We believe that understanding the context in which harm has occurred (familial, cultural, societal, etc.) is a necessary step towards true healing and transformation.
We consider our clients’ experiences as inseparable from their contexts and try to offer a space where harmful power structures can be disrupted to make way for healing, liberation, and empowerment.
We ground our services in the belief that individual healing brings about healing on a collective scale and, in so doing, disrupts harmful systems of structural power.
The seeds for Collective Healing were planted in the early days of Luisa Ospina’s independent practice. As a community-minded individual, Luisa felt compelled to find ways to create spaces for licensed, pre-licensed, and student counsellors to unlearn and learn together.
The Collaborative Space Practicum Program connected Luisa with student counsellors passionate about the intersections of counselling and social justice. Over the past few years, many student counsellors expressed the desire to continue working alongside folks practicing from a justice-oriented framework. Luisa provided ongoing support to these students as they worked towards becoming licensed counsellors.
This led to the evolution of Luisa’s independent practice into one that made up this growing team - Collective Healing.
Values
Intersectional
Informed by the work of Kimberlé Crenshaw and other intersectional feminists, we understand identities and lived experiences from an intersectional lens. This brings awareness to the interlocking nature of systems of structural power and their impact on our lives. We are mindful of our social locations and their influence on our realities, values, and approaches as counsellors.
Anti-Oppressive
We work towards mitigating power dynamics within and outside of the counselling room and believe you are the expert of your own life. We are committed to ongoing learning surrounding privilege and oppression, and take it upon ourselves to interrogate our own biases and responses. We value lived experience as much as professional/educational experience, and when it comes to injustice, we are not neutral— we name and deconstruct systems of harm while working towards equity and liberation.
Inclusivity
We work towards co-creating a safe place that centers individuals who experience marginalization and oppression. This includes 2SLGBTQAI+ folks, individuals in stigmatized relationship structures (polyamory/non-monogamy), sex workers, BIPOC, disabled folks, and more.
Liberation
We envision a reality in which structural barriers —and their individual and societal impacts — are not the primary causes of mental health challenges. We hope to counter the oppressive history of the counselling profession by supporting clients to recognize the impacts of systems of structural power as they heal. In the meantime, we will continue working towards the day in which our services are no longer needed.
Cultural Humility & Curiosity
We approach our work with curiosity and humility. This means we listen to clients and hold space for them to explore what is getting in the way of their healing while offering our lived experience and training as resources, not solutions. We stay open to learning about our areas of growth and hold ourselves accountable to deepen our knowledge outside of the counselling room.
Accountability
We understand that everyone has the capacity to do harm, intentionally and unintentionally. We are committed to listening, unlearning, learning, and doing repair work.
Leadership
Featured
Luisa is a Registered Clinical Counsellor and Supervisor who works primarily with people who have experienced trauma, including sexualized violence, experiences of ongoing oppression, and family separation. You can expect sessions with her to be light-hearted, validating, critical of structural barriers, and educational.