Learning and Unlearning

This page features some of the learning and unlearning work we are doing as therapists and yoga practitioners to challenge our biases and privileges. We recognize that mental health care and yoga in the US have been shaped by white supremacy and systemic inequality, and we have a responsibility to engage with material and people that have been excluded from our professional training. We hope this page can also serve as a resource for others.

What We’re Learning Now

Our therapists meet monthly to discuss topics related to anti-racism and anti-oppression. Here are some of our recent listens and reads:

Decolonizing Mental Health: The Importance of an Oppression-Focused Mental Health System

Getting Involved and Staying Regulated

Two Palestinian American writers on being denied “the right to a story”

Other Resources

This is a non-exhaustive list of some of our favorite books, podcasts, and content creators. If you have any recommendations, we’d love to hear from you.

While we are not partnered with them, we are big fans of the Chicago Public Library, Semicolon Bookstore, Women and Children First Bookstore, and Pilsen Community Books and recommend you check them out!

  • Demystifying Disability: What to Know, What to Say, and How to be an Ally by Emily Ladau

    Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

    The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness by Meghan O'Rourke

  • Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me by Janet Mock

    The Autistic Trans Guide to Life by Yenn Purkis & Wenn B. Lawson

    Beyond the Binary by Alok Vaid-Menon

    Yes, You Are Trans Enough by Mia Violet

    Captive Genders: Trans Empowerment and the Prison Industrial Complex by Eric A. Stanley & Nat Smith

    Transgender History: The Roots of Today’s Revolution by Susan Stryker

    Podcasts:

    Queerology: A Podcast on Belief and Being

    Gender Stories

    Queersplaining

    Gender Rebels

    Gender Reveal

    Transagenda

    What the Trans?!

    Queer Relationships, Queer Joy

  • Transfertility.co

    Baby Making For Everybody: Family Building and Fertility for LGBTQ+ and Solo Parents by Marea Goodman & Ray Rachlin

    We Live for the We: The Political Power of Black Motherhood by Dani McClain

    So We Can Know: Writers of Color on Pregnancy, Loss, Abortion, and Birth by Aracelis Girmay

    IG accounts: ParentingisPolitical, Conscious Kid, Kidlitmama

  • Social Justice for the Sensitive Soul: How to Change the World in Quiet Ways by Dorcas Cheng-Tozun

    Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity by Devon Price

    Black Girl Lost Keys (resources and perspectives, also has a support community for Black people with marginalized gender identities and ADHD)

  • An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

    The Pain We Carry by Natalie Y Gutierrez

    The Racism of People who Love You by Samira Mehta

    Decolonizing Therapy by Jennifer Mullan, PsyD

    Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong

    Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity by C. Riley Snorton

    Nervous: Essays on Heritage and Healing by Jennifer Soriano

    Permission to Come Home by Jenny T. Wang, PhD

  • A Queer Dharma: Yoga & Meditations for Liberation by Jacoby Ballard

    Embrace Yoga’s Roots by Susanna Barkataki

    Yoga for Everyone: 50 Poses for Every Type of Body by Dianne Bondy

    Black Women’s Yoga History: Memoirs of Inner Peace by Stephanie Y. Evans

    Rest Is Resistance by Tricia Hershey

    The Body Liberation Project by Chrissy King

    Restorative Yoga for Ethnic and Race-Based Stress and Trauma by Gail Parker

    Who Is Wellness For? By Fariha Roisin

    The Body is Not an Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor

    Post-Lineage Yoga by Theodora Wildcroft