We approach therapy by seeking out resources to unlearn biases, prejudices and oppressive & reductionist narratives from the mental health space alongside you. We believe mental health isn’t purely about disorders or symptoms. And that any grief or trauma you may experience is collective, felt from an entire community. Our role is to bring social, environmental, intersectional justice and identity-affirming care into our sessions. We celebrate all identities and abilities in all bodies, and examine internalized prejudice, -isms and -phobias.
"Being oppressed means the absence of choices" - bell hooks. All oppression is connected.
• Exploring psychological implications of oppression through curiosity, questioning and processing these stories and feelings you have been carrying.
• Having hard but needed conversations around topics like privilege, injustice and trauma, forms of abuse (from interpersonal relationships be it from authority figures or within the family), and internalized oppression (whether you experience fatphobia, heterosexism, racism, ableism, etc.)
• Understanding that you are not the root of the problem; the problem is not privatized within the individual. That when we uncover these systems of power, we can reclaim who we are and reconnect.
Health at Every Size was coined in the 1960s and is an approach that aims to de-emphasize weight loss as a goal and encourages people to think of all sizes as healthy, no matter the beauty standard we engage with. It’s comprised of five principles:
Weight Inclusivity: Accept and respect the inherent diversity of body shapes and sizes and reject the idealizing or pathologizing of specific weights.
Health Enhancement: Support health policies that improve and equalize access to information and services, and personal practices that improve human well-being, including attention to individual physical, economic, social, spiritual, emotional, and other needs.
Respectful Care: Acknowledge our biases, and work to end weight discrimination, weight stigma, and weight bias. Provide information and services from an understanding that socio-economic status, race, gender, sexual orientation, age, and other identities impact weight stigma, and support environments that address these inequities.
Eating for Well-being: Promote flexible, individualized eating based on hunger, satiety, nutritional needs, and pleasure, rather than any externally regulated eating plan focused on weight control.
Life-Enhancing Movement: Support physical activities that allow people of all sizes, abilities, and interests to engage in enjoyable movement, to the degree that they choose.
Art Therapy is therapy beyond the arena of words.
Art helps us look at the world with wonder. You do not need to have ‘talent’ or have to be able to make a ‘perfect’ art piece.
Art Therapy integrates the process of creation with the product: the making of the images and reflecting upon them. Our clients learn that creative art making can help them express in a safe and wonderful way—that it is under their control—and that we can often uncover meaningful insights and significance from our creations.
Art Therapy synthesizes verbal and non-verbal communication.
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In our therapy sessions, we may explore how society and culture influenced the stories you pieced together over the years. The prevailing ideas held by our cultures may be influencing the problems within how you view your own lived experiences.
A non-pathologizing, social justice-oriented approach
You will be learning how to better understand, externalize, question, and rewrite the problem stories that no longer serve you. Our work as your therapist will be to witness and build empowerment into perspectives so that you can come to witness your hardship and advocate for yourself and your journey.
Narrative Therapy can transform problem-saturated stories into stories of hope and possibility. We will be supporting and working with you to question and deconstruct the narratives of the problems you have and move towards embracing and enriching the preferred stories of where you want to be.
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Our conscious, nonjudgmental engagement, practicing awareness with our body's states on a consistent basis. (reworded from the book: Bodyfulness by Christine Caldwell)