The Modern Therapist's Survival Guide with Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy

Supporting Conversion Therapy Survivors After Chiles v. Salazar: SOGIECE, Clinical Care, and Community Response - An Interview with Samuel Nieves

Samuel Nieves of the Conversion Therapy Survivor Network on supporting conversion therapy survivors, recognizing SOGIECE, and clinical care after Chiles v. Salazar.

Curt and Katie welcome back Samuel Nieves, a conversion therapy survivor and board member of the Conversion Therapy Survivor Network, for a follow-up to their earlier conversation and to the host-led discussion of the Chiles v. Salazar decision. Rather than re-litigating the legal details, they focus on the clinical and human aftermath for survivors.

Sam shares what he saw the day the ruling came down, how to recognize a conversion therapy survivor on your caseload (including memory loss and shifting narratives), why validation has to come before strengths work, and how to lead with curiosity instead of challenge. He explains SOGIECE, sexual orientation and gender identity or expression change efforts, and why naming it can be the validation that lets a survivor finally call their experience what it was.

The conversation also sits with why reducing these practices to "speech" misses the harm, what licensing boards and clinicians owe survivors, and how survivors and the advocates who serve them stay in the work through firm boundaries and intentional queer joy. This is a grounded, affirming episode for any clinician working with LGBTQ+ clients.

In this episode, we discuss:

- How to recognize a conversion therapy survivor on your caseload

- Why validation has to come before strengths-based work

- How to lead with curiosity instead of challenge with traumatized clients

- What SOGIECE is and why naming it can be profoundly validating

- Why framing conversion therapy as "speech" misses the real harm

- What licensing boards and the profession owe survivors

- How survivors and advocates sustain themselves through boundaries and queer joy

Timestamps:

- 02:00 - Who Sam is and the Conversion Therapy Survivor Network

- 03:14 - The day the Chiles v. Salazar decision came down

- 06:26 - Validation before strengths with survivors

- 09:04 - What well-meaning therapists can miss

- 11:10 - The public "permission" and its harm to survivors

- 18:40 - Why "it's just speech" misses the harm

- 22:10 - SOGIECE, allies, and survivor organizations

- 27:45 - What the profession owes survivors

- 32:21 - Solution-focused therapy, ACT, and queer joy

- 35:01 - How Sam sustains himself in the work

Guest Bio:

Samuel Nieves (he/they) is a board member of the Conversion Therapy Survivor Network, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit supporting survivors of conversion therapy and SOGIECE worldwide. Trained as a marriage and family therapist, Sam advocates online as "CantPrayMeAway" and helps facilitate the organization's weekly survivor support group.

Full show notes and transcript: mtsgpodcast.com

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Should Conversion Therapy Be Protected Speech? What Chiles v. Salazar Means for Conversion Therapy Bans and the Future of the Profession



In Chiles v. Salazar, the Supreme Court ruled 8 to 1 that a therapist's talk therapy is protected speech, putting state conversion therapy bans at risk.

Curt Widhalm, LMFT, and Katie Vernoy, LMFT break down what the March 31, 2026 decision actually says, what it does not say, and what it means for therapists who work with LGBTQ+ clients. The Court did not call conversion therapy safe, effective, or ethical, and it did not make the practice mandatory. It treated talk therapy as speech rather than regulable conduct, and sent Colorado's ban back to the lower courts for stricter First Amendment review.



Curt and Katie walk through the strict scrutiny test at the center of the case, the Kagan and Sotomayor concurrence, and Justice Jackson's dissent, then sit with the harder question: what happens to the profession when the state can no longer set a guardrail on harmful practice before harm has occurred. Released during Pride Month, this is a candid, values-forward conversation about protecting LGBTQ+ clients and practicing affirming, anti-conversion-therapy care out loud.



In this episode, we discuss:

- What the Chiles v. Salazar ruling does, and does not, change about conversion therapy bans

- Why the Court treated talk therapy as protected speech instead of medical treatment

- How the strict scrutiny test decided the case

- Where the concurrence and the dissent point the profession next

- Concrete ways to signal affirming, anti-conversion-therapy care in your practice



Full show notes and resources: mtsgpodcast.com



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Good Enough, Safe Enough: Affirming LGBTQ+ Clients When You're Not a Specialist

Affirming LGBTQ+ clients when you are not a specialist: Curt Widhalm, LMFT, and Katie Vernoy, LMFT on being a good enough, safe enough therapist when you cannot refer out.

Curt and Katie take on a question therapists often avoid: what do you do when an LGBTQ+ client needs care, you are not a specialist, and referring out is not possible, not safe, or not honest? In this Pride Month episode, they make the case that you can be a good enough, safe enough therapist for LGBTQ+ clients even when affirming care is not your declared specialty.

Mental health deserts, narrow insurance panels, long specialist wait lists, and unsafe home environments mean referral is not always available, and sometimes referring out is closer to abandonment than care. Curt and Katie argue that scope of competence is too often used as polite cover for therapist discomfort, and that most clinical work with LGBTQ+ clients is the same work you already do well. Affirming care is the container, not a separate specialty.

They also get practical about being a safe enough stopgap therapist: building a just in time consultation kit, doing the cultural humility work, and reckoning with the invisible labor and consultation tax of allyship, including why you should never bill a client to research their own identity. And they name the specific moments when referring an LGBTQ+ client out is still the right and ethical call.

This is a useful conversation for generalist therapists, rural and solo clinicians, insurance-based practices, and anyone doing the ongoing work of affirming, culturally humble care.

In this episode, we discuss:

- Why "refer out" can be avoidance dressed as ethics, and when it is genuinely the right call

- How to tell a true scope of competence limit from your own discomfort

- What it means to be a good enough, safe enough therapist for LGBTQ+ clients

- How to build a just in time kit so an LGBTQ+ client never lands on you cold

- Why the invisible labor and consultation tax of allyship is yours to carry, not your client's to fund

- The specific signs that mean you should refer out anyway

Timestamps:

00:15 - Why a Pride Month episode on being good enough, not a specialist

02:56 - "Just refer out": sound advice or avoidance?

05:05 - Scope of competence versus therapist discomfort

13:08 - The good enough therapist, and when referral becomes abandonment

16:55 - Meeting clients where they are until specialist care opens up

19:03 - Building a just in time kit for your practice

24:44 - The invisible labor and consultation tax of allyship

32:10 - When you should refer out anyway

Full show notes and transcript: mtsgpodcast.com

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Allyship Is Awkward: How Therapists Can Keep Showing Up Anyway

What if the awkwardness of ally work is not a sign you are doing it wrong, but the actual work?

Curt Widhalm, LMFT, and Katie Vernoy, LMFT explore what it looks like to do ally work as a therapist when you hold majority identities the people around you do not share. They move across three zones where this shows up: with clients in the therapy room, with colleagues and consultants in professional spaces, and in broader community and advocacy work.

Drawing on their own missteps and on the work of creators like Ashani Mfuko of Anti-Racism School Is In Session and Dr. Raquel Martin of Mind Ya Mental, Curt and Katie make a direct case to white, cis, straight, and other majority-identity therapists: cultural humility is not a credential, fragility shifts the labor onto the people around you, and the strong feelings that come with ally work belong with other allies, not with clients or colleagues of color. This is an episode about staying in the room, decentering yourself, and learning to fail better.

In this episode, we discuss:

Why ally work is inherently awkward, and why that is not a problem to be solved

How fragility, over-apologizing, and gold-star seeking shift the emotional labor onto clients and colleagues of color

What repair actually looks like when a cross-cultural rupture happens in session

Why being called out by a client can be a sign the relationship is alive enough to repair

How to process defensiveness and hurt with other allies instead of with clients or colleagues of color

Why cultural humility is not a free pass, and what therapists owe their own continuing education

How consultation with diverse colleagues protects clients from being conscripted as your teacher

Ally work is ongoing. The goal is not to stop making mistakes. The goal is to keep failing better.

Full show notes and resources: mtsgpodcast.com

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The Seven Stages of Queer Love: Therapy with Queer Couples, Queer Sex, and the Developmental Model - An Interview with Tom Bruett, LMFT

Tom Bruett, LMFT on the seven stages of queer relationship development, the Developmental Model, queer couples therapy, and queer sex.

Curt and Katie talk with Tom Bruett, LMFT, founder of the Queer Relationship Institute, about what therapists most often get wrong when working with queer couples, why queer sex is still treated as an asterisk in most sex therapy training, and how the Developmental Model of Relationship Therapy can be expanded to better reflect queer experience.

Trained under Drs. Ellyn Bader and Peter Pearson, Tom adds two stages to the five-stage Developmental Model: Second Queer Adolescence and Agreement. The expanded seven-stage model gives therapists a clearer way to track differentiation, autonomy, and connection in queer relationships that do not fit the standard "relationship escalator." Tom is the author of The Go-To Relationship Guide for Gay Men: From Honeymoon to Lasting Commitment (Jessica Kingsley Publishers).

This is a useful conversation for therapists working with queer couples, sex therapists, couples therapists trained in heteronormative models, and queer therapists looking for better tools and community for this work.

In this episode, we discuss:

- What therapists most often get wrong with queer couples and queer sex

- The Seven Stages of Queer Relationship Development, including Tom's two additions

- Why a "second queer adolescence" matters clinically

- Mutual interdependence versus codependence in gay male relationships

- Minority stress, the relationship escalator, and queer identity formation

- How the current political moment is showing up in queer couples therapy

- Trauma activation, nervous-system regulation, and slowing the work down

- Support for queer therapists working through a difficult cultural moment

Timestamps:

02:28 - What therapists get wrong with queer couples and queer sex

04:43 - Sex therapy training and the asterisk problem

08:20 - The Seven Stages of Queer Relationship Development

13:00 - Mutual interdependence versus codependence

17:39 - The relationship escalator and minority stress

21:14 - The current political moment in queer couples therapy

25:18 - Trauma, regulation, and slowing down the work

27:08 - Writing The Go-To Relationship Guide for Gay Men

33:21 - Doing the work on the back end, not asking clients to educate you

34:13 - Where to find Tom and the Queer Relationship Institute

Guest Bio:

Tom Bruett, LMFT is a therapist, trainer, consultant, and author who works extensively with the queer community. He is the founder of the Queer Relationship Institute, which provides therapy for queer folx and training for therapists who work with queer relationships. Tom has trained under Drs. Ellyn Bader and Peter Pearson in the Developmental Model of Relationship Therapy, which he now trains other therapists in. His book The Go-To Relationship Guide for Gay Men: From Honeymoon to Lasting Commitment is published by JKP. Tom has spoken at national conferences including AASECT. Learn more at www.QueerRelationshipInstitute.com.

Full show notes and transcript: mtsgpodcast.com

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Music by Crystal Grooms Mangano: https://groomsymusic.com/