Olga Panteleeva

As a clinical social worker I view mental health as a part of wider social systems. Anyone who lives with a nonconforming identity has likely experienced minority stress and/or some form of relational trauma at some point in life.

❦ Minority stress can have a profound effect on mental health. Being in the world that isn’t built for us can affect our feelings of belonging and self-worth, our capacity to metabolize stress, and our ability to feel joy. This can feel like isolation or grief, or contribute to symptoms of depression and anxiety. 

❦Therapy cannot solve the underlying reasons for minority stress: discrimination, exclusion, or bad material conditions. However, therapy can be one of the tools of maintaining hope, resistance, and resilience to it.

❦Since minority stress is systemic and ever-present, resistance to it must be so as well. I approach my work with clients as building everyday practices, not as a project of fixing problems. I support clients by helping them invent, adopt, and sustain practices that over time can help make their lives more sustainable. 

❦These practices can look like evidence-based tools: ways to be compassionate with yourself, embracing your protective parts, transforming negative core beliefs, getting more in touch with your body, or learning to feel strong feelings without overwhelm. They can also be your tailor-made practices for sustaining hope, pacing your energy, or relating to others.