SupporT - Engage - Expand
You love being a therapist
You enjoy the work and the relationships you build with clients. You’ve worked hard to engage in fat liberation and learn ways to love your body as it is. Clients make comments about weight and fatness and sometimes share their own fatphobia in ways that can leave you drained and feeling alone.
This is
The Fat Therapist Gathering
You want a community of other therapists who understand the complexities of holding the identity of a fat person. You want support around how to process the ways your fatness may influence the work, mirroring around the struggle of weight oppression and comrades in the fight to make the field of mental health more friendly to fat folks.
Welcome to The Fat Therapist Gathering - a place to meet with other therapists and share support, stories and experiences that center around moving through the therapy world as a fat person. It is a space intended to be free from weight-loss talk and where diet-culture is looked at critically.
The Gathering will be facilitated by Karen Smillie, MFT, a Superfat, Queer, Black therapist who works within a fat-liberation, social-justice, relational framework.
The Fat Therapist Gathering meets for 8 weeks, on Mondays 9:00 am to 10:15 am, starting November 7th. Each group meeting is $60. The group has a maximum of ten spots.
Fat Therapist Gathering FAQ
Is This a Psychotherapy Group?
Who is The Fat Therapist Gathering For?
The Fat Therapist Gathering is not a therapy group. While certain group therapy ideas and frameworks may be used, this group is not therapy.
The Fat Therapist Gathering is for anyone, of any gender, who identifies as fat and practices as a psychotherapist or counselor in the mental health field.
Knowledge of fat liberation is not necessary for doing the Gathering. Having an interest in fat liberation will probably mean that this Gathering is a good fit for you.
Can I drop in to the Gathering?
What makes you a good facilitator for The Gathering?
No. The Fat Therapist Gathering participants are asked to commit to 8-weeks of meetings and are responsible for payment for each meeting even if not able to attend.
In addition to a deep love for group work, I've worked as a group facilitator in agency settings for multiple years. I've been participating in fat activism for over ten years and receive consultation on how to work with folks to trust their bodies and experiences.