IN-PERSON LGBTQ THERAPY · CHICAGO LOOP
Carlos Segovia-Ibarra, MSW
Queer-informed therapist in Chicago offering English and Spanish therapy for LGBTQ+ clients navigating identity, culture, anxiety, relationships, self-worth, and the exhaustion of constantly adapting just to belong.
THE PEOPLE I WORK WITH
Queer. Latinx. Thoughtful people who are tired of surviving by performance alone.
I know what it feels like to constantly look for safety cues before you can fully be yourself. As a queer Latinx immigrant, I spent a lot of my life learning how to adapt, stay aware, and move carefully through spaces that did not always feel safe or fully mine. That experience shaped me deeply, and it’s a big part of why I became a therapist.
A lot of the people I support are used to carrying everything on their own. They are thoughtful, caring, capable people who learned early how to stay composed, stay useful, and not ask for too much. From the outside, they often seem like they are doing fine.
But underneath is usually exhaustion, anxiety, loneliness, or the feeling that they’ve spent too much of their life trying to become whoever other people needed them to be.
— A LIVED EXPERIENCE
I know that feeling intimately.
I’ve experienced the queer community through both Latinx and North American cultural lenses, and I understand how complicated it can feel to exist between worlds. So many of us grow up surrounded by expectations about gender, family, masculinity, religion, or success that were never really our own. Even when nobody says those rules out loud, you still feel them, and perhaps quietly or willingly reject them.
A lot of queer people learn how to survive by becoming hyperaware of everyone else’s comfort. Sometimes we become so good at protecting others that we lose touch with ourselves in the process.
Finding therapy that lets us exhale can feel like a challenge.
When I first started looking for a therapist for myself, I was searching for someone real. I didn’t want to feel analyzed or politely nodded at. I wanted a space where I could show up fully without having to overexplain my queerness, relationships, or my culture. Too often, I left feeling unseen.
That experience stayed with me and eventually pushed me toward this work. I currently practice under the supervision of Troy Johnson, LCSW, and have leaned into the Queer Talk philosophy that human connection is the real heart of transformative therapy – not manualized care.
— HOW I SHOW UP IN THE ROOM
My goal is to be someone clients can finally exhale around.
My approach is calm, warm, and very human. I don’t think people feel safe because a therapist says all the “right” things. I think people feel safe when they realize they are in a room with someone who appreciates them as they are.
I stay present with people while they process things in real time, especially the messy, uncertain, emotional parts that many people have learned to hide. I listen closely, reflect honestly, and gently push when I notice patterns that are keeping someone disconnected from themselves.
ENGLISH AND SPANISH THERAPY
I offer therapy in English, Spanish, and Spanglish. For many people, language changes everything. Some feelings do not fully translate. Some stories only emerge when someone can finally speak without filtering themselves first.
That experience stayed with me and eventually pushed me toward this work. I currently practice under the supervision of Troy Johnson, LCSW, and have leaned into the Queer Talk philosophy that human connection is the real heart of transformative therapy – not manualized care.
WHAT I HOPE CLIENTS LEAVE WITH
You do not have to keep performing your way through life just to deserve connection, safety, or belonging.
At the center of my work is the belief that people deserve lives beyond resilience. They deserve relationships, identities, and lives that actually feel like home to them, and offer them the freedom to break through unwanted patterns. Connections that guide, nudge, and sometimes push us to our own version of greatness. Our version of a life well worth living.
Check the fit.
Before you start.
TRANSFORMATIVE CARE FOR EVERY IDENTITY