Today we’d like to introduce you to James Guay.
James, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Throughout my life, my deep sensitivity and empathy for others have felt like both a curse and a powerful gift. I’ve been able to feel into the painful injustices and suffering of others while also seeing the beauty and love that’s also present all around us. While my sensitivity to others was often devalued growing up, it’s become my superpower as a therapist in how I connect with clients from a heart-centered and soulful place. I’ve always gravitated toward conversations that are intimate, vulnerable, and down-to-earth — serious at times but also with a lot of humor.
I was a natural born psychotherapist and social justice activist. You know that one friend you can turn to when things go wrong, knowing that they’ll have your back, support you and even be vulnerable with you? I was that friend throughout my childhood and into adulthood. I knew intuitively, far sooner than grad school, the importance of maintaining confidentiality and being worthy of trust. I was also the parentified child in my family (so common among us therapists) — naming the dysfunction in the family, initiating difficult conversations, and providing emotional support to our parents/siblings. I saw things others refused to.
Given my natural propensities, I was drawn toward studying psychology in undergrad at UC Berkeley. Why do we do the things we do as humans? I was intrigued, fascinated and a sponge for learning this material, especially as it related to sports psychology. Devoting thousands of hours in high school and college as a competitive gymnast, I learned ways to enhance my performance, regulated my anxiety, set goals, pace myself and achieve results which included competing at USA Championships and earning an All-American Award on Parallel Bars at NCAA as part of the Cal Gymnastics Team. I was elected co-team captain which also taught me how to lead, inspire and encourage my teammates to perform their best and enjoy the process.
Going to graduate school to become a psychotherapist extended and fine-tuned my passion for counseling others. Hearing about the Master of Science in Counseling program at my school’s orientation for new potential students, there was no question that this was the right program for me: it was practical, experiential, and exactly what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I studied marriage, family and child counseling, spending an additional year with a specialization in gerontology, learning therapy with older adults. I continue to value life-long learning in a variety of different ways.
My first love out of graduate school, and shortly thereafter becoming a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist (#mft39252), was studying and embodying the principles of Hakomi. Hakomi Mindful Somatic Psychotherapy connected all the dots of my experiences — psychology, spirituality, and the wisdom of our body; the work is deep yet gentle and powerful.
An integral aspect of being a good therapist is doing our own internal work so that we can exponentially help our clients from a place of knowing. Immersed in Hakomi for several years gave me much more than a method to use with clients, but rather, it opened me up to see my own core material, limiting beliefs, and provided nuanced tools to understand, heal and live with compassion. While graduate school built the theoretical foundation for becoming a psychotherapist, Hakomi added the body, heart, and soul of BEING a therapist.
While I began as a therapist in a variety of settings in San Francisco — ranging from working in the middle/high schools, non-profits, medical, residential, outpatient and day treatment programs — I always knew I needed the freedom of private practice to do my best and most authentic work. Immediately upon graduating, I began a private practice internship in 1999, with a Hakomi-trained Supervisor. I was eager to excel at this method and continued with my supervisor-turned-consultant well beyond what was required for licensure.
Consecutively, I also learned about social justice and intersectionality being the counselor at an agency for LGBTQ youth and in a residential program for those that had been diagnosed with AIDS, many of whom were people of color, transgender or gender nonconforming. I was humbled by the lessons learned by these remarkable people about how to make the most out of this life.
Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of working with a VERY diverse clientele: homeless, wealthy, celebrities, sex workers, adolescents, older adults, LGBTQ, straight couples, gay triads, parents, and everything in between & outside the box.
After spending 20 years of my professional career in San Francisco, I moved back to Los Angeles 7 years ago to open my psychotherapy practice in West Hollywood, on the Sunset Plaza — a 10-minute walk to my office. Perfect for enjoying the endless LA sun!
Has it been a smooth road?
The single most difficult challenge has been how slow my profession has been to change. It wasn’t until 1973 that the psychological field removed Homosexuality from being a diagnosable disorder.
Unfortunately, it was replaced with Sexual Orientation Disturbance and a myriad of other names, until finally in 2013 it was completely removed from our manual of mental disorders. The history and fate of my transgender and gender nonconforming siblings are even worse and continues to be left unresolved.
As a gay, beginning psychotherapist, I felt first-hand the invisibility, homophobia, heterosexism and sex negativity that came with the profession in the ’90s, even in a fairly progressive and liberal graduate school. In response, I brought the voice of the LGBTQ community into my graduate program. This led me to step into the role of being the LGBTQ Liason for my graduate programs’ Counseling Student Association.
In 2009, my state professional association (of approximately 29,000 members at that time) wouldn’t support marriage and family equality. They were unwilling to define relationships and families as inclusive of sexual and gender minorities, even though our license includes the words… marriage and family.
In response, I spoke at town hall meetings, signed and distributed petitions, organized with other colleagues, wrote proposals and articles, and otherwise advocated directly with the Board of Directors and Executive Director at that time. It was a significant victory when they finally defined marriages and families as inclusive of LGBTQ people and wrote a statement against any type of discrimination.
My next major advocacy effort was to request my state and national professional associations to come out strongly against conversion therapy, a psychologically abusive practice that attempts unsuccessfully to turn LGBTQ people straight and cisgender. This effort took much longer and required my increased involvement within the state organization’s leadership as a newly elected member of the Board of Directors.
I’m happy to say that through new leadership, the organization did eventually come out strongly against conversion therapy, even supporting national legislation to end the practice. My goal as a therapist goes far beyond meeting with my clients because that’s the center of the work everything else stems from. I feel a tremendous responsibility to make the lives of my community and others better.
When asked to do so, I jumped at the opportunity to testify in the California State Capitol against conversion therapy. A few months later, California became the first state in the nation to ban conversion therapy on LGBTQ youth by licensed clinicians. My tears of joy reminded me that I was on my life’s mission. This was the beginning of a trend, the ban of conversion therapy on minors, that is currently sweeping the nation.
I’ve also been actively involved within the National Center for Lesbian Rights as the Advisory Committee Co-Chair for their #BornPerfect Campaign to end conversion therapy across the US. I’ve used my personal and professional experience with conversion therapy to educate the public by writing articles for national and international news outlets and being interviewed by TV news stations, documentaries, and various media outlets.
I’ve also thoroughly enjoyed teaching LGBTQ related content at JFK University, Esalen Institute, UC Berkeley’s School of Law, Simple Practice Learning and at various conferences over the years. I too was asked to join a handful of those who agreed to share testimony for a series of Amicus Briefs to the US Supreme Court and the Ninth & Third Circuit Court of Appeals in support of marriage and family equality.
All of these experiences inform my work as a therapist, and as an activist for social justice. They are integral to who I am, the same person both in the office and out of the office. Being authentically me is what encourages clients to do the same. This is what it means to me, to be a #ModernTherapist.
We’d love to hear more about what you do.
While a large percentage of my practice has been working with LGBTQ individuals and couples over the past two decades, I’ve also enjoyed meeting with an increasing client base of straight and cisgender clients since being back in Los Angeles.
My ultimate calling is helping clients get to know themselves more deeply, integrate multiple parts of who they are, and live life from a much more compassionate and expansive place. I’ve heard it said that therapy is “like getting a Ph.D. in yourself.”
Through mindful observation and curiosity of our inner world, we often notice that when we’re in alignment with our core/authentic self, we naturally feel a sense of aliveness and rightness about our life. However, when there’s a disconnect, we can harm ourselves inadvertently or otherwise, through self-judgments, self-destructive habits, depression, anxiety, relationship issues and setting unrealistic standards for ourselves/others.
It can take someone experienced and trained in this work, to help guide you more gently AND more directly back to your center, where life is abundant.
Contact Info:
- Address: 8560 W. Sunset Blvd, Suite #500 West Hollywood, CA 90069
- Website: https://www.livingmorefully.com
- Phone: 310-405-0840
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jamesguaylmft/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JamesTherapy/
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/user/BuildingSelfEsteem
Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
