A creative LGBTQIA+ workshop exploring younger parts, belonging, self-compassion and adult empowerment through art and reflection.
Healing the Inner Child
LGBTQIA+ Affirmative Self-Healing and Empowerment Workshop
A full-day, creative and relational therapeutic personal-development workshop for LGBTQIA+ adults.
Created exclusively for LGBTQIA+ adults aged 18+. People who are questioning or exploring are warmly included. No fixed label, identity proof, coming-out story, public pronoun round or artistic experience is required. This is not ally training.
Some younger parts carry tenderness, fear, secrecy, grief or the feeling that they had to hide, adapt or become someone else in order to belong. Other parts hold curiosity, imagination, resistance, humour, pride and an early sense of who they were becoming.
LGBTQIA+ identity is not the wound. Pain may be connected to rejection, bullying, discrimination, family or faith messages, racism, ableism, body-related distress, or pressure to explain, conceal or perform identity. These responses deserve context and compassion rather than correction.
This choice-led workshop offers a gentle space to meet younger parts without asking anyone to prove, disclose or define who they are. Together, we will notice what helped you survive, what supported belonging, and what your present-day adult self may now be ready to offer.
Through guided reflection, art, sand, clay, private writing and compassionate relational process, you will be invited to explore identity, belonging, protection, connection and joy at a pace that remains yours.
What We Will Explore Together
During the workshop, you will be gently invited to:
• Meet younger parts without forcing memory, disclosure or a particular emotional outcome.
• Notice relational patterns shaped by early experiences and wider social pressures.
• Explore belonging across family of origin, chosen family, community, culture and faith.
• Approach shame and self-criticism as responses that once made sense in context.
• Strengthen a protective and affirming adult self able to offer boundaries, privacy, body autonomy, connection and choice.
• Make room for grief, play, resistance, tenderness and LGBTQIA+ joy.
• Create a realistic integration and aftercare plan for the hours and days following the workshop.
Creative Therapeutic Activities
The day may include:
• Identity and Belonging Mapping using colour, line, image or blank space.
• Sand Tray: My Worlds and My Belonging.
• Clay Work: Shaping the Protective and Affirming Adult.
• A safe-enough meeting-place imagery exercise, with eyes-open and external-grounding options.
• A private letter or dialogue between a younger part and the present-day adult self.
• A closing reflection on bringing adult and younger selves into a respectful relationship.
Creativity is a doorway, not a performance. No artistic skill is needed. Every activity is optional: you may pass, pause, observe, keep your work private, use external grounding or step outside. No touch, photography or body-focused exercise is assumed.
Who Is This Workshop For?
This workshop is for LGBTQIA+ adults, including people who are questioning or exploring. It may feel especially relevant if you:
• live with shame, self-criticism, fear of rejection or pressure to hide or perform identity;
• find trust, boundaries, closeness or belonging difficult, or carry grief about needs that were not met;
• navigate race, culture, faith, disability, class or migration alongside sexuality or gender;
• want to develop a steadier, more protective and affirming adult response;
• wish to reconnect with creativity, play, tenderness, resistance or queer and trans joy.
A clear boundary. This is an LGBTQIA+-exclusive therapeutic personal-development workshop. It is not an ally-awareness event, professional training course or space for debating identities.
What Makes This Workshop Different?
Relational, affirming and choice-led. This is not a lecture, and sexuality or gender is never treated as a problem to explain, change or heal. Privacy, consent, pacing and respectful distance are part of the work; nothing has to be shared for participation to be meaningful.
You Will Receive
• A facilitated full-day therapeutic personal-development workshop.
• A participant workbook, all creative materials and a certificate of participation.
• Guided reflective exercises with clear opt-out choices.
• A personal integration and aftercare plan.
• A carefully held small-group environment.
• Refreshments included
Workshop Details
Title: Healing the Inner Child: LGBTQIA+ Affirmative Self-Healing and Empowerment Workshop
Audience: LGBTQIA+ adults aged 18+, including people who are questioning or exploring
Format: In person | Therapeutic personal development | Small group
Facilitator: Chris Gresch - psychotherapist, clinical supervisor and therapeutic trainer
Next date: 17 August 2026
Time: 10:30 am - 4:30 pm, including two 15-minute tea breaks and a one-hour lunch
Venue: Regus Enfield, Vision 25, 3 Electric Avenue, Innova Park, Enfield, EN3 7GD
Fee: £125
Booking and enquiries: chriscounselling@ifoundhelp.uk
Access and identity safety. Contact Chris privately before booking to discuss mobility, sensory, communication, cultural, faith, privacy or identity-safety needs. A neutral email subject line can be used if preferred.
A Gentle Note
This workshop is for personal development, therapeutic reflection and creative self-exploration. It is not psychotherapy, crisis support, diagnosis, trauma treatment or gender-affirming healthcare. It does not seek to recover accurate memories or change or suppress sexuality, gender identity or gender expression.
Every activity is optional. You may pass, pause, observe, protect private information, use external grounding or step outside. Group privacy agreements and the limits of confidentiality will be explained; information that could out another person is treated as private.
If you are in crisis or need immediate or intensive support, please use your established care or safety plan and contact an appropriate service. A private pre-workshop conversation can help consider whether the day is suitable for you.
Invitation
You are warmly invited to meet younger parts with tenderness and curiosity, while allowing your present-day adult self to decide the pace, distance and boundaries. You do not need to arrive certain, out, proud, healed or ready to tell a story.
Come exactly as you are, with room for complexity, grief, humour, resistance, hope and joy. Spaces are limited to support privacy, emotional safety and meaningful participation.
To enquire or join the interest list: chriscounselling@ifoundhelp.uk | 07359 942427