot of what we'll hear
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is clients coming in and being like yeah, they were a great therapist,
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but I had to teach them what it's like for me to go to the
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doctor instead. Well, what I really needed was them to already know and
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be able to give me the support through that really tough experience. You mentioned
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relationships, How are they different? Oh, and with the understanding that yeah,
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people are different, you know one relationship is not gonna be the same.
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But for the therapists out listening, who isn't queer, you're saying,
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you know how relationships are different? How give us let us know? How
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are they different? You know, one thing that's coming up a lot right
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now is the client's relationships with their parents. Is the especially if they grew
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up in a religious household, if their pronouns are they them or they're using
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multiple pronouns trying to If you have a parent who's like okay, yeah,
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I'm trying to work with it, but is really stuck in the like this
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grammar doesn't make sense to me. Well, you're not a boy or girl,
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so like what are you? You need to decide and let me know.
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And so it's navigating how do I keep this relationship intact and be respected
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and seen and be authentic in this relationship dynamic with a parent, and it's
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really tough because there's big generational gaps in here, and the burden gets placed
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on the teen or the adult child to really be the parent in the relationship,
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and that dynamic turns really fast on a dive be like, Okay,
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I need to hold space for this person so they can get to know me
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while not crossing my own boundaries as I'm being misgendered, or they're refusing to
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let me bring my same sex partner to a family gathering, Like how long
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do you hold that invitation for connection open? And when do you say it's
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too much, This is hurting me too much. I need to start stepping
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away. And it can often not look like obvious abuse or obvious like emotional
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manipulation, because they're still being invited to the events. The parents are saying
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we love you, we want you around, but that refusal by the parent
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to honor who the child actually is. It's a really tough relationship to figure
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out how to navigate. How was yours your own personally? How did how
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did you move through this process of coming out? How what was that like
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for you? I it was tough. I am somebody who came out later
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in life. I grew up in a very religious household, and it was
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also a pretty traumatic household, and so I had kind of layers of things
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to peel back, and so my family. I've kept my family pretty distant
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because the truck and the relationship betrayals were big enough on their own that they
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weren't really a part of my coming out process. And so my brother,
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who I'm very close to as we've had a lot of conversations about that,
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and he identifies as a CIS straight guy. I tease him all the time
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that he's just like, how did I end up with such a bro for
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a brother? But he's been a great example of like being able to say,
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I don't quite get it, but I'm open and I'm understanding, please
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help me understand. And so it's been a very positive back and forth in
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that where he's never said you need I'm not going to refer to you as
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them, I'm not going to understand your pay sexuality, I'm not going there.
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You need to come to me, And that's that's been a really beautiful
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process in that relationship that just wasn't wasn't available to or isn't a with my
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parents, and so there's been it's been a tough experience. But the beautiful
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part about the queer community is having the chosen family that you could do adopt
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and each other and bring in to support through that. So yeah, mm
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hmmm. So through open Space Collective, you're trying to or or in the
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process of creating a vibrant community and and uh kind of creating a blossoming garden
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in the lack of Los Angeles. What are you hoping to provide there that
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that isn't there, that maybe it wasn't even there in San Francisco. M
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h You know, people keep calling it a when I talk about it,
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because we're still in the creation process of this. The keep getting referred to
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as a hub. And so we're in the space of we don't want to
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like dictate what happens. We want to you know, as a lot of
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therapists that say, create the container, and so really having a space where
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different groups can come together, where people can just come and spend time,
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where the therapists and the staff that are there keep it safe, really space,
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and keep it keep the safe, really safe. I'm bumbling my word
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safe, the space really safe. And two let the community help it evolve,
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and so I think one of the exciting things about this is the project
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will continue to change and grow as the people who come and join us there
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change and grow. So it'll be a really, hopefully a big community project
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that's awesome, sort of like a living, creative safe space. Well you
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were you are awesome, You're so inspiring. You have this beautiful presence about
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yourself. Yeah, it's really it's really awesome. So can you share with
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our listeners? Well, let me ask you this. Do you offer any
27:23
kind of training for therapists? We are starting to put that together. We
27:30
get that asked a lot, and so we're hoping by the fall we'll start
27:36
having some training for therapists. One of the things that we're trying to figure
27:41
out is where to start because there's a lot of there's a lot of content
27:45
and a lot of questions, and so if any listeners have any suggestions or
27:55
questions, please send those through as we start building this out, and we
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may even just do some therapist town hall and just have an open question for
28:06
him and see how that goes. So we're really in the process of putting
28:10
that together. Awesome, Renee, how can people, get you, get
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contact with you. Yeah. You can find us on all the social media's
28:18
at open Space Therapy and we have we also have a podcast called My Therapist
28:25
Is Out Yeah, which comes out every other week on Wednesdays, and you
28:30
can always email us at info at Openspace Therapy Collective dot com. I'm going
28:37
to link all that up here at the show notes page at the Trauma theapispodcast
28:41
dot com. Awesome, Renee, love to have you back. We appreciate
28:45
you taking the time to be here joining me today. Great. Thank you
28:48
so much, guy, This was really sweet. All right, take care
28:52
ye nothing at the day Attata at the Round Building