HSQs , aka LGBTQ+ Highly Sensitive People, are leaders, noticing, changing, feeling...and community provides the support we need.
Are you Sensitive and Queer? Join our Sensitivity Circle for LGBTQ+ Highly Sensitive People. Therapist-led coaching and support for HSQs. Where is our community? How do we find each other as highly sensitive LGBTQ+ or HSQ as we call us? If you Identify as both a highly sensitive person and a person in the LGBTQ+ world, you are most welcome. We will be open and curious about what it means to walk simultaneously in both of these identities through our HSQ Sensitivity Circles. Mental health professionals are welcome.
Sensitivity Circles are small group gatherings facilitated by licensed psychotherapists. We create community and facilitate mutual support. Participants will have opportunities to share challenges and triumphs, ask questions, or ask for help.
What does it mean to be HSQ?
Who are HSQs?
Do you find that you are more impacted by your environment than the majority of people are? Do you have stronger, perhaps even more exquisite, emotional reactions to the world around you? Do you feel overwhelmed by your place in the world–especially because you just don’t seem to fit? Or maybe because the world just doesn’t fit you?
These statements might be true of you because you have innate high sensitivity.
They may also be true if you are LGBTQ+ and outside the norm of the majority in terms of sexual orientation or gender identity.
What if both are true of you? It can be an exhausting existence, living forever on the outside. Thriving in a world that doesn’t fit you, isn’t designed for you, and often doesn’t see you requires a strong heart and deep skill.
And the gifts of living as HSQs are also profound. We know what the world needs…and how to design our lives. We are more socially aware, highly empathetic, and deeply feeling.
Maybe another question is, "Are we thriving and what do we need from our communities to support HSQ thriving?"
Sensitive and Strong Podcast
Sensitive & Strong by Annet de Zwart - A conversation with Alane Freund and Brian Torres about the LGBTQ+ community. We talked about the importance of community for HSQs (Highly Sensitive Queers) in the LGBTQ+ community.
Why HSQs love our Circles
Meet the Facilitators
Alane Freund, LMFT, ICHS
Alane Freund, MS, MA, is an International Consultant on High Sensitivity (ICHS) and family therapist who helps highly sensitive adults and youth focus on solutions through education, consultation, and speaking. She has developed numerous programs for highly sensitive people and clinicians, including her monthly workshops at Are You Highly Sensitive. She is known for her widely recognized Talk at Google, Understanding the Highly Sensitive Person. Alane Freund can be reached through her website, alanefreund.com.
Brian Torres, MA, LMFT
Brian Torres (he/they), MA, LMFT, is a psychotherapist and consultant based in Los Angeles, California. Brian is a former mental health and crisis counselor with the Los Angeles LGBT Center and The Trevor Project. He specializes in working with highly sensitive persons and BIPOC and LGBTQ+ folks in his clinical practice. Brian is passionate about the intersections of high sensitivity and queer identity. He has presented at various conferences and conducted training on HSPs in the LGBTQ+ community. briantorrestherapy.com
