jo'kai (jb/ jennifer) bath (they/them)

Many of us who have survived sexual abuse or assault have strong survival responses to keep ourselves safe. These responses can look like: collapsing under pressure to avoid criticism and attack from others, having very restrictive touch boundaries or having very little touch boundaries at all to attempt to find healthy touch, and many more.... Therapy can be a safe place to recognize what these survival responses are, how they serve us, and slowly change them if they no longer serve us.

Race is a social construct that has material implications in our society. The United States was built with a bodily hierarchy. Living in a society that continues to uphold a legacy of anti-black racism denies us all of our full humanity. Reflecting on, naming, contextualizing, and grieving the specifics of our racial experience can support deeper awareness and healing with the complex harms of racism we carry in our bodies.

Gender is a multi dimensional experience unique to each of us. Unfortunately, our society polices and judges gender based on a binary conception of male and female. Therapy can be a safe space for exploring and expressing authentic gender beyond this binary. Emotional challenges, access to appropriate medical care, and navigating relationships are just some of the issues that can be addressed within the arena of gender identity.

Our bodies carry our entire life experience within them. We will explore your sensations and emotions, and distinguish them from your thoughts and needs. We will practice noticing present experience amidst intense stimulation (stress, hurt, anger, fear, irritation...). Often, the more we stay connected with our bodily experience, the more we can access choices available to us. We build and grow with these capacities each week. Breath, touch, movement, and sound are some tools we can utilize.

We are not just from this Earth, we are of this Earth. Remembering and reconnecting to our relationship with the natural world can offer support, surrender, and insight. We are a piece of the larger fractal of nature. Looking to examples in nature for birthing, growing, blooming, and dying can offer comfort or guidance. I offer walk and talk therapy sessions in green spaces. I facilitate individual and group experiences of 'nature bathing' as well as rituals for grief, vision, and transition.

I bring an anti-oppressive lens to our work together. This means we continually contextualize your experience with the history and systems in which we live. We investigate the beliefs and values that you were taught through family, school, public media, community and faith organizations, nation systems and governments. We prioritize our work around naming and cultivating the needs, visions and desires you hold for yourself.