Luis Cornejo

Luis is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist who graduated from Long Beach State University with a Masters degree in Counseling Psychology (2015). He also has a Bachelors's degree in Child and Adolescent Development with an emphasis on Public Policy from San Francisco State University (2011). Previously, Luis worked for a non-profit agency in San Francisco, CA providing mental health consultation in early head start programs and SFUSD pre-schools. Currently, Luis works at Kaiser in San Francisco providing mental health services.

Step outside your comfort zone and learn about other people’s experiences and life. As I was finishing up this article, I felt it was important to highlight the recent increase in hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders due to misconceptions about the pandemic (covid-19). No human should fear for their life because of the color of their skin, gender, culture, or ethnic background. As a mental health provider, minority, and woman, I stand with our Asian American and Pacific Islander brothers and sisters; and urge others to become involved and create safe spaces for healing and hope.

While everyone’s anxiety and worry are valid, it can also keep us from being present and lead to a deficit in mental health. Often times, people’s goal when it comes to anxiety is to “get rid of it” or “make it go away. It’s not always the response people want to hear, especially when they are paying to solve an issue. Think of the fight or flight response all of us experience when we go through scary experiences.

However, I believe the potential for deficits exists in an identity non-specific therapeutic relationship that could otherwise be avoided in identity-specific therapeutic relationships. So the next time you find yourself in a circumstance in which you consider identity specific vs. identity non-specific therapist match up, I hope you give some of the insights above a little bit of thought. As an out, Non-Binary, Queer Person of Color (QPOC) in high school with conservative and religious parents, I faced many struggles that inevitably had effects on my mental health. Areas in which I provide services include but are not limited to issues concerning: Depression/mood, Anxiety, parenting, couple/polyamory/relationship dynamics, sexuality, gender identity, sexual identity, and kink/BDSM involvement.