Welcome to our COAC 2023 Impact Report, a testament to a year marked by resilience, growth, and transformative impact. This comprehensive overview encapsulates our achievements, from new community partnerships to the launch of our Intern program, illustrating our commitment to advancing mental health and creating positive change.
Written by Manny Cantu, LPC-A, Licensed Therapist
Before I became a counselor, I graduated from UT Film School and was determined to be either a cinematographer or a screenwriter. Little did I know, life ironically had some plot twists and surprises ahead that eventually forced me to “reframe” (photo pun intended) how I saw myself. While I do still daydream about living out my artistic passion, I am confident that I found my true calling as a professional counselor.
Luckily, I found a way to blend my love of storytelling with a therapeutic approach built upon critical parts of media and literature: universal themes, character building, symbolism, metaphor, and interpretation.
Written by Sandra Olarte-Hayes LCSW, Interim Executive Director
A client calls seeking services and is connected to our practice’s Client Care Coordinator. In the past, the matching process has been relatively quick and easy. Our practice typically has a number of therapists with various specialities who have openings, including those who take insurance and those who don’t. The Client Care Coordinator asks a few questions to determine the best match and the first session is scheduled promptly.
In the last 6 months, however, we’ve noticed that this process has become significantly more difficult. Now, if a client would like to use their insurance benefits, our Client Care Coordinator must inform them that all of our therapists who take insurance are full and have been for some time. I, for example, haven’t taken on a new client in a year and a half. Why? Because mental health needs are incredibly high right now and when clients find a good therapist who takes their insurance, they hold on to them.
Our Client Care Coordinator must then explain the client’s options. Clients can be referred out or matched with one of our private pay therapists and either pay out of pocket or use their out-of-network benefits. While private pay and out-of-network benefits have always been used at our practice, we are finding that a much higher proportion of the clients who call us lately say that private pay fees are completely out of reach for them and that though they desperately need services, they must use their insurance benefits. Some share that even when using their benefits, their copays and deductibles are still unaffordable and they were hoping we would have funding to subsidize their services because of our practice’s mission and values. Clients are also increasingly communicating that our sliding scale rates are also not attainable for them.
Written by Leah Danze, LPC, ATR, Licensed Therapist
“What exactly is art therapy?” This is a question that I’m frequently asked by new clients.
I tell them that art therapy extends beyond verbal expression by engaging creative practices to process emotions and strengthen connections with oneself, others and the wider world. While art therapy is traditionally rooted in an individualistic medical model (diagnosis + cure), I advocate for a model rooted in intersectionality and collective care.
Without a critical analysis, the medical model can normalize structural racism and inequality by framing systemic issues as the individual’s responsibility to heal. One of the advantages of art therapy is its transdisciplinary nature which allows the practice to adapt to the strengths and needs of the people it serves. Because art therapy encompasses a spectrum of theoretical frameworks, it has the potential to make art making more accessible to a range of people in a variety of contexts.
The COVID-19 pandemic, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, the disability justice movement, and the rise in white supremacy and anti-LGBTQIA+ rhetoric make it essential that art therapy models orient to a more intersectional framework. An intersectional framework takes into account “the multiple dimensions of social identity and the layered forms of oppression that impact health inequities and life outcomes” (Talwar, pg. 13). Intersectionality, which draws from black feminism, womanism, antiracism, queer theory, disability studies and cultural theory, asks us to consider “concepts of belonging and wellbeing as a collective endeavor” (Talwar, pg. 183). As an art therapist, one of the questions that I’m holding close right now is: how can art therapy strengthen practices of collective care?
Written by Manny Cantu, LPC-A, Licensed Therapist
When I was getting my counseling degree, there were two distinct categories of students I encountered and I quickly turned spotting them into an artform. These two “types” of aspiring would-be therapists represent a very clear divide in how people approach this career. Is one better than the other? I certainly have my biases, but I’ll let you decide for yourself.
Since we’re talking archetypes, I’d like to tell this story in the tradition of an ancient Greek epic. Our clients are the “Heroes” on a journey to solve an unsolvable riddle: their own mental health. They’ve taken potions, battled monsters, and found themselves in the Underworld a time or two. The plot has taken a twist and our Hero is in a strange land called Therapy. Here, they encounter the “Healers,” who offer guidance and intuitive magic, while the “Oracles” hold court with their mysterious wisdom. But who are these people?
H is for “Healers”: Humble and Humanistic
The first group of counselors I call the Healers. These are the sensitive empaths, the people who tell you “All of my friends come to me for advice.” They likely listen to dream-pop and indie film soundtracks (guilty), daydream in class (or dissociate dreamily), and are very open about surviving their own struggles. Their “why” is very simple: they see a need for healing this world and want to be a part of that emotional bandage. Why else are we on this Earth? If you ask a Healer, it’s to help others empower themselves. Helpers are too humble to take all the credit.
Welcome to our COAC 2023 Impact Report, a testament to a year marked by resilience, growth, and transformative impact. This comprehensive overview encapsulates our achievements, from new community partnerships to the launch of our Intern program, illustrating our commitment to advancing mental health and creating positive change.
Written by Manny Cantu, LPC-A, Licensed Therapist
Before I became a counselor, I graduated from UT Film School and was determined to be either a cinematographer or a screenwriter. Little did I know, life ironically had some plot twists and surprises ahead that eventually forced me to “reframe” (photo pun intended) how I saw myself. While I do still daydream about living out my artistic passion, I am confident that I found my true calling as a professional counselor.
Luckily, I found a way to blend my love of storytelling with a therapeutic approach built upon critical parts of media and literature: universal themes, character building, symbolism, metaphor, and interpretation.
Written by Sandra Olarte-Hayes LCSW, Interim Executive Director
A client calls seeking services and is connected to our practice’s Client Care Coordinator. In the past, the matching process has been relatively quick and easy. Our practice typically has a number of therapists with various specialities who have openings, including those who take insurance and those who don’t. The Client Care Coordinator asks a few questions to determine the best match and the first session is scheduled promptly.
In the last 6 months, however, we’ve noticed that this process has become significantly more difficult. Now, if a client would like to use their insurance benefits, our Client Care Coordinator must inform them that all of our therapists who take insurance are full and have been for some time. I, for example, haven’t taken on a new client in a year and a half. Why? Because mental health needs are incredibly high right now and when clients find a good therapist who takes their insurance, they hold on to them.
Our Client Care Coordinator must then explain the client’s options. Clients can be referred out or matched with one of our private pay therapists and either pay out of pocket or use their out-of-network benefits. While private pay and out-of-network benefits have always been used at our practice, we are finding that a much higher proportion of the clients who call us lately say that private pay fees are completely out of reach for them and that though they desperately need services, they must use their insurance benefits. Some share that even when using their benefits, their copays and deductibles are still unaffordable and they were hoping we would have funding to subsidize their services because of our practice’s mission and values. Clients are also increasingly communicating that our sliding scale rates are also not attainable for them.
Written by Leah Danze, LPC, ATR, Licensed Therapist
“What exactly is art therapy?” This is a question that I’m frequently asked by new clients.
I tell them that art therapy extends beyond verbal expression by engaging creative practices to process emotions and strengthen connections with oneself, others and the wider world. While art therapy is traditionally rooted in an individualistic medical model (diagnosis + cure), I advocate for a model rooted in intersectionality and collective care.
Without a critical analysis, the medical model can normalize structural racism and inequality by framing systemic issues as the individual’s responsibility to heal. One of the advantages of art therapy is its transdisciplinary nature which allows the practice to adapt to the strengths and needs of the people it serves. Because art therapy encompasses a spectrum of theoretical frameworks, it has the potential to make art making more accessible to a range of people in a variety of contexts.
The COVID-19 pandemic, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, the disability justice movement, and the rise in white supremacy and anti-LGBTQIA+ rhetoric make it essential that art therapy models orient to a more intersectional framework. An intersectional framework takes into account “the multiple dimensions of social identity and the layered forms of oppression that impact health inequities and life outcomes” (Talwar, pg. 13). Intersectionality, which draws from black feminism, womanism, antiracism, queer theory, disability studies and cultural theory, asks us to consider “concepts of belonging and wellbeing as a collective endeavor” (Talwar, pg. 183). As an art therapist, one of the questions that I’m holding close right now is: how can art therapy strengthen practices of collective care?
Written by Manny Cantu, LPC-A, Licensed Therapist
When I was getting my counseling degree, there were two distinct categories of students I encountered and I quickly turned spotting them into an artform. These two “types” of aspiring would-be therapists represent a very clear divide in how people approach this career. Is one better than the other? I certainly have my biases, but I’ll let you decide for yourself.
Since we’re talking archetypes, I’d like to tell this story in the tradition of an ancient Greek epic. Our clients are the “Heroes” on a journey to solve an unsolvable riddle: their own mental health. They’ve taken potions, battled monsters, and found themselves in the Underworld a time or two. The plot has taken a twist and our Hero is in a strange land called Therapy. Here, they encounter the “Healers,” who offer guidance and intuitive magic, while the “Oracles” hold court with their mysterious wisdom. But who are these people?
H is for “Healers”: Humble and Humanistic
The first group of counselors I call the Healers. These are the sensitive empaths, the people who tell you “All of my friends come to me for advice.” They likely listen to dream-pop and indie film soundtracks (guilty), daydream in class (or dissociate dreamily), and are very open about surviving their own struggles. Their “why” is very simple: they see a need for healing this world and want to be a part of that emotional bandage. Why else are we on this Earth? If you ask a Healer, it’s to help others empower themselves. Helpers are too humble to take all the credit.
Written by Sandra Olarte-Hayes LCSW, Director of Equity
I’ve been struggling to think of what to write for this month’s post. Each time I sit down in front of the computer to write, my mind goes blank. I shared with a friend about how hard it was to think of a topic for this month’s post and she reminded me about the requests I had gotten for updates on how things were going after my posts back in September and October about becoming a foster parent in a pro-natalist world. She also reminded me that the fact that I am so exhausted because of some of the complexities of how I am parenting is in and of itself worth writing about.
We had a young person placed with us the day before Thanksgiving and I am now full-time parenting an almost teenager. She is amazing. She is joyful, musical, and full of personality. She is loving and so so fun. I find myself so connected to her that every moment I am not with her, even when I am doing other things, a part in the back of my brain is always thinking of her…loving on her and worrying about her. I know most parents can relate. There is also suddenly a ton of conflict in my life that wasn’t here before. Some days it feels as though there is a war going on in my household between my partner and I and this beautiful child. There are constant clashes around screen time, telling the truth, the appropriate and safe age a 12 year old’s boyfriend or girlfriend can be, bedtimes, grades, eating vegetables, tooth brushing, and a myriad of other things.
A lot of this, I’m sure, sounds very familiar for parents of pre-teens but there is a lot of added complexity. First, while we’ve bonded very quickly with this child, we don’t have the years of relationship and trust-building needed to build buy-in that a biological parent would have by this age. Our kid has a lot of trauma. We just met her and she is fiercely independent. She resists all supervision and guidance in a way that is unique since she has had to raise herself in a lot of ways up until now. She gets very distressed if you try. In our disagreements, there are a lot of tears. There is a lot of anger; there is literal fear of us and it shows up often. Her whole life has changed in such a short period of time and she is in a new home, with a new family with new values, customs, and patterns. No wonder she rebels. We get it, but it is a lot. Needless to say, none of us are getting much sleep.
Written by Sandra Olarte-Hayes LCSW, Director of Equity
The end of the year speeds towards us. I have a ton to do and I know I have to write another blog post and reflect on what our practice and I (as the Director of Equity in particular) did this year to carry out our mission, vision, and values. As I sit to do so, I find myself first reflecting on the evolution of this blog as I go through each of my posts from the last year to collect the data for our end of the year report.
A year ago, I found myself anxious about writing so publicly, I post very little on social media outside of political posts and to fundraise for my favorite organizations. In the beginning, I edited and re-edited and oftentimes made my partner edit my posts before publishing. It is interesting to see how It has gotten easier…how I have grown. I’ve gotten to write about topics that really matter to me and highlighted the work of people I care about and respect. I’ve also been significantly more vulnerable than I would have expected from myself on a public platform and shared more of myself than I thought I would. I’ve also come to find the practice of writing these posts to be a grounding end-of-the-month ritual.
As I’ve compiled the end of year data this week, I’ve also noticed a desire within myself to show that we did more, offered more, hosted more, grew more in all areas than we did last year. My guess is that this instinct comes from my own internalized capitalism so I want to name it and check it. The truth is that we did do significantly more in some key ways this year, and we did less in others. This is because of how we chose to focus our energy as we continue to evolve and realize how to best carry out our mission and I am okay with it.
A lot has happened this year and for the rest of this post, I will highlight how we centered equity at our practice this year in ways that cannot be captured by statistics.
Written by Sandra Olarte-Hayes LCSW, Director of Equity
Colors of Austin Counseling’s entire team of Clinical Therapists was trained in Nityda Gessel’s Trauma Conscious Yoga Method (TCYM) earlier this month. TCYM blends yoga philosophy, breathwork, and gentle movement with elements from Internal Family Systems, Somatic Experiencing, and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (all therapeutic modalities that are evidence-based for treating posttraumatic stress disorder). It is used by both mental health professionals in the therapy room and by yoga teachers who want to be more conscious of how trauma may impact their students. Our practice’s leadership made the decision to offer the training to our entire staff for many reasons but primarily because we know trauma is incredibly prevalent in the communities we work with and because of the wealth of research that exists showing that trauma is held and healed somatically in the body.
I came to practice yoga in my early twenties after a time of profound turmoil. I had recently lost someone who was very dear to me and was hurting. My friends introduced me to the little hot yoga studio on the same block as my apartment in Montreal, QC. It was perhaps my first introduction to meditation and it felt good to be in my body and in the present. I mostly enjoyed pushing myself, falling and getting back up, and contorting my body into positions and balances it previously could not hold. It was also my first introduction to exercise and movement that wasn’t focused on weight loss and co-opted by diet culture (though many yoga spaces of course are) and up until that point, I had rebelled hard against the notion that exercise could be a positive force in one’s life because exercise is so tied to weight loss in our culture. It felt good and I soon found myself going to yoga regularly…sometimes daily.
Since then, yoga has felt almost like a constant…not a practice that I have kept up with consistently, but one I always come back to. I tend to alternate between phases where I practice yoga through movement and phases of seated meditation. Each time I have returned to these poses, it has felt familiar…comforting, even after long lapses. But it was difficult for me five years ago when injuries and chronic health conditions made it so that most movements, especially strenuous ones, became risky. The choice to move, to use my muscles, and to stretch meant risking a pain flare up that would impact my life for days. I pretty much completely stopped the physical practice of yoga, though I still meditate.
Written by Sandra Olarte-Hayes LCSW, Director of Equity
Our team at Colors of Austin Counseling recently read Resmaa Menakem’s book My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies, a foundational book about racialized trauma and body-based healing. As I have tried to make sense of the experiences I shared in my last post around the unconscious/implicit bias and the hurt I’ve experienced becoming a non-normative parent, I’ve been thinking a lot about the body’s role in unconscious biases and the harm caused when we act based on them. This book has added depth to my understanding of what went wrong and it felt important to share some of these insights and realizations here to follow up on last month’s post.
Many of us believe that racism (and most bias) happens in the mind and is about cognition. We believe that through intellectual inquiry, we can identify our prejudices and educate ourselves out of them…if we only had more knowledge. A wealth of research has proven much of this to be false in that we actually can’t discover our unconscious biases through cognitive inquiry alone. Implicit association research shows that people respond with fear or preference in response to images of faces that are flashed on a screen before the picture even registers consciously and even if the picture flashes so quickly that they have no conscious memory of having seen it. These responses show up so quickly and so automatically that they occur before we even realize it and can intervene. When we try to analyze ourselves and figure out where our bias lies, our defenses and desire to see ourselves in a positive light (our self-serving bias) make it very hard to see clearly.
My Grandmother’s Hands focuses specifically on racism and White (body) supremacy, and I want to be really clear that I am not equating discrimination in the parenting community against non-normative parents with the long history of racialized trauma and bodily violence inflicted on Black people, families, and communities. These things are very different, and yet, Resmaa Menakem’s lens on the body and the nervous system’s role in in racism and racialized violence adds something important to our understanding of how implicit biases operate more generally. I believe that by better understanding what happens in the nervous system when we are around that which is different and which makes us uncomfortable, we can better understand why we hurt one another without even intending to.
One of the concepts from the book that has particularly helped me understand my recent experience is how Resmaa Menakem distinguishes between different types of pain. “Clean pain is pain that mends and can build your capacity for growth. It is pain you experience when you know, exactly, what you need to say or do; when you really really, don’t want to say or do it; and when you do it anyway, It’s also the pain you experience when you have no idea what to do; when you’re scared or worried about what might happen; and when you step forward into the unknown anyway, with honestly and vulnerability…[it] enables us to engage our integrity and tap into our body’s inherent resilience and coherence, in a way that dirty pain does not. Paradoxically, only by walking into our pain or discomfort – experiencing it, moving through it, and metabolizing it– can we grow […] Dirty pain is the pain of avoidance, blame, and denial. When people respond from their most wounded parts, become cruel or violent, or physically or emotionally run away, they experience dirty pain” (pages 19-20). In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, we would say that clean pain is pain that we accept, open up to, and practice curiosity around in service of our values. Dirty pain would be pain that we try to avoid or get away from where our avoidance efforts lead us to act out of alignment with our values.
Written by Sandra Olarte-Hayes LCSW, Director of Equity
This is going to be a more vulnerable post than I am used to. Deep breath. I’m going to talk about normativity, invisibility, and my family.
As of this week, my home is now licensed and ready to welcome a foster child. It’s been an almost two year-long process and now that my partner and I are here, we could get the call at any moment. I’ve shared this news with all of my clients and they have each been wildly supportive. They have asked beautiful and profoundly thought-provoking questions and I am grateful.
I also just attended what feels like my millionth baby shower, many of which I have helped plan and host. Our society has clear rituals to honor the spiritual, emotional, and logistical transition that is becoming a parent. We throw baby showers. We sign up for meal trains. Additionally, my friend group often plans trips or vacations (to say goodbye to all of that free time) and one person in our group likes to host “motherhood blessings” to honor a woman’s transition into motherhood. In this post, I’m going to focus on one aspect of non-normative parenting that feels present for me right now. I don’t plan on delving too much into the heteronormativity and gendered nature of these rituals, nor the messages they send to people without children, but know that I see that too.
When someone becomes a parent, the people who love them tend to ask questions and express curiosity. They offer support and celebrate the arrival of a child. There is often excitement and joy. And yet in my partner’s and my transition to parenthood, our community has been notably absent. There have been few questions, few offers of support, and a lack of interest and awareness around my process. This frustrating pattern culminated during the week I was originally scheduled to receive a placement when I was asked to share stories about my own relationship to mothering and the generational cycles I want to break at a motherhood blessing ceremony. As I read over the agenda for the ceremony it became clear that neither the birthing friend being celebrated, the host, nor most of the mothers in attendance had thought to honor my experience as a soon to be mother as well. It struck me, that the only way to have value in this “motherhood” community was to have grown a child in my uterus. I chose not to attend.
Written by Alejandra Spector LMSW, Licensed Therapist
For this month’s Equity Report, Colors of Austin Counseling’s Alejandra Spector speaks to her experience with chronic illness and disability justice. She is launching a Chronic Illness Process Group this fall which is currently recruiting new members. More information about the group and the registration form can be found here.
For most of 2019 I spiked a fever every afternoon. I was sent to all sorts of specialists who never could figure out exactly why. Something to do with my immune system. Three o’ clock would come around and the heat would leave me red faced and exhausted. Eventually they went away only to be replaced by a number of other bizarre symptoms.The year before that was spent in and out of hospitals and medical settings. The year before that as well. If I’m an expert in anything it’s being sick, but this isn’t a deep dive into my medical history. This is more of a reflection on stillness, acceptance, and decay.
If you haven’t spent much time being sick it might surprise you to hear that the worst part isn’t the physical pain or the co-pays. The worst part is the feeling of being left behind. Something about being sick seems to aggravate other people. It’s certainly inconvenient, and in a way it is incredibly transgressive. Why should you get to opt out of the grind when you are supposed to produce? “Healthy” people seem to get especially angry if you aren’t living in poverty or manage to have a full life. Like that’s proof that you must have the ability to take part in the performance that is capitalism. Of course, they have no idea until a cold or flu takes them out for a week. It’s hard to imagine what it would be like to always have to live like that. They got better. Can’t you just do more yoga?
Written by Sandra Olarte-Hayes, Director of Equity
Last month, I interviewed my friend Francisca Porchas Coronado, a healing justice practitioner and the founder of the Latinx Therapists Action Network (LTAN), a network of politicized therapists interrupting intergenerational trauma being caused by the state’s violent immigration, detention, and deportation policies. This month’s post will discuss the concept of healing justice which drives her work, the role of healing in the fight for social justice, and the unique challenges inherent in organizing therapists.
The Latinx Therapists Action Network is ultimately a healing justice offering. I hear this term being used frequently by folks outside of movement and yet I don't see it being very well understood by most folks in the therapy community. Francisca shares that “Healing Justice (HJ) as originally articulated by Cara Page of the Kindred Southern Healing Collective ‘...identifies how we can holistically respond to and intervene on generational trauma and violence, and bring collective practices that can impact and transform the consequences of oppression on our bodies, hearts and minds.’ It is a political and spiritual framework rooted in disability justice, environmental justice, reproductive justice, and abolitionist movements, as well as the ancestral traditions and practices of people of color, poor people, people with disabilities, women, femmes, and queer and trans people.”
From this perspective, trauma is political in that it is used as a tool by the state to further control and exert domination over the bodies of oppressed peoples. State violence and harmful political policies create trauma and we know from the research that trauma, especially the type of chronic and complex trauma that systematic oppression creates, causes a person to live in a continuous state of fight-or-flight. The nervous system stays activated and the person's body cannot find a sense of safety in which to regulate. The chronic activation can then lead to chronic inflammation and subsequent health conditions. It becomes much harder to fight for liberation when one is facing ongoing traumatization, continuous activation and health maladies, and fighting for one’s life and basic needs. This is what we mean when healing justice practitioners say that trauma is political. Is used as a form of social control.
Written by Sandra Olarte-Hayes, Director of Equity
I first met Francisca Porchas Coronado in 2017 over coffee and tacos where we talked about our shared passion for politicized healing and caring for organizers, the challenges inherent in trying to activate healers, and where she shared some of her story and passion with me. Francisca is the visionary and founder of the Latinx Therapists Action Network (LTAN), and after we met, I became her first recruit to help her create what eventually came to be the Latinx Therapists Action Network. Vanessa Newton, COAC’s founder and director, was also an early member. Francisca is now a trusted friend and for the next two posts, I will be highlighting her and LTAN’s work.
As Francisca describes it, the Latinx Therapists Action Network is "a healing justice network of Latinx/e, Latino, Latina, mental health practitioners, community health workers, activists, and organizers who are committed to interrupting the generational trauma caused by the U.S. immigration system." LTAN’s works to “build the resiliency of frontline organizers, activists, attorneys, and service providers who have spent countless hours centering the well-being of individuals, their families, and their communities—often at the expense of their own. Our work takes many forms; a directory of mental health practitioners, therapy, emotional support, mental wellness education, healing circles, and ceremony, developing healing justice curriculum and other tools that can support movement builders. We are committed to playing our role in building resilience so that we can be well and we can win.”
4 years after LTAN’s launch in 2018, Francisca is most proud of the network’s membership. We have grown from 6 members to “103 members across 28 states across the U.S. We are organizing a sector of Latina/o, Latinx/e therapists who want to be a part of the broader movement for migrant rights. They are excited to put their education, skills, and knowledge in service of communities organizing to end detention and abolish Immigrant Customs Enforcement (ICE). Our goal is to build our membership’s political consciousness about mass incarceration and criminalization, anti-racism, disability, and gender justice and ultimately deepen our practice around how to best develop and implement our healing justice framework with our communities.” Essentially, we are activating and organizing therapists to step into their role in the fight for migrant rights and creating community along the way.
Written by Sandra Olarte-Hayes, Director of Equity
My closest family and I have been in a weekly book club together throughout the pandemic as a way of staying connected from our respective parts of the country and to push ourselves to learn and grow. We have read books about issues that are important to us such as racism, restorative justice, politics, and the effects of technology on our brains. I am sure you will hear me talk about it again. Right now, we are reading Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, which weaves together indigenous wisdom and philosophy with the scientific studies of botany and ecology.
The book explores the relationship between humans and the natural world and makes clear how humanity’s overconsumption and lack of reciprocity with the Earth causes great harm. Coincidentally, our team at Colors of Austin Counseling recently started exploring some of these concepts in our monthly Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion consultation group. I want to share a bit of what we’ve explored because I think it relates to what many in our world are experiencing.
It became clear during our consultation group that our therapists are thinking about climate change a lot, both personally and professionally. A 2021 report from the American Psychological Association discusses how the increasing frequency of natural disasters is elevating rates of trauma, PTSD, anxiety, and depression as well as having community-wide impacts such as strain on social relationships, reduced social cohesion, and elevated rates of violence. The report also shares how “longer term climate change can cause equally significant mental health impacts. Heat can fuel mood and anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, vascular dementia, use of emergency mental health services, suicide, interpersonal aggression, and violence.” The report indicates that “drought can lead to stress, anxiety, depression, uncertainty, shame, humiliation, and suicide [and] air pollution has been linked to increased anxiety and use of mental health services, lower happiness and life satisfaction, and other negative well-being impacts.”
Written by Sandra Olarte-Hayes, Director of Equity
Julia Alexander (she/her) is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in Austin, TX, where she owns a private practice that provides compassionate therapy, social justice education, and consultation rooted in anti-racist, social justice, and liberatory frameworks. Julia also partners with Colors of Austin Counseling to lead our practice’s Collective Healing In Action Group for White-identifying therapists. For this month’s blog, I wanted to highlight Julia’s work to shed some light on the nuances, successes, and challenges inherent in affinity work for White therapists.
“As an undergrad, I studied the psychology of racism: white identity development, colorblind racial ideology, and intergroup dialogue. I went on to get a master's in Social Justice Education from the University of Massachusetts. During that time, I co-facilitated an intragroup dialogue class on race and racism for white students.”
She comes to this work from a deeply personal place. “I remember noticing, in a kind of fleeting way, how my unresolved feelings of anger, frustration, and shame (didn't have the words for that at the time) around my own whiteness impacted my capacity to hold and support my students. I started looking up words like "countertransference" to understand what I was going through, which makes me smile now. After a few years of working in higher education and doing some social justice curriculum design, I longed for more tools to do the deep work that I felt was necessary supporting healing from systemic oppression and trauma. Of course, I know now that I longed for these tools to hold many unhealed, hurting parts of myself.
Written by Sandra Olarte-Hayes, Director of Equity
Mila Davis (she/her) is a licensed therapist at Colors of Austin Counseling and leads our practice’s Collective Healing In Action Group for Black-identifying therapists. Collective Healing In Action (CHIA) Groups are affinity groups for mental health professionals, meaning closed spaces where therapists who share a common aspect of their identity can come together to dialogue and provide and receive support. They are led by peer facilitators who share the core identity the group is focused around.
We launched most of our CHIA Groups in early January but the affinity group for Black-identifying mental health professionals’ start date had to be delayed three times. I am delighted to share that the group launched at the end of February but I wanted to interview Mila to shed some light on why the start date had to be postponed and how this relates to the unique experience of being a Black mental health professional.
Mila has worn many hats as a Social Worker before joining our practice. “I was an advocate with CASA, a victim support specialist with Travis, County's Sheriff's office, a group facilitator at Seton Shoal inpatient hospital, and a therapist at several different Substance Use Treatment Centers,” Mila says, “My last position made me question my values, something I had never had to do because of a workplace culture before. I departed from that position feeling defeated and wary of what I had to offer my community. After learning about Colors of Austin Counseling, I felt like I found a place that carried similar values, embraced me with genuine authenticity, and prioritized educating and empowering the community they served.”
Written by Sandra Olarte-Hayes, Director of Equity
As we launch our final Collective Healing In Action (CHIA) Group it feels important to talk about one of the main reasons why our practice feels so strongly that these groups are necessary to our practice and to our well-being as therapists and as humans. Racial trauma is pervasive among both therapists of color and clients alike.
Racial trauma or race-based traumatic stress is a type of complex trauma. The concept was developed by Robert T. Carter of Columbia University and refers to a series of psychological, mental, and emotional consequences that result from witnessing and experiencing racialized violence, harm, and discrimination. This harm can be caused by seeing videos of violence shared on social media, media depictions of violence, unfair policing, bias in educational institutions, invalidation of one’s experience, and interpersonal harm based on race. It can happen through direct or indirect exposure to racist abuse and discrimination and is pervasive in minoritized communities.
This unique type of trauma results from ongoing exposure to the harms of racism and is a form of complex trauma, which occurs when the trauma takes the form of multiple, varied traumatic events. Much research has been done on the body’s response to threat and when a person experiences complex trauma, the threat to the body is ongoing and the body never gets to fully find safety and reregulate. Racial trauma is complex in that it takes many forms and is interpersonal, systemic, and historical at the same time.
Written by Sandra Olarte-Hayes, Director of Equity
Colors of Austin Counseling’s Collective Healing In Action (CHIA) Groups have finally launched. I am excited. I am relieved. An important part of what I was hired to do was to guide the creation of these groups. The process has taken longer than I expected…almost a year since I started, and yet I am grateful that we have been intentional in starting these groups and that we are finally here.
CHIA groups launched the first week in January and since my last post, most of our groups have now met twice. We know they will require consistency and time in order to build trust and safety. We are trying to balance these needs with an acknowledgement that our team is busy and everyone has a lot on their plates. These first few CHIA group sessions have focused on setting the stage…developing a set of norms and agreements for how we will be together and sharing fears, hopes, and expectations. There seem to be plenty of both. How often do we get to be in spaces with others who share a core aspect of our identity? For me, the answer is quite rarely…especially in this field. In these early groups, I have noticed both a bit of nervousness and also a sense of possibility in the participants.
When affinity groups are suggested, folks with power tend to get uncomfortable. Fear often shows up around what will be discussed since leadership is not there to monitor and regulate the dialogue. If staff start asking questions about their experiences as they relate to identity, what will they say? Does leadership really want to know? Will people start to feel more validated in their concerns? Will they say negative things about the leadership? I have had leaders in previous organizations tell me directly that they would not support my creating spaces for people of the same race to come together and talk about their experiences without other representatives from the organization present. I believe they were making this choice out of fear.
Written by Sandra Olarte-Hayes, Director of Equity
As my first year at Colors of Austin Counseling nears an end, I have been reflecting on what we are building. Even though we’ve crunched the numbers, which will be shared in our final newsletter of the year, I realize that so much of what we have created can not be captured by statistics and figures. It lives in the story. The narrative. The process.
A lot has happened that I want you, our community, to know about and so I am starting this monthly blog about our equity initiatives. In this first post, I want to highlight some of the work that has been happening behind the scenes.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) have been central to Colors of Austin Counseling’s mission since Vanessa founded our practice in 2018. This year, we got serious about stepping back and looking at the big picture. Through team conversations in our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Clinical Consultation, Leadership Team meetings, and through individual dialogue, we defined what DEI means to us as therapists and how we want to live out these values in our work. These conversations led to the creation of our Equity Framework which was released this year. Each clinician has agreed to this living document. It is both a commitment and a call to action.
