Australian and New Zealand Academy for Eating Disorders

This webinar has been organised by the LGBTQIA+ Special Interest Group

For clinicians, researchers, and community workers who identify as LGBTQIA+, the boundary between "the work" and "the self" is rarely distinct. We are frequently called to hold space for community despair, rising minority stress, systemic discrimination, and collective grief while simultaneously navigating our own exposure to those same stressors. This dual positioning can foster profound connection and clinical insight, but it also carries distinct risks: vicarious traumatisation that resonates rather than merely echoes, moral injury when systems fail our communities, and a specific form of exhaustion that generic self-care frameworks fail to address.

This webinar explores what sustainable practice looks like when the line between practitioner and community member is porous by design. Drawing on Minority Stress Theory, trauma-informed care principles, and models of vicarious trauma, we will examine how lived experience serves as both a risk and a resource in queer-affirming, community-embedded work. Rather than treating shared identity as a liability to be managed, we will consider how insider positioning can be held ethically and sustainably, focusing on boundaries, reflexivity, peer support structures, and the systemic conditions required to sustain this work long-term.

Key Takeaways:

• A framework for recognising early signs of strain specific to insider-community work.zPractical strategies for boundary-setting that do not require disconnecting from community or identity.

•  Clear language for advocating for structural and organizational supports within professional networks.