Center for Counselling along with Sakthi Center conducted two group therapy sessions in our office for the LGBTQ community on 17th October in Tamil and English.
Mr Sunil Menon from Sahodaran addressed the group and also laid out the ground rules to the participants. We discussed issues of confidentiality, documentation of the group sessions, photographs. We agreed to have a report of the session completed every week for the participants to look at if they wished. Although everyone agreed to be photographed, we agreed that a written consent from those who are on any photograph will be taken prior to the use of the photo either for funding or reporting. No names of the participants will be mentioned in our reports to funders.
The Tamil group and the English group was facilitated by Magdalene Jeyarathnam and was co facilitated by Sankari, counsellor and Thamilarasi.S, Training Manager, all from Center for Counselling - Chennai.
There were about nine participants in the Tamil group and about seven participants in the English group. They was a lot of emotional ventilation among the participants, especially in the Tamil group. Many issues relating to the relationship participants had with their biological family and also coming out issues were discussed in the groups. The participants agreed to meet again on the following friday on 24th October.
If anyone wishes to join the group either Tamil or English, please get in touch with us.