Very Queer, Very Demure, Very Joyful: Using the Therapeutic Relationship and Creative Practices as a Counter-Space for Queer Joy

Presenter(s): Nia S. Page, MA, LMHC, NCC (she/her); Taylor Sweet-Cosce, PhD, LMHC, NCC (she/her)

Learning Objectives

Identify various creative/artistic practices (e.g., visual art, performance, writing) as mental health interventions for cultivating Queer joy, self-expression, and resilience for clients.
Discuss how to empower BIPOC LGBTGEQIAP+ individuals and Transgender and Gender-Expansive Individuals to re-claim and center Queer joy inside of safely identified communities.
Develop practical strategies for advocating for and integrating counseling and theoretical perspectives that honor experiences of Queer joy, utilizing QueerCrit and liberation-based frameworks.

CE Credit: 1.5 NBCC; 0 Ethics

Nia S. Page, MA, LMHC, NCC (she/her)

Nia Page, MA, NCC (she/her), is a PhD candidate in Counselor Education at the University of Florida. She is a National Certified Counselor (NCC) and a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (FL). As a mental health therapist, Nia works with diverse client populations, including Black individuals and other racially and ethnically marginalized people; gender-expansive people; queer individuals; and traditional, nontraditional, and first-generation college students. Her research interests focus on understanding the impact of intergenerational anti-Black racial trauma and anti-Black violence on the body, race-based emotional and psychological distress, and the aliveness and joy of Black Women faculty across U.S. higher education institutions. Additionally, Nia is passionate about exploring the application of critical pedagogies in counselor education. She focuses on teaching practices that promote liberation and healing within counselor preparation classrooms. Nia is deeply committed to advocating for marginalized voices, viewing her work as a personal, professional, and ancestral responsibility. Through intentional identity exploration, strength-building, and empowerment, she strives to create spaces for healing, thriving, and justice across counseling, supervision, and teaching spaces. When she is not on the go, Nia enjoys restoring with her friends and family, and recharging with her reality television!

Taylor Sweet-Cosce, PhD, LMHC, NCC (she/her)

Taylor Sweet-Cosce, PhD, LMHC (FL), NCC (she/her), is a Core Faculty member in the Master of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Antioch University. Her clinical expertise rests in college/university counseling and working with burgeoning adults and their systems. Her scholarship mirrors her clinical passions in examining anti-oppressive counselor education practices, intersectional issues in social change activism, identity development in college students, and generational landscapes that affect faculty-student relationships and learning processes. She has had the opportunity to work in many academic settings, including past work as a student affairs administrator, coordinator of clinical experiences, academic consultant, counselor educator, and in private practice. She is a nationally certified counselor and practices as a licensed mental health counselor in Florida under her practice, Therapy is Sweet, LLC. She has taught courses in multicultural counseling; crisis intervention and community counseling; counseling skills; advanced family theory; internship group supervision; family of origin systems; counseling profession and identity; and trauma, disaster, and crisis. Dr. Sweet-Cosce has also published and presented at the national level on topics of gender justice in counselor education, supporting marginalized students transition to higher education, generational impacts on counselor development, relational-cultural applications with college students and in counselor supervision, mindfulness practices for counselor trainees, psychological safety in pharmacy education, and needs for community-based practices in counselor education.