Queer Lens: Ann McGettigan on Seattle Counseling Service — May 2019
Channel: SeattleLGBTQ
Date: 2019-05-31

In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month, we connected with Ann McGettigan from Seattle Counseling Service to learn about past, present, and future with one of Seattle's LGBTQ-centered staples.

https://seattlecounseling.org/

Music: "Scratch the Itch" by Quincas Moreira.


:: TRANSCRIPT ::

My name’s Ann McGettigan. I’m the executive director at Seattle Counseling Service.  We are very proud of the fact that we are the oldest behavioral health organization serving the LGBT community in the country, some would say the world — we’ll take that — but at least in the United States.  If you think about 1969 — the year of the Stonewall riots — on the East Coast, that was happening, and on the west coast, we were starting a counseling center because that's just as revolutionary.  
We see about twenty-five hundred people a year, most of whom— the vast majority of whom identify as LGBTQ and most of whom also live at or below the poverty level.  If you think about starting a counseling program back in 1969, it was not a time when it was even legal to be out as LGBT — at that time it was ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’ — we weren’t even talking very much about trans folks or bi folks — but if you think about back then how revolutionary that was and how unusual it was, but also how scary it was to come into counseling when the DSM at that point — I can't remember what number it would have been, probably 3 or 2 — said that being homosexual is a mental health issue.  
All the kinds of challenges that LGBT folks have had over the last five decades, we've been there to respond to those emerging needs and ensure that by providing quality behavioral health, we're also strengthening the resiliency of our community.  Think about us as a resource if someone's reaching out to you and talking about needing help.
Sometimes it takes a lot of courage to reach out and ask for help.  Helping people to feel more comfortable reaching out and getting that support is one of our aims for this year.  I feel like we have an incredible resource within community of friendships and relationships with each other, and I really hope that we can help each other become more adept at asking for help and receiving that help when we need it.  


http://www.seattle.gov/lgbtq