Letter from Minneapolis

Some of you may know that I moved to Minneapolis in 2024. As a born and raised Austinite, this has been a hugely transformative experience. As with all major life experiences, it has shaped who I am as a person, parent and therapist. For the past few months, my new hometown has been in the public eye and in the crosshairs of the administration through a brutal campaign of terror against our community by ICE. As news comes today that the federal government will be ending their occupation of Minneapolis, I want to take a moment to share more about what I've witnessed here as well as how we as a practice affirm and promote our values. We believe that therapy is inherently political. Part of our role as clinicians is to advocate for systems that promote justice, equity, and the conditions for love, safety, belonging and connection for all people. One way we can do this is to name the values that inform our practice, and the work that is ongoing in living those values in action:

We advocate for public policy that promotes social, racial, economic and reproductive justice

We protect client privacy and autonomy by protecting your PHI and case notes from being shared outside our practice or in ways that might cause you harm-this means that we do not share information regarding your immigration status, gender identity or gender affirming care, abortion and reproductive care, or any other private information that can be weaponized by unjust and inhumane public policy

We are systems therapists-we look at how the family systems, cultural systems, and systems of oppression that we are a part of shape our worldview, experiences and beliefs-including those systems of oppression that protect privileged identities like whiteness

We believe in mutual aid, community care, humanity first, and that trauma healing doesn't happen in a vacuum (or behind the closed therapy door) but rather through relationships, belonging, and advocating for and with our communities

In Minneapolis and in Austin, you may be seeing some of this play out in real time. For me, it's meant finding a way to meaningfully engage with my neighbors, get active within existing and newly developing mutual aid work, and learn how to lean into the power of the collective. The grassroots organizing and collectivism in action has been deeply inspiring-building on an existing infrastructure of civic engagement culture, strong networks led by and for Indigenous, immigrant and communities of color. Neighbor to neighbor, we've shown up every day to get to work on behalf of each other. This work doesn't end when ICE leaves. The underlying systems of oppression haven't changed-and other communities have been, and will continue to be, harmed by these systems. The intersection of our work as humans and our work as therapists has never been more clear-we advocate for values of justice, equity and human dignity. As a therapist, living in Minneapolis has reaffirmed what I already believed-that we are better humans when we are lifting each other up, in service of the greater good, and committed to justice. It also means not staying silent in the face of injustice. Our values are rooted in our common humanity.

With love from Minneapolis,

Blake