Welcome to the Trauma Therapist podcast. My name is Guy McPherson. I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this show.

So five, four, three, two, and one. Our folks, welcome back to the podcast. Very excited to have us my guest today. Dr.

S.C. Neely, S.C. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm actually not a doctor, just at LPC.

Okay. SC is a trauma-informed psychotherapist, educator, and advocate specializing in religious trauma, complex developmental and

sexual trauma, couples in queer non-binary relationships and neurodiversity affirming therapy.

With more than 15 years of experience, they founded the LGBTQ Plus counseling collaborative

in the Washington, D.C. area, and serve as clinical director,

landing a team of queer and gender diverse therapists. Their direct compassionate approach

supports clients in unpacking past harm, reclaiming identity, and healing across the gender

and sexuality spectrum. All right, I see. just a little bit about you, but before we

get going, share with the listeners where you're from originally and where you are currently.

And then we'll dive in. I always like answer two different things to that as I feel like you

have your childhood where are you from and then your adult where are you from. And I only

resonate with my adult where am I from.

So I always say like the Washington, D.C. area, even though I didn't grow up here as a child,

like this is where I grew up as a human. And so this is my home. Okay. So let's dive in.

How did this journey start for you? Well, when I was a kid, and I guess this kind of ties into

what I was just saying, when I was a kid, I grew up in a very, like, evangelical, conservative

cult setting in a very rural area in Virginia. And the impact of that was lifelong and will continue to be as I got older and was able to

untangle myself from a lot of those experiences and settings and community.

I was able to start to find myself a lot more and found myself really interested in helping

other people to be able to do the same, which led me down the therapist route.

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