Mekenzie Sutton (She/her)

I use many tools in my work, including the Body Trust framework from BeNourished, the Health at Every Size (Lindo Bacon), Intuitive Eating (Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch), and Eating Competence (Ellyn Satter) frameworks, and pull from many different therapy models including Internal Family Systems, Narrative Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Feminist Theory, Intersectional Feminist Theory (Kimberle Crenshaw), Art Therapy, and teachings from the fat positive/liberation, anti-racist and anti-colonialist teachers and advocates. I consider therapy a client-centered and co-creational process meaning we are creating the therapeutic space together. I believe the client-therapist relationship is a vital piece of the healing work, and for regulation of the nervous system. I am committed to developing an open, honest, and deep relationship together, and hope to facilitate a safe space for healing, disruption, messiness, and pain. I ask you to commit to the same.

I believe that most mental health struggles are caused by systems of oppression outside of us and some sort of disconnection from our innate wisdom and trust of ourselves, our bodies, and our cultures. I believe in both helping folks with individual coping skills, tools, and identifying patterns of behavior in order to make life a little easier, and take steps toward being able to live out your values, and also simultaneously calling out the systems that cause these feelings and disconnections in us, and shifting the blame off of the individual. I strive to make myself a safer therapist for all folks and do a lot of personal work around my privileged identities, but I am a white, able-bodied (for now), small-fat person and realize that this means I will not be the correct person for every client and their maximum healing. It is vital to have a provider who understands your identities and makes you feel safe in the room.