“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
- James Baldwin
Our Philosophy
We believe that the forces shaping our lives exist both around us and within us.
Families, cultures, and systems teach us how to understand ourselves and others. Over time, those lessons become internalized as beliefs about our worth, rules about how to love, assumptions about who gets to take up space, and scripts about what a meaningful life looks like.
Some of those inherited stories support connection and growth. Others become what the theater director Augusto Boal called “cops in the head,” internalized voices that constrain our freedom, our belonging, and our capacity to truly meet another person.
Justice-centered therapy creates space to examine these influences, ask where they came from, understand what they cost us and others, and develop greater awareness, agency, and choice in how we relate to ourselves and the world around us.
In Conversation With
Our work is in living dialogue with thinkers, practitioners, and ways of being that we return to again and again:
Augusto Boal, Theater of the Oppressed — the internalized voices that constrain our freedom and our imagination
Rhea Almeida, Liberation Based Healing — therapy as a practice of collective, not merely individual, transformation
Dr. Kenneth Hardy, Racial trauma and its impact on identity, relationships, and the capacity for connection
Resmaa Menakem, Somatic abolitionism — trauma lives in the body, and healing must too
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass — reciprocity, gratitude, and our embeddedness in the living world
adrienne maree brown , Emergent Strategy — change that is iterative, relational, and rooted in pleasure and possibility
Prentis Hemphill, "Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously."
Terry Real, Relational Life Therapy — accountability in intimacy, without shame
Murray Bowen, Differentiation of self — the capacity to be fully present with another without losing yourself
Richard Schwartz, Internal Family Systems — meeting every part of ourselves with curiosity rather than judgment
Michael White, Narrative therapy — we are not our problems; we are the authors of our own stories
Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Writers who understood that freedom is inseparable from truth, from love, and from one another
Dr. Kenya Johnson, Racial justice and anti-racist leadership — confronting systems of oppression through critical reflection, accountability, cultural humility, and collective liberation
Dr. Kim Baker, Anti-racist education and praxis — moving beyond awareness toward sustained action, shared responsibility, and systemic change
The RECollective, Racial equity and liberation — cultivating anti-racist leadership, disrupting white supremacy, and building collective power for transformative change
The Quiet Rebel, aka Tracie Jae — helping us have more HUMAN conversations
Dr. Judith Jordan, Relational-Cultural Therapy — healing through mutual empathy, authentic connection, and relationships that foster growth
Dr. Sue Johnson and her development of Emotionally Focused Therapy — understanding attachment, repairing relational ruptures, and creating safety through emotional connection
Frantz Fanon and his book Black Skin, White Masks — examining how colonialism and racial oppression shape identity, internalized beliefs, and psychological liberation