VALUES | Shawnysena

What I believe and how it shows up

I tell the truth about systemic racism in our history and our present, especially the exploitation of Black bodies, the genocide of Indigenous bodies, and the brutality of the police.
I believe BIPOC’s experiences of racial aggression, large and small.
I interrogate my whiteness and the collective whiteness.
I explore racialized dynamics in our work together.
I apologize and offer repair when I cause harm.
I encourage communal and ancestral healing, beyond the therapy room.

I work from a Health at Every Size (HAES) model.
I never promote intentional weight loss.
I recognize that the desirability of bodies is wound up in capitalism, ableism, and white supremacy.

I support developmentally appropriate, consent-based sexual expression in every stage of life.
I believe in the power of pleasure.
I embrace kink and non-monogamy as part of the human experience.
I honor asexuality.

I affirm all understandings of gender.
I do not require dysphoria to validate someone’s identity.
I support trans kids.
I do not turn away from the violence the medical industrial complex has done to trans folk.
I engage with that industry to increase access for my clients.

I do not believe neurodiversity is "bad".
I believe neurodivergent people can live happy and fulfilling lives without conforming to neurotypical standards.

Nothing is exempt from examination, because everything is touched by systems of oppression.
We have a right and a responsibility to question all aspects of our world with the goal of pursuing liberation.
The therapy field has been used as a tool of oppression and can easily slip into those dynamics again.
I invite and initiate deep examination and truth telling about our work.
We will intentionally create something new together.