Workshop Descriptions & Speaker Bios

FRIDAY, MAY 15

Wearing Two Hats: The Therapist as Healer and Hellraiser
Jeff Lutes, LPC, QTAP (he/him)

This presentation explores the delicate, dynamic balance between compassion and activism in clinical work. As therapists, we are called to heal individual wounds while also confronting the systemic forces that perpetuate them. This workshop invites participants to examine how advocacy, social justice, and therapeutic ethics can coexist without burnout or role confusion.

Identify the intersections between therapeutic healing and social justice advocacy within professional ethics and scope of practice
Develop strategies to integrate activism and advocacy into clinical work in ways that support both client empowerment and therapist sustainability
Reflect on personal values, biases, and boundaries to cultivate an authentic professional identity that honors both the healer and the hellraiser within

Speaker Bio:

Jeff (he/him) has been in private practice in Austin, Texas for 36 years. He is the Founder and Executive Director of The Center for Contemporary Relationships, which hosts the annual Contemporary Relationships Conference (CRC) as well as the Queer and Trans Affirming Professional (QTAP) certification program. He is the author of Trailblazers In Love (Contemporary Relationships Press, 2023), a chapter in the Handbook of LGBT-Affirmative Couple and Family Therapy (2nd Edition, Routledge, 2022; 1st Edition, Routledge 2012), two chapters in Affirmative Counseling with LGBTQI+ People (American Counseling Association, 2017), and Okin the Panda Bear Finds His Family - a children's book about family diversity (Creative House Press, 2011). His articles about LGBTQ relationships and families have appeared on The Bilerico Project and Therapy Matters. He has presented at the conferences of the American Family Therapy Academy, the American Association of Marriage & Family Therapy, the American Counseling Association, and the Texas Psychological Association. The former Executive Director of Soulforce; Jeff has spoken at universities, churches, and rallies around the country, and his social justice efforts have been covered by numerous media outlets, including NPR and CNN. www.jefflutespsychotherapy.com

Embodied Liberation: A Trauma-Informed, Sex-Positive Framework for Strengthening LGBTQ+ Relationships
Christa McCrorie, LICSW-S, PIP; CD (DONA); CST - under supervision (she/any)

LGBTQ+ families and individuals are increasingly fleeing "red states" like Texas in response to policies that increase sociopolitical violence and restrict access to Transgender and Gender-Diverse affirming healthcare. In this pursuit of safety, complex ambiguous grief emerges for those who leave and those who stay. This presentation will examine how clinicians can support either experience through trauma-informed grief care informed by liberation psychology. By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

Differentiate between standard adjustment disorders and the complex symptoms of grief associated with sociopolitical trauma and displacement
Gain greater understanding of the dyadic assessment needed for grief among “Leavers” and “Stayers”
Identify holistic grief interventions informed by Indigenous Wisdom and evidence-based modalities.

Speaker Bio:

Marissa Rivera (she/her) is a Psychotherapist (LPC-S), Leadership Consultant, and Creative in Austin, Texas. She is the founder of Ola Wellness, a private psychotherapy practice serving Austin's QTPOC communities. Marissa provides clinical supervision to early career therapists and helps clients navigate anxiety, complicated grief, life transitions, complex trauma, and living in an unjust world while holding marginalized identities. In 2018, she authored Austin ISD’s Communal Grief Policy, reflecting her commitment to systemic healing and bridging Indigenous Wisdom with evidence-based interventions. She has also trained numerous clinicians on culturally-competent interventions for clients navigating grief. As a Queer Native Tejana, Marissa continues to weave holistic intergenerational healing into all roles, including as an Executive Leadership Coach, Lecturer at University of Texas at Austin, speaker at a variety of conferences and events, and President of SIMS Foundation’s Board of Directors. Beyond her leadership and support roles, Marissa finds joy in hosting Sunday dinners and snuggling with her senior pup, Bruce Wayne.

Using Therapeutic Collage and Parts Work to Deepen Self-Awareness, Self-Compassion, and Self-Trust
Emily Stone, PhD, LMFT-S (she/her)

Description & Bio forthcoming

Beyond Biology: Understanding the Mental Health Implications of Fertility for LGBTQIA+ People
Giana Simonelli, LAC (she/her)

Reproductive mental health is often framed through narrow, biologically centered models that fail to reflect the lived experiences of LGBTQ+ individuals and families. Beyond Biology explores how reproductive health intersects with identity, mental health, and relationships within LGBTQ+ communities, highlighting the psychological impact of fertility access, reproductive loss, bodily autonomy, and non-traditional paths to parenthood. This presentation challenges heteronormative assumptions embedded in clinical care and examines how systemic barriers and medicalized narratives can contribute to anxiety, grief, identity distress, and relational strain. Attendees will gain insight into inclusive, identity-affirming approaches to assessment and treatment, along with practical strategies for supporting LGBTQ+ clients navigating reproductive decision-making and reproductive grief. This session invites mental health professionals and educators to expand their understanding of reproductive mental health beyond biology and toward more equitable, relationally informed care. By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

Identify key ways heteronormative and biologically centered reproductive frameworks impact LGBTQ+ mental health, identity development, and relational wellbeing
Describe common psychological and relational stressors experienced by LGBTQ+ individuals navigating reproductive health, including fertility access, reproductive loss, and non-traditional paths to parenthood
Apply inclusive, LGBTQ+-affirming strategies to clinical assessment and therapeutic interventions when addressing reproductive mental health concerns.

Speaker Bio:

Giana Simonelli is a Licensed Associate Counselor candidate specializing in adolescent and young adult mental health, with a particular focus on LGBTQ+ identity, reproductive mental health, and systems-based care. She obtained her Masters Degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling and currently works within higher levels of care, supporting clients navigating anxiety, trauma, identity development, family systems, and life transitions. Giana’s scholarly and clinical interests center on the intersection of reproductive justice, mental health, and LGBTQ+ lived experience, with an emphasis on how systemic barriers, policy shifts, and access to care impact psychological wellbeing. Her work integrates evidence-based approaches with an affirming, relational framework that prioritizes safety, autonomy, and identity-informed care. In addition to her clinical work, Giana is actively engaged in professional development, advocacy, and program development aimed at expanding inclusive mental health practices. She is passionate about bridging research, clinical practice, and education to foster more responsive, equitable systems of care for LGBTQ+ individuals and families.

Beyond Affirmation: Relational, Abolitionist, and Liberatory Clinical & Supervisory Practices for LGBTQ+ Relationships
Dr. Anna Morgan-Mullane, DSW, LCSW (she/her)

This workshop explores relational, abolitionist, and liberatory approaches to clinical practice with LGBTQ+ individuals, couples, and relationship systems, as well as supervision for therapists working in this community. Moving beyond affirming care alone, the presentation examines how traditional clinical and supervisory models can reproduce heteronormative and carceral logics. Participants will learn how to apply relational therapy interventions, abolitionist principles, and justice-oriented frameworks to support LGBTQ+ relationships in ways that honor complexity, autonomy, and collective care. The workshop also offers supervisors concrete tools for supporting therapists navigating institutional constraints while maintaining liberatory clinical commitments. Designed for clinicians, supervisors, and community-based practitioners, this session integrates theory with practical, immediately applicable strategies for strengthening LGBTQ+ relational work. By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

Apply relational therapy interventions that support LGBTQ+ relationships beyond heteronormative and monogamous frameworks, including work with enactments, rupture and repair, and relational power dynamics
Integrate abolitionist and liberatory principles into clinical decision-making with LGBTQ+ clients, reducing harm and resisting pathologizing or punitive therapeutic practices
Utilize a relational, justice-informed supervision framework to support therapists working with LGBTQ+ communities while balancing ethical accountability, institutional constraints, and liberatory values

Speaker Bio:

Dr. Anna Morgan-Mullane, LCSW (she/her) is the Founder and Clinical Director of Echo Community Practice, a trauma-responsive therapy collective grounded in liberatory, feminist, abolitionist, and anti-racist frameworks. Echo Community Practice provides individual, couples, family, sex, and group therapy while advancing relational, justice-centered approaches to clinical supervision, training, and collective care. Dr. Morgan-Mullane is a therapist, clinical social worker, educator, and supervisor with over 16 years of leadership experience in public and nonprofit mental health systems. She served as President of Mental Health Services at Children of Promise, NYC, where she established the first outpatient mental health clinic in the United States specifically designed to support children and adolescents impacted by parental incarceration. Her work has focused on complex and intergenerational trauma, systemic oppression, and the intersections of clinical practice, social policy, and abolitionist reform. She has developed and led extensive training programs for MSW and MHC interns and licensed clinicians, psychiatrists, psychologiest, across disciplines, emphasizing anti-racist, culturally responsive, and trauma-informed care. Dr. Morgan-Mullane teaches in master’s and doctoral programs and holds a Doctorate in Social Work from New York University’s Silberman School of Social Work. Her clinical orientation integrates narrative, psychodynamic, family systems, and somatic practices informed by abolitionist frameworks.

Working in the Erotic Field: Desire, Containment, and Development Across Queer Therapist–Client Dyads
Joseph Mikulka, LCSW-R (he/him), and Rahim Thawer, MSW, RSW (he/him)

In this dialogue-based presentation, Joseph Mikulka, queer psychoanalyst, and Rahim Thawer, queer therapist and clinical educator, invite experienced LGBTQ clinicians who are newer to psychoanalytic thinking to reframe erotic transference as part of the erotic field—a relational space in which desire, vitality, shame, and attachment are communicated symbolically rather than literally. Erotic charge is approached not as sexual intent or ethical failure, but as clinically meaningful information about developmental needs and relational longings. Drawing on examples across the lifespan—from early attachment and adolescent identity formation to adult and midlife experiences of loss, longing, and repair—the presenters explore how erotic transference may express unmet dependency needs, recognition hunger, and fears of abandonment, particularly in queer lives shaped by secrecy, marginalization, or delayed recognition. The session emphasizes the therapist’s role as a containing presence who can hold erotic charge without acting on it or prematurely foreclosing its meaning. By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

Conceptualize erotic transference as a symbolic expression of developmental needs across the lifespan
Differentiate erotic, loving, and eroticized transferences within queer therapeutic relationships
Describe the therapist’s role as a containing presence in working ethically with erotic charge

Speaker Bios:

Joseph T. Mikulka, LCSW-R, (aka JT) is a social worker and psychoanalyst. He is faculty at the William Alanson White Institute, IPSS, and Adelphi University. JT is an associate editor for the journals Contemporary Psychoanalysis and the Journal for Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy, and Immediate Past-President of the board of Section II (Children and Adolescents) of Division 39. He is in private practice in New York City.

Rahim Thawer (he/him) is a registered social worker, psychotherapist, and faculty member in the School of Social Work at The University of Alabama, where he’s completing a Doctor of Social Work specializing in organizational leadership. Originally from Treaty 13 territory (Toronto), Rahim’s teaching, clinical, and research work explore the intersections of mental health, social justice, and psychoanalysis.

POSTER: Building Relational Resilience in LGBTQ+ Adults with Borderline Personality Disorder Histories

Thomas Flanagan, MA (he/him), and Henry White, PsyD (he/him)

This pilot study examined how daily experiences of partner responsiveness and minority stress predict suicidal ideation and self-harm urges in LGBTQ+ adults with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) features. Eighty-four participants (62% transgender or nonbinary) completed baseline measures of emotion regulation, suicidality, and community connectedness, followed by 14 days of ecological momentary assessment (EMA). Multilevel analyses showed that daily partner responsiveness predicted lower same-day suicidal ideation (β = –.31, p < .01), while invalidation predicted increased risk (β = .29, p < .01). Community connectedness buffered the effect of invalidation on NSSI urges (p < .05). Qualitative data underscored the healing impact of chosen family and affirming relationships. Findings suggest that relational validation and queer belonging may protect against suicide risk, offering support for queer-affirming, DBT- and EFT-informed interventions that strengthen connection and resilience in LGBTQ+ individuals with BPD histories. By the end of this workshop, participants will learn that:

Queer-affirming relationships buffer suicide risk: Daily experiences of partner responsiveness and relational validation significantly reduce self-destructive urges and suicidal ideation among LGBTQ+ adults with BPD features
Community connectedness fosters resilience: LGBTQ+ community belonging moderates the emotional impact of invalidation, highlighting the protective role of chosen family and collective support networks
Reframing BPD through connection: Findings challenge deficit-based models of BPD by emphasizing resilience, relational repair, and the therapeutic potential of queer-affirming interventions

Speaker Bios:

Thomas Flanagan earned his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Chicago and his Master of Arts in Clinical Psychology from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. He is currently a 3rd-year Psy.D. candidate at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, integrating clinical research with hands-on therapeutic experience to provide evidence-based care. Before pursuing psychology, Thomas explored creative arts and entrepreneurship, successfully founding and running three businesses. This unique background informs his holistic, practical approach to therapy, helping clients apply insights from therapy into real-world situations.Thomas is actively engaged in research that informs clinical practice, including intimate partner violence (IPV) in LGBTQIA+ couples and studies on suicidal ideation and depression in adolescents and young adults. His clinical approach draws from psychoanalytic theory, psychodynamic psychotherapy, and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), allowing him to tailor interventions to the specific needs of each client. He has clinical experience working in residential treatment facilities and on the 988 Crisis Line, giving him expertise in both crisis management and long-term therapeutic support

Dr. Henry White is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in men’s mental health, group psychotherapy, and trauma recovery. He earned his Doctorate in Clinical Psychology (PsyD) from the University of Denver and completed his clinical residency at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System, where he provided individual and group therapy for veterans coping with PTSD, substance use, and moral injury. Dr. White’s research and clinical work center on how gender socialization and cultural expectations influence men’s engagement in therapy and emotional expression. He has developed and facilitated evidence-based men’s groups focused on vulnerability, resilience, and relational connection, integrating cognitive-behavioral, interpersonal, and mindfulness-based approaches. Dr. White currently serves as a faculty member and clinical supervisor at the Center for Integrative Psychology in Seattle, where he trains graduate students in gender-sensitive and trauma-informed practice. His recent projects explore barriers to help-seeking among male-identifying clients and strategies for fostering emotional openness in group settings.

POSTER: Beyond Romance: Conscious Love as a Healing Practice

Christian de la Huerta, BA, Certified Breathwork Practitioner

In a culture shaped by romantic ideals and unconscious expectations, relationships often become sources of frustration rather than fulfillment. Many of us unknowingly ask relationships to heal wounds or provide a sense of wholeness they were never meant to carry. Drawing on over three decades of experience as a spiritual teacher and personal transformation coach—and insights from his recent book, Conscious Love: Transforming Our Relationship to Relationships—Christian de la Huerta invites participants to explore a different paradigm for relating. This session reframes relationships not as destinations, but as powerful practices for self-awareness, healing, and growth. Through storytelling, reflection, and practical frameworks, participants will learn to recognize limiting relational patterns, shift from fantasy-based love to presence-based connection, and cultivate relationships rooted in authenticity, responsibility, and conscious choice. By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

Identify common unconscious patterns that undermine intimacy and create repeated conflict in personal relationships
Differentiate between fantasy-based love and conscious love, and understand how each shapes relational dynamics
Reframe relationships as a practice for self-awareness, emotional maturity, and spiritual growth rather than a source of validation or completion

Speaker Bio:

Christian de la Huerta is a spiritual teacher, personal transformation coach, and award-winning author with over 30 years of experience. He has spoken at TEDx and led transformational retreats around the world. His books include Coming Out Spiritually, named a top ten religion book by Publishers Weekly, and Awakening the Soul of Power, praised by Gloria Estefan as “a balm for the soul” and winner of multiple book awards. His latest book, Conscious Love: Transforming Our Relationship to Relationships, offers practical tools for healing and deeper connection.

POSTER: Interrupting Escalation in Intimate Relationships: A Nervous-System-Informed Framework for Staying Connected Under Stress

Michele Omara, PhD, LCSW

This poster presents the 4-R Model, a nervous-system-informed explanatory framework developed through decades of specialized clinical work with lesbian couples. A consistent pattern in this population shows that conflict escalation is often driven by rapid physiological activation that disrupts connection, regardless of a couple’s communication skills or relational insight. The 4-R Model illustrates how escalation develops and how the principles of Wholehearted Communication support regulation and relational repair under stress. Rather than functioning as a prescribed communication sequence, the framework helps clinicians and couples recognize patterns of activation and identify where intervention can restore stability and connection. A case example demonstrates how common, low-stakes conflicts escalate across increasing levels of intensity and highlights key points where recognition, regulation, revealing, and repair can interrupt this progression. The poster offers clinicians a clear, visual tool for understanding nervous system-driven escalation and supporting couples in returning to connection during high-stress interactions. Participants will know more about:

Repair matters more than resolution. Relational strength is built by restoring connection after rupture, not by eliminating conflict
Awareness of nervous system activation is foundational to effective communication. Without it, intention and skill collapse under stress
Staying connected requires recognizing the relational dance and intervening early by shifting from content to regulation

Speaker Bio:

Michele O’Mara, PhD, LCSW (she/her) is a relationship therapist, coach, educator, and author with nearly three decades of experience specializing exclusively in lesbian relationships. Her work focuses on preventing escalation, regulating the nervous system, and navigating attachment dynamics to help couples maintain connection during emotionally charged interactions. Dr. O’Mara integrates Imago theory, affective neuroscience, Gottman research, Emotionally Focused Therapy, and structured dialogue into practical, real-time tools. She is the author of Couples Communication Cure and Just Ask: 1000 Questions to Grow Your Relationship. She has created numerous online courses and hosted over 20 destination retreats for lesbian couples focused on communication, intimacy, and relational repair.

Keynote: The Art of Being a Menace

Hannah Wilson, PhD, LCPC-S, CST

Description forthcoming

Speaker Bio:

Hannah (she/her) began her career working with underserved vulnerable clients in the heart of Seattle. Advocating for harm reduction approaches to addressing addiction, mental health, and homelessness through housing first programming and assisted in research around the VAT (vulnerability assessment tool). After returning home to big sky country (Montana), she worked as a sex educator for the local Title X clinic. Her love of working with underserved populations led to her work at a Community Health Clinic with an integrative behavioral health model advocating for gender affirming care. For the last few years focusing on her private practice, Prickly Peach Sex Therapy, she is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor, Supervisor and AASECT Certified Sex Therapist and trained as a gender and trans affirming therapist with WPATH. She is also the foundress of Oh Hi Collective which is motivated to offer mental health continuing, education for organizations, community, and individuals around sexual health with the intention of removing shame. She holds a PhD in Clinical Sexology, with a specialty in Kink Conscious Counseling. In her down time, you will find her enjoying cake, spending time with her most lovely other half, and laughing at her adorable rescue bulldog, Dax. www.ohhicollective.com

Communication Strategies for Neurodivergent Partnerships

Jamie Goodwin, PhD (she/her), and Marley Flynn (she/her)

Popular relationship education models are often embedded with the assumption that neurotypical communication strategies are superior; this leaves neurodivergent partners, especially in LGBTQ+ relationships, misunderstood or framed as deficient. This workshop will offer a queer- and neurodiversity-affirming approach to communication in partnerships where one or more partners are neurodivergent. We will outline some common neurodivergent communication patterns (such as preference for direct language, differing nonverbal cues, “info-dumping,” varied pacing, scripting, and sensory-based needs) and reframe them as valid expressions of care, as opposed to problems to fix. Through case vignettes and guided reflection, participants will have the opportunity to learn and practice concrete strategies such as “say what you mean” agreements, collaborative cue glossaries, sensory check-ins, shared scripts, and flexible communication modalities like texting or movement-based conversations. Attendees will leave with practical tools to reduce miscommunication, support intimacy, and assist in creating accessible and affirming relationship structures in neuroqueer partnerships. By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

Identify common neurodivergent communication patterns in relationships
Recognize how neurotypical relationship norms can unintentionally marginalize neurodivergent partners
Apply practical, affirming strategies to support healthy communication, consent, and connection in neurodivergent/queer partnerships.

Rethinking EMDR: A Neuro-Affirming Approach for TGD Clients

Emery Rodriguez, MS, LPC - Associate (they/he), and Marissa Rivera, LPC, QTAP (she/her/Ella)

This presentation makes the case for why EMDR must be thoughtfully adapted when working with neurodiverse (ND) transgender and gender-diverse (TGD) clients—a population in which neurodiversity is not only common but often overlooked or misunderstood. Clinicians will gain practical tools for recognizing potential ND using accessible screeners along with guidance on when to involve a therapist versus a psychologist for diagnostic support. The session shows how ND lived experiences uniquely shape trauma, from authoritarian parenting to chronic sensory stress, and offers concrete strategies for tailoring EMDR to fit these realities. With an emphasis on consensual language, collaborative structure, and expanded somatic resourcing, attendees will learn why bottom-up approaches are not optional but essential for ND nervous systems. Participants will leave with clear, actionable adjustments that make EMDR safer, more effective, and truly affirming for ND TGD clients. At the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

Explain why EMDR must be adapted for neurodiverse (ND) transgender and gender-diverse (TGD) clients, including how neurodiversity shapes trauma presentation and treatment readiness
Differentiate between therapist-led ND screening and psychoeducation versus formal psychological assessment, using commonly available tools in an identity-affirming, bias-aware manner
Apply neuro-affirming, trans-affirming modifications across EMDR Phases 1–8, including adaptations to resourcing, bilateral stimulation, pacing, consent, and integration

Speaker Bios:

Emery Rodriguez, MS, LPC-Associate (they/he) supervised by Marissa Rivera, LPC-S, is an EMDR-trained and KAP-trained therapist based in Austin, Texas. They graduated from Texas Woman’s University with their Master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling and have been working in private practice settings since 2023. Emery specializes in supporting Gen Z and Millennial 2SLGBTQ+ and BIPOC individuals navigating late-diagnosed neurodiversity (ADHD, Autism, OCD), burnout, and complex trauma. Their therapeutic approach is trauma-informed, neuro-affirming, and liberation-focused. By blending Relational Cultural Theory, Interpersonal Neurobiology, Internal Family Systems (IFS), and somatic embodiment, they help clients soothe chronic anxiety, perfectionism, and internalized shame. For deeper work, Emery offers EMDR and Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy to help clients shift long-held patterns. In sessions, they guide clients in examining how attachment has shaped their identity, exploring parts of themselves that learned to protect, perform, or shut down. Together, they build nervous system resilience to assist clients in discovering who they are beneath their survival strategies. As a Texan with multiple intersecting minority identities, Emery understands the weight of systemic pressures firsthand and aims to help clients move beyond survival mode to create a felt sense of safety and security within themselves.

Queer Inclusive Birth Work and Sex Work Education for Embodied Healing, Relational Resilience, and Justice

Christa McCrorie, LICSW-S, PIP; CD (DONA); CST - under supervision (she/any)

This presentation explores The Erotic Continuum of Care, a queer-centered framework integrating birth work, sex work pedagogy, and somatic healing for healthy, grounded, and liberated relationships within LGBTQ+ communities. Drawing on Audre Lorde’s concept of the erotic as power, the framework reframes erotic energy as a vital life-force nurturing agency, embodiment, relational resilience, and pleasure-not merely sexual expression. Grounded in community-based research, trauma-informed frameworks, and narratives from queer and trans practitioners, the Erotic Continuum of Care demonstrates how marginalized bodies cultivate relational strategies—both protective and healing—through birth work, intimacy practices, and erotic labor. Recognizing these practices as sources of knowledge and care expands understanding of what sustains LGBTQ+ relationships, families, and communities. Participants will explore how stigma, shame, and systemic oppression disrupt embodied connection and how affirming erotic agency rebuilds relational safety. Through interactive exercises and discussion, attendees will gain tools to strengthen communication, deepen intimacy, and foster pleasure-informed resilience. By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

Understand the Erotic Continuum of Care and its relevance to LGBTQ+ relational health
Explore the intersections between birth work, sex work, embodiment, and relational resilience
Identify how trauma, stigma, and structural oppression impact queer intimacy and embodiment
Practice strategies for cultivating erotic agency, relational communication, and embodied safety
Apply a queer-affirming, pleasure-centered framework to relationship support, community work, or clinical practice.

Speaker Bio:

Christa McCrorie, LICSW-S, PIP, is an innovative therapist, certified birth doula, educator, and Fulbright Specialist dedicated to advancing holistic, client-centered care. She is the founder of Creative Therapeutic Solutions, where she provides tailored therapeutic services with a focus on trauma processing and the unique needs of queer and trans individuals. Christa employs creative, evidence-informed techniques to foster healing, personal growth, and empowerment, guiding clients toward their individualized paths to wellness. In addition to her clinical work, Christa serves as a full-time Instructor and Continuing Education Coordinator at the University of Alabama’s School of Social Work, where she teaches BSW and MSW courses and facilitates knowledge-sharing among social workers across the state. Her commitment to professional development and interdisciplinary collaboration has made her a valued mentor and educator in the social work community. A frequent conference speaker and accomplished writer, Christa shares her expertise on trauma-informed care, LGBTQ+ affirmative practices, and inclusive perinatal support. She is also a certified birth doula, internationally recognized performer, and dedicated advocate for equitable health care practices. As a Fulbright Specialist, Christa brings global perspectives to her teaching, research, and consulting, further bridging knowledge exchange across cultures. Christa’s innovative approach, dedication to compassionate care, and commitment to professional excellence have established her as a respected leader in both clinical and academic settings. She continues to expand the boundaries of therapeutic practice while inspiring colleagues and clients alike to pursue growth, resilience, and wellness.

Queer & Trans Affirming Professional (QTAP) Certification: Required Orientation

(Current & Prospective QTAP cohort members only)
Faculty, Center for Contemporary Relationships

Already registered for the QTAP certification program? Great! Thinking about registering? Wonderful. This one-hour orientation provides an overview of the 60-hour Queer & Trans Affirming Professional (QTAP) program running from May 15, 2026 through May 2, 2027. Participants will learn about the program’s structure, expectations, and pathways to either QTAP Certification for fully licensed mental health professionals or QTAP-Affiliate designation for those still in training or working in related helping professions (such as physicians, nurses, attorneys, clergy, and coaches). The orientation will walk through the program timeline, beginning with your attendance at this conference, followed by the Fall and Spring semesters that include pre-recorded core curriculum courses, live online anti-racism classes, and consultation. We will also review the role of individual and group consultation, certification requirements, liability insurance expectations, and how the program supports participants in developing ethical, culturally competent services for the queer and trans community. Attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions and determine whether QTAP is the right next step in their professional development.

Proudly Authentic: Living Heroically Beyond Pride Month

Christian de la Huerta

Pride invites us to honor the courage of the LGBTQ community—but authenticity is a universal call. In this powerful and inspiring talk, Christian de la Huerta explores what it truly means to live authentically in a world that rewards fitting in and avoiding conflict. Drawing from psychology, spirituality, and decades of transformational work, Christian reveals how inauthenticity quietly drains our power, fractures our sense of self, and limits intimacy in our relationships. Our personal and professional relationships become the primary arenas where authenticity is either abandoned—or courageously reclaimed. This talk reframes authenticity as heroic action: aligning who we are with how we speak, love, and lead. Participants are invited to examine where they may be giving away their power to keep the peace, and how conscious relationships—rooted in truth, self-trust, and presence—can become pathways to freedom, fulfillment, and deeper connection. More than a celebration of identity, Proudly Authentic is a call to live fully, love consciously, and express our unique human potential—beyond Pride Month and into every area of life. Participants will learn why:

Authenticity is relational, not theoretical
Inauthenticity undermines intimacy, and self-trust
Living authentically is heoric, teachable, and liberating

Speaker Bio: