From the Editor

[Introduction] Welcome to issue 19(4) of the Journal of LGBTQ Issues in Counseling. The mission and purpose of this journal is to illuminate the lived experiences of people who are sexual, affectional, intersex, and gender-expansive diverse and how these experiences relate to counseling, counselor education, mental health, and social justice. Throughout the nearly 20-year history of the journal research on affirming care best practice, scholarship that centers the stories of LGBTGEQIAP + individuals, groups and communities, and innovative research on multiple-minority communities have all been regular features. In addition to the focus of the published scholarship, which includes over 400 manuscripts, the researchers and authors highlighted in the journal are themselves representative of diverse LGBTGEQIAP+ identities. Scholarship on best practice when serving LGBTGEQIAP+ people remains a critical need, as does the need to reflexively interrogate our own biases as scholars. The process of examining, critiquing, and synthesizing other scholarship is as necessary as engaging with empirical evidence to challenge and expand our ideas. How counseling can reliably serve LGBTGEQIAP+ people requires acknowledgement of how counseling and psychotherapy have harmed members of these related but distinct communities, a point of reflexive self-critique that serves as one of the cornerstones of the journal and the scholarship published within it. Reclaiming counseling, mental health, counselor training, and research methods with and on behalf of LGBTGEQIAP+ people remains the aspirational and philosophical goal the journal and the community of counselors, scholars, and advocates who look to the journal to help inform their ongoing critical praxis.