Introduction
Currently based in Singapore, 42-year-old Dian Karnina (she/her), the founder of The Connection Ground, identifies as a lesbian.
Years before she set up a counselling and psychotherapy practice in Singapore offering trauma-informed, inclusive therapy, she first became aware of her queer identity in junior high school around the age of 13-14.
Growing up in Solo, Indonesia, the first inklings that she wasn’t straight surfaced when she noticed that she wanted to spend more time with her seniors, the community leaders from the church she used to attend.
Now looking back, she mused that those were probably the early signs of a queer awakening.
Yet, hailing from a small town in Indonesia, she lacked the language to describe her preferences until much later.
A career switch
Even though she always knew she wanted to be a psychologist at a young age, her plans got derailed after she got a scholarship to study overseas.
There were limited options, and she chose communication studies as it seemed the closest to having a human connection similar to therapy work, compared to other majors such as business studies.
After graduation she went into advertising & market research, and worked at different agencies for around a decade.
Driven non-stop by deadlines, she eventually burnt out and realised that the career was not a sustainable one for her.
Also, Dian felt like she was plateauing and hitting a ceiling at work where she felt like she was no longer growing even though she was a hard worker.
This combination of factors led to her contemplating doing something more meaningful.
On a fateful weekend, she went to look for schools that allowed part-time studying so that she could still work full-time, as she did not then have the luxury of quitting and starting something new.
That was her first step in the journey of juggling studying and working full-time for a number of years.
After finishing the diploma, she went on to do a Masters. It was difficult to secure employment at first. Yet, adamant about not going back to her previous line of work, she eventually started working as a psychologist in a nursing home, leaving her previous job behind.
The transition was a gradual one.
Slowly, she did part-time work at different clinics.
Eventually, she officially started her own private practice, The Connection Ground.
The Connection Ground
I was curious about what the name of her practice meant, so that was naturally the next question I asked.
“One of my go to modalities is in the Internal Family System (IFS), and it’s all about building relationships with yourself. So this is really the ground for that connection to happen.”
But what was interesting, she notes, “that along the way, the connection is not just for client work, but this space has also brought a lot of practitioners together.”
At The Connection Ground, Dian has hosted many meetings for the Queer Therapists of Singapore (QTSG) when alternative venues were not available.
As such, “this truly becomes a ground for connecting,” she said. She often refers clients to others she has found suitable within QTSG, based on their skills and temperaments.
“I really believe that connection is a fundamental need that is often unmet.”
She hopes ultimately that The Connection Ground can be a place where clients or friends and colleagues can feel “connected either with themselves or with others”.
Queer Therapists vs Straight Therapists
I was curious to find out from Dian whether her queer clients respond differently to having a queer therapist versus a straight one.
She said that clients have reported having to change therapists because “they didn’t feel comfortable or safe sharing certain parts of themselves with their previous therapist.”
Sometimes, there were no concrete reasons, but it was felt.
Perhaps they felt judged, whether consciously or unconsciously.
Often, there was a felt sense that “I’m not sure if I can say this.”
Dian Karnina, The Connection Ground
Some of Dian’s clients have asked her openly, “Do you have experience working with the queer community?”
When she shares about her own sexual orientation, Dian notices that her clients immediately feel at ease.
This is heightened especially for those coming to see her for relationship therapy.
The dynamics involved in a queer relationship feels different, the challenges are different, and the clients do tend to ask more questions.
“That’s when it helps to have lived experiences,” Dian quipped.
She hopes that straight therapists understand that just saying “I accept you” or “I affirm your sexuality” to queer clients isn’t enough.
Instead, they “need to do the work as well.”
This includes “really understanding lived experiences, getting updated with what’s out there, theories, frameworks, and findings, so as not to put the onus on clients to always have to explain”.
She believes that to be queer-affirming is a process that goes beyond mere lip service.
Why LGBTQ+ clients?
On The Connection Ground’s website, it is emphasised that they serve LGBTQ+ clients. Dian wanted to make it known “that they are affirmed here, so that they don’t have to do like guesswork.”
She felt that it was important that her clients don’t have to guess and wonder, “Oh, am I gonna accept them? Am I gonna judge them? Am I safe here?”
Moreover, she knows that a lot of clinicians that work with LGBTQ+ clients, don’t state so clearly on their websites, and some practitioners presumably “choose not to do so because… it might turn people away.”
For Dian however, she feels that “it’s important… because they are marginalised and this group have probably limited options where they can be very sure that they would be accepted for who they are.”
“That’s why it’s important for me to really be very clear and have [rainbow flags] to signal to them that they’re safe.”
Dian Karnina, The Connection Ground
In addition, Dian adds, “statistically, we do see the rate of mental health issues is higher among this group, so the need is definitely there.”
Finally, she recalls that it was not easy for her to navigate her own sexuality and to navigate “the tension between that and religion and culture and different social constructs,” which strengthened her decision to provide help for queer people out there.
Therapist for polycules
Dian is a rare therapist who serves polycules. She embarked on this area of speciality when her clients brought up their lived experiences in her sessions.
From her non-monogamous clients, she began to examine her mono-normative biases, and the programming that she had grown up with.
Currently, she has taken up a course with The Centre for Liberating Practices to better equip herself as a clinician for her poly clients, and is learning to deprogramme the biases she has and learn how to best serve with her clients.
As mentioned earlier, it is her firm belief that if a therapist wishes to work with someone of a certain profile or presentation, they need to do the work to be able to actually do it, and not just pay lip service.
As her practice is all about being affirming and inclusive, she decided that she would not stop at only helping people with their sexual orientation and gender identity issues.
When I asked her if there were unique challenges that clients who are consensually non-monogamous face that monogamous clients typically don’t face, she quickly pointed out that even the words “non-monogamous” is an example of having a mono-normative bias.
“If we use ‘consensual, non-monogamous’, notice the word ‘consensual’ attached to ‘non-monogamy’. It’s interesting how we attach the term ‘consensual’ only for ‘non-monogamy’. We don’t say ‘consensual monogamy’ for example.”
“Often, for my clients, society pushes us into entering monogamy, like an escalator. We just have to get on it and go on, and we don’t actually talk about consent. We don’t talk about whether this is the kind of relationship I want to have?” she said.
Dian notes that often, such behaviour is automatic.
However, when people start getting to know themselves, and noticing who they are, their orientation, the preferences on relationship structure, that’s when issues start to happen because there is a misalignment.
It turns out that entering monogamy was not actually consensual and openly discussed. It is simply a script we adhere to.
Therefore, the term “ethical non-monogamy” or “consensual non-monogamy” suffers from an inherent mono-normative bias.
But back to the question on challenges faced by poly couples, Dian points out that people often “don’t really have the language for it to discuss these things,” because “whenever they notice their “needs or feelings and thoughts about certain things, then it’s either seen as something is wrong with them.”
Also, if someone’s considering having multiple partners, the assumption automatically becomes, “What’s wrong with your current relationship?”
It’s not taken seriously as an intentional choice that someone wants to have.
Something Dian learnt in her course was the term “epistemic injustice”, where one doesn’t have the words and the vocabulary to explain and express their experiences.
As a result, if one experiences something and we don’t have the words and concepts for it, then it’s just seen as wrong.
Why therapy?
I was curious to know what she would say to a young queer person in Asia who is considering therapy but feels hesitant or afraid.
Dian said reassuringly that she “definitely wants to validate the fear, because it is scary and you may not always meet the right therapist.”
The “experience of exploring therapy is not going to be a straightforward one, even for non queer people”.
Ever the astute therapist, Dian says that she wants to manage expectations and would like to say to the individual,
“This is going to take work. It’s gonna require commitment, and there will be hiccups along the way, but then you deserve it. You know you deserve the work, but just because the process is hard, and just because some people or some will not accept you along the way or say the wrong thing along the way, it doesn’t mean that it should stop.”
Also, she wishes to paint a realistic picture of what therapy is and isn’t.
She notes that some people imagine therapy to be a place where they will “always feel comfortable and comforted and validated all the time.”
It’s actually the opposite.
Dian explains that “when you really meet yourself, including meeting the pain that you’ve accumulated… meeting the different parts of you that you’ve buried and stuff – it can be very scary. It can be very confronting.”
However, “the idea of therapy is doing it in a safe container with your therapist.”
The misconception of therapy is that it is comfortable all the time, when it is actually very uncomfortable.
Recommended books
I spotted many books in her office, so I asked her if there were any books that particularly impacted her.
No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model by Richard C. Schwartz was one she liked.
In addition, You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For: A New Approach to Intimate Relationships with the Internal Family Systems Model by the same author is the other titles she recommends.
She liked the theme of self-connection that resonated through the pages.
Dian observed that a lot of people come to therapy trying to figure out how to deal with other people. She often has clients asking her, “Can you teach me communication skills with my husband, my friend, my boss… or, if this person is angry, what do I do?”
“It’s a lot of external stuff, which is necessary in life, but less about your own self-connection and how you talk to yourself.”
“What are the words that you use for yourself? How do you communicate with yourself?”
Dian Karnina, The Connection Ground
Thus, she endeavours to always bring her clients back to that perspective first.
Her recommended books, she feels, brings “a lot of awareness in that sense, and… also normalises people’s experience.”
Also, she mentioned that “I think a lot of people can do just a little bit more work with themselves before they figure out relationship externally, before figuring out dating or conflicts… if they can just find words for themselves that are soothing or compassionate or helpful, that actually takes away a lot of problems.”
Conclusion
I learnt so much in my conversation with Dian, and walked away with a better understanding of what therapy is and appreciative of the fact that there is at least one therapist around for poly couples in Singapore.
If you would like to seek therapeutic services from Dian, do contact her at her website at The Connection Ground.
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