Participants will learn definitions and receive an overview of LGBT mental health. During this workshop, participants will also learn and discuss trans, bi/pansexual, lesbian, and gay male issues.
Gary Hirshberg received a Master’s in Social Work from the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in 1984. He spent the first five years of his professional career at Family & Children’s Services of Greater St. Louis. While at F&CS he was exposed to a wide range of clinical problems from a diverse client population. During that time he received extensive training in couples counseling to augment his graduate school specialization in that area. Gary was one of the founders of the first mental health agency in the country created in response to the AIDS epidemic. Delta Mental Health Institute was a private not for profit that during its five years in operation provided psychotherapy in St. Louis and Diversity Training in St. Louis and served the needs of the HIV/AIDS community, the LGBT community, and male survivors. During that time, he became a founding member of the National Organization on Male Sexual Victimization, and offered workshops throughout the United States for male survivor therapists. He designed the first course taught in St. Louis to address the mental health needs of those living with HIV at both Washington University and St. Louis University. Gary has received intensive training in working with survivors of sexual abuse. He attended a five-day residential Dismantling Racism Institute in St Louis and went on to co-design a seven-day residential institute in diversity awareness for high school students. For five years, he co-directed one of the summer Institutes. He is a graduate of the two-year advanced psychodynamic psychotherapy program at the St Louis Psychoanalytic Institute. Gary completed a four-year training program also at the St Louis Psychoanalytic Institute, and is a practicing psychoanalyst. He has taught graduate and adult learning course in areas of Sexuality, Diversity, Metapsychology & Social Justice at Washington University, St. Louis University, University of Missouri - St. Louis, and the St. Louis Psychoanalytic Institute.
