SARA ROSE THORSEN
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist | Ecotherapist | Organizer
Radical Intention
I'm not here to fix you because you're not broken. I'm here to accompany you along your way through life. I can be with you for a short period of time, I can be with you for a long time. I am here to support you in finding your way in this wild, wild world. I'm here to support you in feeling the full rainbow of your emotional experience-- the good parts, the painful parts, the confusing parts, the what-the-fuck-parts. I'm here to teach you and affirm you to say "no" or take the steps to get to a "FUCK YES." I'm here to navigate the awkward-strange-uniquely annoying human interactions we all experience. I'm here to help you realize that we're all going to die (and encourage you to care enough about the time you have left to take good care of yourself, others, and the planet). I'm here to listen to the shitty things you went through that never should have happened, but did because bad things happen to good people all the time. I'm here to reflect back to you your own genius, your own qualities/skills/abilities/blindspots/growth edges. I'm here when things die or end and it rips your guts out and when new things are sprouting-- tender, fresh, and raw.
My Practice
I'm intentionally decolonizing my life and my practice, meaning I'm continuously unraveling the ways messed up power structures have negatively impacted my life and my profession. I'm actively moving away from these ways of conceptualizing humans and their emotional experience-- it just doesn't resonate with me any more (and never really did).
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I launched my virtual private practice in August 2020. I wanted to provide affordable, quality services and work for myself after years of being exploited in Community Mental Health. As I built up my practice, I took on a position with a community provider working with my dream population. I quickly realized I had been fooled, yet again. Low pay, no time for documentation, 7-8 back to back sessions a day... a familiar story for mental health providers. I self-advocated, asked for flexibility, and made my needs known. My ideas "didn't fit into the business model" and I decided to quit... I gave all my clients the option to move with me to my practice, and all 21 agreed. I rose to the occasion and stewarded 25 folks through the intensity of the Pandemic, making changes, and refining my business as I went.
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I experienced a traumatic housing situation in the Summer of 2022 that really knocked me off my game. My home, also my place of business, was sacred to me. As I scrambled to keep my life afloat, I could not compute that the subject of my rage (my property manager) was also licensed by the same entity that I was as a Marriage and Family Therapist. I could not fathom that I could be held to such high professional standards and yet this man with a real estate license could terrorize me and my neighbor with minimal consequences. As my licensure renewal period approached, I couldn't focus on my CEUs. I decided to divest from my license as a way of reclaiming power in a situation that left me feeling completely powerless. I put my LMFT license in inactive status July 31, 2022 and transitioned to practicing as a Holistic Coach until I closed my practice in March 2023. I realized I couldn't hold space for others without doing some healing from this event. This was an excruciating experience over all and I find myself still wounded months later.
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Professional Development
For full transparency, these are the following training's and professional development activities I am engaging in:
- Ongoing consultation
- Natural Building Course with Quail Springs Permaculture
- Walking Towards A Good Death
- Emergency Workplace Organizing (EWOC) Fundamentals + Fellows Program
- Social Justice as a Core Value in Treatment
- The Body Positive's Fundamentals for Individuals
- Sacred Stewardship Digital Ally Intensive
- Before We Were White (White Awake)
- 4 Part Course: California Fire Ecology, California Water Ecology, Food in California, and California Ecology Grasslands and Vernal Pools with Nicholas Hummingbird
- I'm also learning Braille and brushing up on some Spanish :)
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