CHECK Magazin - Gesundheitsmagazin für Männer No.16

CHECK MAG #16
Interview: Ernesto Klews
QUEER
SELF–
EFFICACY
Many people know Patrick Hess from
the popular podcast series »Stadt.Land.
Schwul«, which he moderates together
with Florian Kunze-Forrest. As a multiskilled
therapist, he advises LGBTQIA+
people on topics such as mental health,
sexuality and relationships. We had a
chat on your behalf...
Hello, Patrick, please tell us about your
career and why you particularly focus on
the LGBTQIA+ community in your work?
My therapeutic career began with
training as an occupational therapist in
2001. Over the years, I have specialised in
neurophysiological and neuropsychological
patients and certain questions regarding
sexuality and relationships came up again
and again. Instead of avoiding these topics,
I advised that despite illness-related
restrictions you are largely capable of doing
all those things. At the same time, I became
curious and wanted to know more and
deepen my existing knowledge. Training as
a sex and couples therapist followed, during
which the idea of specialising in this target
group emerged.
People from the queer community often
experience discrimination or stigmatisation
in practices due to their sexuality,
their gender identity or their relationship
models. This does not necessarily happen
intentionally, but therapists usually
need to be educated about the lifestyle
first. A heteronormative, binary view
can negatively influence and complicate
therapeutic success because the status
quo serves as a guideline. This conveys
a feeling of insecurity and outsiderness,
which is not helpful in these processes.
“ WE OFTEN EXPECT THAT GENITALS MUST FUNC­
TION PERFECTLY AND ACHIEVE A CERTAIN
LEVEL OF PERFORMANCE. WE OFTEN DON’T
KNOW WHAT OUR OWN SEXUAL SELF-IMAGE
LOOKS LIKE AND WHAT EXPECTATIONS WE
CAN AND WANT TO FULFILL. ”
What are the most common issues that
queer people or couples bring to you?
People who live in queer relationships
have usually already dealt with alternative
relationship models. It is often about how
relationships and sexuality can be navigated
outside of the classic heteronormative role
model. How do I or how do we want to have
an authentic relationship that makes us
happy without pressure from society and
also the queer community?
In individual sessions, questions mainly
arise about the extent to which it is okay
to be able to live one’s own sexuality without
shame and pressure to perform in a certain
way. We often expect that genitals must
function perfectly and achieve a certain
level of performance. We often do not
know what our own sexual self-image looks
like and what expectations we can and want
to fulfill.
Psychology12