Queer-Affirming, Not Neutral
Euan Ebbitt
Integrative Counsellor, Queer-Affirming Practice
July 13, 2026
Audio
About this Episode
Euan Ebbitt is an integrative counsellor working relationally across CBT, psychodynamic and person-centred approaches, with a practice built around the LGBTQIA+ community. Their background spans London Friend and Clinic Q, working with trans and non-binary clients, their families, and the wider queer community.
This conversation starts with a question most trainings answer with a flat no: should a therapist self-disclose? Euan makes the case for disclosure as a queer-affirming practice, not a boundary failure, and talks through what changes for a client when they know, without having to ask, that they are in a safe room.
From there it opens out into where training falls short. A single week for the whole of LGBTQIA+. The pressure on queer trainees to become the group's unpaid educator. Theory built on heteronormative assumptions. And underneath all of it, the politics that can't be separated from doing this work right now, and why non-defensiveness, not getting it right, is what actually holds the therapeutic relationship together.
Euan Ebbitt
Integrative Counsellor, Queer-Affirming Practice
Euan Ebbitt (they/them) is an integrative counsellor working relationally, drawing on CBT, psychodynamic and person-centred approaches. They have worked with London Friend and Clinic Q, supporting LGBTQIA+ clients across the full spectrum of the community, with a particular focus on trans and non-binary people and their families navigating transition.
Euan's practice is built on queer-affirming disclosure and a non-defensive approach to the inevitable mistakes of cross-identity work. They run a sliding-scale fee structure to widen access to therapy for clients who would otherwise be priced out, and are an active voice in supervision spaces exploring what therapists bring into the room alongside their clients.
What You'll learn
- Why the "never self-disclose" rule taught in most trainings can work against queer clients, and how to judge when disclosure builds trust instead of breaking the frame.
- What gets lost when LGBTQIA+ identity is compressed into a single week of training, and where asexuality, intersex identity and other experiences fall through the gaps.
- How to sit with getting it wrong in front of a client, and why non-defensiveness after a mistake does more for the relationship than getting it right first time.
- Why psychodynamic theory's heteronormative assumptions need holding loosely, not applying by the book, when working with queer and trans clients.
- How a sliding-scale fee model can widen access to both therapy and training for people who are otherwise priced out.