A Prospect Therapy Group Program · Long Beach, CA
Still Here
Free Group Therapy for Long Beach’s Queer and Trans Communities
The news is a lot. The political climate is a lot. Folks who are queer, trans, immigrants, people of color, or all of these, are carrying more than most. If the socio-political climate has been sitting heavy, if isolation has crept in, if you’re looking for community, and you’re tired of being tired — this group was built for you. Still Here is an 8-week group therapy program for LGBTQIA2S+ adults in Long Beach who are feeling the weight of the world right now.
Why This Group, Why Now?
The world is asking a lot of us right now.
If you’re queer, trans, an immigrant, a person of color, or some combination of all of the above, the past few years have been a specific kind of exhausting. It’s not just the news cycle. It’s watching policies roll back things you thought were settled. It’s the ambient dread that has become background noise. It’s carrying grief, fear, and anger while also trying to hold your life together.
Community is more important than ever — and for so many of us, it’s also harder to find. We’ve been scattered, burned out, and sometimes hurt by the very communities we’ve turned to. Still Here is a space to acknowledge all of that, and to build something more sustainable than coping.
We’re Still Here. That’s the whole point. This group takes its name from the simple, radical act of continuing to exist, take up space, and show up for yourself and each other — even when the world keeps trying to make that harder.
This group was designed specifically for LGBTQIA2S+ adults in Long Beach. Not as a general wellness program, and not as a substitute for individual therapy. As a real, structured therapeutic group: facilitated by two licensed clinicians, grounded in clinical practice and lived experience, and built around what it actually means to survive and stay connected to yourself when things are this hard.
Who This Group Is For
You might be a good fit if…
This group is open to LGBTQIA2S+ adults in Long Beach. You don’t need to be in individual therapy to participate, and you don’t need a specific diagnosis. What you do need is some vulnerability, trust, hope, and a willingness to show up.
You’ve been feeling disconnected from yourself or your community, and you’re not entirely sure how it happened.
The current political climate has been affecting your mental health in ways that are hard to name or talk about with people who don’t get it.
You’re exhausted by the weight of being marginalized: as a queer or trans person, an immigrant, a person of color, or more than one of these at once.
You’ve tried the self-help books and the journaling and the breathing exercises. You’re ready to try something that puts you in a room with other people.
You’ve wanted to get into therapy, but cost or accessibility has been a barrier. This group removes both.
You’re not ready to commit to months of individual therapy, and you’re looking for a lower-pressure way to support your mental health.
You want to reconnect with what actually matters to you: your values, your sense of self, not just getting through the week.
You’re ready to be a little vulnerable in a space that was built for people like you.
The Approach
What Is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy?
Still Here is grounded in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) — an evidence-based approach that doesn’t ask you to think positively or push difficult feelings away. Instead, ACT works by helping you build a different relationship with painful experiences, so that suffering has less power over the choices you make.
For queer and trans people specifically, ACT is a particularly good fit. So much of what we carry — the internalized messages, the hypervigilance, the grief — isn’t irrational. It’s a logical response to an environment that has been hostile. ACT doesn’t pathologize that. It asks: given everything you’re carrying, how do you want to live? What matters to you? And how do you keep moving toward that, even when it’s hard?
The group also draws from the Gender Affirmative Model, which centers the lived experiences of LGBTQIA2S+ people and treats identity as a source of strength, not a problem to be solved.
Making room for difficult thoughts and feelings instead of fighting them, which frees up energy for things that actually matter to you.
Learning to notice your thoughts without being ruled by them. Especially the ones that sound like facts but aren’t.
Getting clear on what genuinely matters to you — not what you’ve been told should matter — and using that as a compass.
Taking steps toward what matters, even in the presence of fear, discomfort, or uncertainty.
What to Expect
A Look at the 8-Session Arc
Each 90-minute session weaves together skill-building and open group process, so you’re never just doing exercises in isolation. The group is cohort-style with no drop-ins — the same people go through all 8 sessions together, which is how real trust gets built. Every session begins with a group check-in and closes with a committed action: something small and intentional you choose to carry into the week ahead.
Welcome and Who We Are
Group agreements, introductions, and setting the container. We begin a values inventory — an early look at what matters most to you, which we will revisit and build on throughout the group.
What We’re Carrying
Exploring the specific weight of living through this political moment as a marginalized person. Introduction to ACT’s acceptance framework: making room for what’s hard without being consumed by it.
The Stories We Tell Ourselves
Defusion skills for creating distance from internalized messages and thoughts that sound like facts. Body scan and grounding to reconnect with present experience.
Compassion Fatigue and the Comparison Trap
Naming the ways we minimize our own pain because others have it worse, and the toll that takes. Introduction to survivor’s guilt and the particular exhaustion of holding both personal and collective grief.
Values Revisited: What Actually Matters to You
Returning to the values inventory with new depth. Psychoeducation on values as flexible guides rather than fixed rules — including how we can shift what we focus on even when we can’t change our circumstances.
Living by Your Values, Not Their Rules
Processing the gap between who we want to be and what the world has asked us to perform. Exploring internalized oppression and the inner critic as products of external pressure, not personal failure.
The Younger Self We Still Carry
A guided visualization connecting present experience to the younger self who first learned to survive in a world that wasn’t built for us. Building self-compassion as a practice rather than a feeling.
Still Here: Closing the Circle
Integration and reflection on the arc of the group. A closing ritual chosen together in Session 1. Each member writes a letter to themselves from themselves — to open whenever they need a reminder of what they came here for.
Your Facilitators
Two Licensed Clinicians, Each Group
Every Still Here group is co-facilitated by two licensed therapists from the Prospect Therapy team. All of our clinicians are licensed, share experiences and identities with the communities they serve, and bring both clinical training and lived experience to their work.
Brianna Patti, LMFT & Tiffany Hooton, LMFT
Brianna Patti, LMFT
Brianna is a licensed marriage and family therapist with expertise in LGBTQIA2S+ affirming care, trauma-informed practice, and a warm, highly relational therapeutic style. She has facilitated group therapy including a gender expansive teen group in partnership with the South Bay LGBTQ Center, and brings both clinical skill and personal attunement to group work.
Tiffany Hooton, LMFT
Tiffany is a licensed marriage and family therapist and nonbinary clinician with deep expertise in LGBTQIA2S+ affirming care, including gender identity, trans experience, anxiety, and relationship dynamics. They have co-facilitated group therapy at Prospect Therapy including the Queer Self-Compassion Group, and bring particular cultural humility to working with Muslim community members.
Andrew Kravig, LMFT & Wanda Diep, LCSW
Andrew Kravig, LMFT
Andrew is a licensed marriage and family therapist with a psychodynamic clinical foundation and extensive experience working with LGBTQIA2S+ individuals and couples. He brings trans lived experience to his work, offering clients a rare combination of professional training and genuine insider understanding of trans experience. As an AuDHD clinician, he also brings particular skill to working with neurodivergent clients and those navigating religious trauma.
Wanda Diep, LCSW
Wanda is a licensed clinical social worker who brings a somatic approach to trauma-informed care alongside her identity and cultural background as an Asian American LGBTQIA2S+ clinician. She is skilled in working with LGBTQIA2S+ community members from Asian and immigrant backgrounds, those living with chronic illness, and has facilitated the Self-Trust trauma recovery group at Prospect Therapy.
Why Is This Free?
Still Here is made possible by a grant from the City of Long Beach’s LGBTQIA2S+ Health Equity Fund — a competitive award that Prospect Therapy earned in recognition of our work with queer and trans communities in Long Beach. We are proud to have received this funding, and equally proud to put it directly into the community it was intended for.
The grant is administered through our partner and nonprofit sponsor Mind-1-1, a Long Beach organization dedicated to community mental health access.
There is no cost to participate. No insurance is required. No income verification. If you are an LGBTQIA2S+ adult in Long Beach and you want to be here, that’s enough. Participants who complete the group also receive a $50 gift card as a thank-you for their time and commitment.
Still Here is funded through the City of Long Beach Department of Health and Human Services.
Common Questions
What You’re Probably Wondering
Do I need to be in individual therapy to participate?
No. This group stands on its own. That said, if anything comes up during the group that you want to explore more deeply in individual therapy, our team can help connect you with the right support.
Is this for people who are out, or can I come if I’m still figuring things out?
You don’t need to have your identity fully sorted to be here. This is a space for LGBTQIA2S+ adults wherever they are in that process.
What’s the difference between the in-person and virtual groups?
The curriculum and clinical approach are the same. The in-person group meets Tuesdays from 11am to 12:30pm at The LGBTQ Center Long Beach, facilitated by Brianna and Tiffany. The virtual group meets Wednesdays from 6pm to 7:30pm via secure online platform, facilitated by Andrew and Wanda. Both groups are open only to residents of Long Beach.
When does the group run?
Both groups begin the week of August 3, 2026 and run for 8 consecutive weeks, wrapping up the week of September 21, 2026. The in-person group starts August 4; the virtual group starts August 5.
What happens if I miss a session?
Because this is a cohort-style group with a structured arc, regular attendance matters. We ask that you can commit to attending the majority of sessions before you apply. Missing one session occasionally is understandable; we will talk through expectations in more detail once you are matched.
What does cohort-style mean?
It means the same group of people — up to 10 — goes through all 8 sessions together. There are no drop-ins and no new members joining mid-way through. This is intentional: trust and group cohesion are central to the work, and they take time to build.
I’m not sure group therapy is for me. How do I know if this is right?
That uncertainty is completely normal — many people feel it before their first group experience. Still Here is a structured program with a clear beginning and end, so you’re not signing up for something open-ended. If you fill out the interest form, we will be in touch to talk through whether it feels like a good fit before anything is confirmed. As always, if this group isn’t the right match, we will make sure you leave with resources and a direction forward.
Ready to Join?
Spots Are Limited. Fill Out the Interest Form.
Each group holds a maximum of 10 people. Fill out the short interest form and we will be in touch to talk through fit and next steps. No commitment required at this stage.
Fill Out the Interest FormQuestions? Reach us at hello@prospecttherapy.com