A Collective Process!

Consultation is an invitation to gather knowledge and experience as a shared resource. At its best, consultation allows all participants to expand and be witnessed in their expertise. While I might be holding the container and offering specific counsel around certain themes or subjects, it is my job to support shining a light on the experience and knowledge already present within the room. 

An Act of Liberation! 

When we remember that we don’t have to be isolated in our work as care providers, we access the vast network of wisdom, humanity, and care that is available to us as a community. When we remember that we each have something unique to offer, we create worlds where our differences are places of pleasure and freedom. 

With this in mind, I agree to make this space as accessible to you as possible! This includes the following: My sliding scale is set up to accommodate changes in financial wellness. Please feel free to let me know at any time if you need to change the fee you pay for services. If everyone consents, we can record consultation sessions to support access to the content of our work together. Lastly, I only speak and write English with fluency. If that is a barrier to your learning, please let me know, and I am happy to get a translator on board. The folks I bring in for translation are therapists or coaches, and have IFS training. They will receive 50% of the total rate I receive for services. 

A Space for Case Consultation, Practice of Skills, Demos, Triadic Live Sessions (practice groups), Role Play, and Experimentation!

In this space, we can explore specific client or population concerns through verbal and somatic processing, role playing, demos, or trying out new skills. We can also use our own systems and experiences to practice skills or try new ways of engaging with our work. To allow for this space to be creative, safe, and effective, we agree to communicate our needs and wants around consultation. We agree to hold our clients, ourselves, and our peers with integrity, compassion, care, and curiosity. We agree to abide by confidentiality and (if applicable) not bring up consultation content outside of the  group. 

A Place for Growth! 

Consultation can—but does not always– feel good. In consultation, we might discover parts who have found protection in harmful beliefs about clients, providers, or people in general. In this container, we agree to not look away from those places. We agree to be responsible with our parts, and the burdens they carry. We agree to hold space for others’ parts and feelings when our protective strategies cause harm. We agree that ALL parts are welcome, and that means we do not exclude ourselves or others if we cannot stay in Self as we attempt to process personal pain, harm, violence, or marginalization. We celebrate and uplift the courage of parts and people when they bring their full experience to the table.

Biased! 

As most spaces are, consultation is a container. All containers have a bias, and my bias will be present in my role holding this container for you. You may already feel some of my biases within this document. You may have chosen consultation with me because of the specific perspective I bring to this work! Regardless, I will do my best to make clear where my biases and values are so that you have room to decide what you want to take with you, and what doesn’t make sense for you. My identities, privileges, marginalizations, political and social values, and life experiences all shape the lens I bring to counseling. I hope that you always feel safe challenging and asking questions about these lenses. For Group Consultation: If I believe that your concerns about my biases may bring harm to another participant in the space or there is a time concern within the group, I agree to make time (at no charge to you) for us to meet outside of the group to process your experience and needs.

One particular “lens” I hold is the belief that we are all capable of enacting harm. With this in mind, I agree to be responsible (both individually and within a group space) for any harm I cause through bias, ignorance, or intent. Responsibility can look like (but isn’t limited to): providing refunds to impacted participants, engaging in a broader accountability process with or without mediation (chosen by participants and paid for by me), and/or pursuing further education and consultation in a visible and clear way.

You will also bring biases and lenses into our consultation space. In this container, we agree to be ready to look at our lenses and perspectives with clarity, courage, and curiosity. We agree to be responsible for the impacts we may have on others. We agree to open our hearts and nervous systems to the possibility of being wrong about things– this does not mean we agree to believe we are bad, and this does not mean we hold the power to decide what is “Right”.

Supervision! 

We agree that this consultation space cannot replace supervision towards licensure. We understand that these consultation hours cannot currently go towards IFS certification, although that may change in the future. 

A Healing Environment! 

Consultation can bring up meaningful personal work, wounds, and trauma for participants. While healing can happen within a consultation space, I ask that consultees have a support network outside of the consultation space to deepen whatever trailheads we encounter together. This could be a therapist, close friends or intimate partners, colleagues, or family members. We agree to have a support person or network available to hold our healing process as needed.

Along with this, you are paying for a service relating to your professional learning and growth. You are not consenting to a healing space where it would be a reasonable expectation that you face large wounds/traumas you (or your community) experience(d). We agree to enter a space wherein triggers and challenging content may arise. We also agree to step back from subject matter which we become aware would exclude a peer from being able to stay present within the consultation space for the reason of personal or intergenerational trauma. Please note: there is a difference between discomfort and being triggered. We agree to be clear about moments where subject matter is triggering, and we cannot effectively stay in the learning space, versus when we feel uncomfortable with discussions due to our personal beliefs and/or privileges. 

Group Consultation Example: Sandra is a white cisgender queer person in consultation. She recently lost a loved one to a violent death. When a fellow consultee brings up a case wherein someone was murdered, Sandra discovers she can’t stay present or stop thinking of the violent death in her life. In this case, Sandra is triggered and can no longer access the learning space she paid for due to content she could not have predicted would come up (this isn’t a consultation group specific to violent murders/deaths in the counseling field). In such a case, we would tend to Sandra’s needs, and step back from that subject. We might redirect to focus on the questions relating to the case without diving deep into the details of the client. Alternatively, as a white person, Sandra would not be triggered by discussions about racism, even if they made some of her parts feel uncomfortable, guilty, or angry. These would be emotions and burdens for Sandra to bring to Amy as the consultant (outside of the group session at hand), or for Sandra to bring to a therapist/support person in her life. 

A Place To Vent About “Difficult” Clients! 

We agree that clients are not difficult or “hard”--- their circumstances, pain, traumas, and experiences are, first and foremost, difficult for them! We agree to hold our humanity as inherently tied to the humanity of those we support. We agree to avoid disparaging or speaking as though our clients are their burdens, without looking away from or erasing the harms that can come from burdened systems. We agree to avoid the same pitfalls about ourselves and our peers.