Written by: Angela Derrick, Ph.D. & Susan McClanahan, Ph.D.
Date Posted: June 1, 2026 5:50 am
Most LGBTQIA+ people can remember the first moment they felt truly seen and accepted for who they are.
Maybe it was a friend or family member who did not flinch. A community that did not require explanations. A relationship where the armor finally came off. A space where the careful calculations that had become second nature, about how much to say, how much to hide, and who was safe, simply were not necessary.
Moments like this can be truly transformative. Not just emotionally, but psychologically. Because what these exchanges offer is something that sits at the very foundation of mental health.
The experience of belonging.
Pride Month is most certainly a celebration of identity. But beneath the visibility, the parades, and the community it represents is something more fundamental. For many LGBTQIA+ individuals, Pride reflects a journey toward belonging, and all the relational healing that journey can make possible.
At SpringSource: Eating, Weight & Mood Disorders, we approach mental health through a deeply relational lens. The connections people have with themselves and with others shape their psychological well-being in profound ways. This Pride Month, we want to explore what the research tells us about belonging, the invisible emotional load many LGBTQIA+ individuals carry, and how affirming relationships can become a genuine source of healing.
Belonging is not a luxury. It is a core psychological need.
Research consistently identifies social connection and the sense that one is genuinely accepted and included as among the most powerful protective factors for mental health. The presence of belonging is associated with lower rates of depression and anxiety, greater resilience in the face of stress, and better physical health outcomes. Its absence is associated with significant psychological harm.
For LGBTQIA+ individuals, the path to belonging can be more complex, more effortful, and more fraught than it is for those whose identities are reflected back to them easily by the world around them. Understanding why requires looking at what psychologists call minority stress.
Minority stress theory, first developed by researcher Ilan Meyer and now one of the most robust frameworks in LGBTQIA+ mental health research, describes the chronic psychological burden that can result from belonging to a stigmatized group. It encompasses the cumulative effect of discrimination, stigma, identity concealment, fear of rejection, and the ongoing vigilance that can accompany living as an LGBTQIA+ person in environments that are not always affirming.
Research published in Scientific Reports in 2024 found that proximal factors of minority stress, including self-stigma, concealment, and expectations of rejection, had a particularly significant negative impact on psychological well-being among queer individuals. They are the unseen internal dimensions of minority stress, and they can be among the most psychologically costly.
There is a form of emotional labor that many LGBTQIA+ people carry that is rarely visible to those outside that experience.
It lives in the small, daily calculations that can accompany moving through a world that does not always signal safety.
Is it safe to mention a partner at work? How might someone respond to a pronoun correction? Will this new social environment be welcoming or require a careful performance of something less than the full truth? Is this the right moment to disclose, or is it safer to wait?
These moments may appear small from the outside. Individually, they are manageable. Over time, they accumulate into something heavier. A background level of vigilance, a chronic low-grade monitoring of the environment, a habitual assessment of where it is safe to be fully oneself.
This invisible emotional labor sits at the intersection of minority stress and the kind of self-abandonment that can develop when being authentic feels too risky. As we have written previously in our exploration of emotional labor and people-pleasing, the chronic suppression of oneself in order to manage a social environment carries real psychological costs. For many LGBTQIA+ individuals, that suppression can be tied not to a personality pattern but to a reasonable and learned response to environments that have not always been safe.
Research examining coping strategies among queer young adults found that avoidance was among the most commonly used responses to minority stress. When the cost of full visibility feels high, managing visibility becomes a form of emotional self-protection. It makes complete sense. It can also take a significant toll.
Recognizing this invisible load is not about framing the LGBTQIA+ experience as defined by suffering. It is about being honest that full belonging, the kind that does not require calculation or concealment, is something many people have had to seek out since, unlike their heterosexual and cisgender counterparts, they are not often automatically afforded it.
The presence of safe, affirming relationships can significantly reduce the psychological burden of that invisible load.
When someone finds environments where they can be fully themselves without vigilance or performance, something shifts at a physiological level. The nervous system, which has been held in a state of low-grade readiness, begins to relax. The chronic monitoring quiets. The energy that was going into careful self-management becomes available for other things.
Research consistently shows that community connectedness is a meaningful protective factor against minority stress. A 2024 study from the Gender Policy Report found that community connection buffered the mental health effects of minority stress for LGBTQIA+ individuals, with belonging functioning as a genuine psychological shield against the cumulative effects of stigma and discrimination.
Family support also plays a powerful role. A 2024 study published in JAMA Pediatrics found that parental support was protective against depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation for LGBTQIA+ youth, and that this protective effect was significantly stronger for LGBTQIA+ young people than for their heterosexual and cisgender peers. The presence of even one accepting adult has been shown repeatedly to meaningfully reduce risk.
And when family of origin cannot provide that acceptance, experience shows that chosen families can. The queer community has long understood that the bonds formed through shared experience, mutual recognition, and chosen connection can provide the kind of belonging that biological family sometimes cannot. Chosen family relationships promote psychological resilience and buffer the effects of family rejection or estrangement.
This is one of the deeper meanings of Pride. Not just visibility, but the collective affirmation that you are not alone, that your identity is not something to be managed or concealed, and that you belong.
Understanding why belonging matters so deeply requires understanding what its absence can do.
When belonging is withheld, conditional, or uncertain, particularly in early relationships where it matters most, the emotional residue can be significant. Shame. Internalized stigma. The persistent belief that being fully oneself is not safe, or not acceptable, or not enough.
Researcher and author Brené Brown has described shame as the intensely painful feeling that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging, a definition drawn from her widely cited research on shame and vulnerability.
For LGBTQIA+ individuals who have experienced rejection, whether from family, community, or institutions, that shame can become internalized in ways that persist long after the original rejection.
Internalized stigma, the process by which societal messages about one’s identity are absorbed and turned inward, is one of the most clinically significant consequences of minority stress. It can affect how someone relates to their own identity, how they navigate relationships, and how safe they feel being known by others.
The relational and psychodynamic framework that grounds the work at SpringSource is particularly well-suited to addressing these layers. Healing from shame and internalized stigma does not happen primarily through information or insight alone. It happens in relationship. In the experience of being met with consistent curiosity, warmth, and acceptance, over time, in a space where the careful calculations can finally be set down.
A 2024 study published in the International Journal of Social Determinants of Health and Health Services found that safe and affirming mental health support for LGBTQIA+ individuals required services that actively foster belonging and provide spaces where identity is recognized rather than managed. The therapeutic relationship itself can become a corrective emotional experience, offering a felt sense of what it means to be fully seen and still accepted.
“In our clinical practice, we recognize that the therapeutic bond is fundamental to the overall success of treatment,” observes Dr. Angela Derrick. “For individuals from marginalized backgrounds, it is especially vital that they enter therapy with the assurance that they will be supported by clinicians dedicated to providing a truly accepting and affirming environment.”
Community is central to healing.
The concept of chosen family, which has deep roots in LGBTQIA+ culture, reflects an understanding that belonging does not have to be inherited. It can be built. Through friendships that function as family, through community spaces that offer genuine recognition, and through shared experience that reduces the isolation that minority stress can create.
Research published in 2024 examining LGBTQIA+ youth friendships found that most young people described the positive impact of LGBTQIA+ friendships on their sense of safety and belonging. These friendships provided what the researchers called familial, emotional, informational, and instrumental support, functioning as chosen family and affirming spaces where identity did not need to be explained or defended.
The significance of these communities goes beyond social support in the conventional sense. When someone finds a space where they are not exceptional or unusual, where their identity is simply a given rather than something that requires navigation, the relief can be profound. The invisible load lightens. The vigilance ramps down. The energy that was going toward management becomes available for connection.
This is what chosen community can offer. Not just comfort, but the psychological experience of belonging without condition.
Pride Month carries many meanings. It is a political statement. A cultural celebration. A historical acknowledgment of resistance and resilience. It is also, for many people, something more personal.
It is a collective reminder that you belong.
Pride reminds us that identity matters, but belonging may matter even more. And for many people, it is the first real reminder that they do not have to do this alone.
At SpringSource: Eating, Weight & Mood Disorders, we provide affirming, inclusive, and relationally grounded therapy for LGBTQIA+ individuals navigating a wide range of mental health concerns.
We understand that mental health for LGBTQIA+ individuals cannot be separated from the relational and cultural contexts in which it develops. Minority stress, internalized stigma, identity concealment, family estrangement, and the invisible emotional labor of navigating environments that are not always affirming are not peripheral concerns. They are central to the clinical picture.
Our approach draws on relational and psychodynamic frameworks, alongside evidence-based modalities including cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), Internal Family Systems (IFS), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT). We work with adults across the lifespan, including midlife LGBTQIA+ individuals navigating identity, relationships, and the particular pressures of this life stage.
We also specialize in the intersection of LGBTQIA+ experience with eating disorders, body image concerns, mood disorders, and the psychological complexity of living in a body in a culture that does not always affirm the full range of human experience.
The therapeutic relationship is one of the most powerful contexts for healing shame and rebuilding a sense of belonging. When someone experiences being genuinely known and accepted in a consistent, safe relationship over time, it changes something at a deep level. That is the kind of healing we work toward at SpringSource.
If you are an LGBTQIA+ individual who has spent years carrying the invisible load of careful navigation, of calculating safety, of being less than fully yourself in order to belong somewhere, please know this.
The labor you have been doing is real. The toll it takes is real. And the healing that becomes possible when you finally find spaces where that labor is not required is also real.
Therapy can be one of those spaces. A place where the calculations are not necessary. Where identity is not a complication to be managed. Where the work is simply about coming home to yourself.
That work is possible. We see it happen every day.
We offer a free 15-minute consultation with our intake coordinator and would be glad to help you explore what the right level of support and therapeutic fit looks like for you.
Call us at 224-202-6260, fill out our contact form, or schedule your free consultation online.
Recovery, and relief, are always within reach.
Minority Stress Theory — foundational framework Meyer, I.H. (2003), Psychological Bulletin https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12956539/
Minority stress and psychological wellbeing in queer populations Jäggi et al. (2024), Scientific Reports https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-78545-6
Intersectional minority stress in LGBTQIA+ communities Gender Policy Report (2024), University of Minnesota https://genderpolicyreport.umn.edu/intersectional-minority-stress-in-lgbt-communities/
Coping strategies among queer young adults Borgogna et al. (2024), International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/21/8/1052
Family support and mental health outcomes for LGBTQ+ youth Published July 2024, JAMA Pediatrics https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2820609
LGBTQIA+ youth friendships, belonging, and chosen family Robinson, Mu, Webb & Stone (2024), Sociology of Race and Ethnicity https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/21568693241266960
What works to support LGBTQ+ young people’s mental health McDermott et al. (2024), International Journal of Social Determinants of Health and Health Services https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/27551938241230766
SpringSource is a clinician-owned practice specializing in eating disorders, weight-related concerns, and mood disorders across the lifespan. Founded by Dr. Susan McClanahan and Dr. Angela Derrick, both Ph.D. licensed clinical psychologists and Certified Eating Disorder Specialists with decades of leadership in the field, SpringSource provides evidence-based, weight-inclusive, and deeply individualized care. With offices in downtown Chicago and Northbrook and virtual therapy across Illinois, we are currently accepting new clients for individual therapy and our hybrid Intensive Outpatient Program for Adults.
We provide in-person therapy in Northbrook and Chicago, with telehealth therapy available throughout Illinois.
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