Inspiring Conversations with Z. Perry-Hodges of Embodied Therapy Collective

Today we’d like to introduce you to Z. Perry-Hodges.

Hi Z., we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Embodied Therapy Collective came about as an answer to a problem that myself and many minority people face in mental health – finding providers that really get it. As a queer, trans, neurodivergent person, I’m familiar with the pain of sitting down with a well-intentioned therapist that doesn’t share my lived experiences or my values, and much of the therapy time is spent educating, explaining, or worse, justifying myself. I have also experienced the felt safety, power, and magic of connection with providers that share and understand the nuances of your identities. Embodied Therapy Collective, co-founded by myself and my wife, was created for queer, neurodivergent, trans, and disabled folks to co-create safety and support. Now more than ever, these communities need places of solidarity and rest.

Much of modern and Western psychology is rooted in the same systems that oppress marginalized communities today and can lead to harm in the therapy room. As a career social worker, I have seen the ways that the mental health system can stigmatize, mistreat, and harm vulnerable people, and I have spent fifteen years fighting against those systems on large and small scales. I spent much of my career climbing the proverbial ladder thinking, “If I can just get a seat at the table, I can make change.” But the closer I got to the top, the more I realized that a lot of programs are unwilling to disentangle themselves from the very same oppressive systems that cause their clients harm. So, a few years ago, my partner, my friends, and I began dreaming of our own inclusive, liberation-focused table, so to speak. We wanted to create a mental health center where both clients and practitioners were safe and celebrated. And thus, after a lot of dreaming and planning, Embodied Therapy Collective was born.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Googling “how to start a business” is a humbling experience.

Starting a new business is wild – it’s alchemical, but the ingredients are a hope and a prayer. You’re creating something out of nothing, hoping that it both brings goodness to the world and can pay the bills. There’s also this experience of building the plane while it’s flying, and the passengers are entrusting you with some of their most vulnerable moments, and you’re trying to ensure you don’t accidentally commit insurance or tax fraud. We’re not making widgets, ya know? We’re providing mental health care at a time where LGBTQ+, neurodivergent, and disabled people are being demonized and targeted sociopolitically. It’s a delicate dance to figure out the details in real time and ensure we’re being attuned professionals.

Starting a business of any kind is a financial and energetic risk. We both quit our jobs to rest and regroup after a really difficult season of life and gave ourselves one year to make our dreams come true, or at least, get them off the ground in a way that could sustain us both. My wife is neurodivergent, chronically ill, and disabled, and we have both found working in traditional 9-5’s incredibly taxing on our minds, bodies, and spirits. So, for us, the stakes were and are incredibly high.

Generally speaking, starting something new takes time, and even though Embodied Therapy Collective took off more quickly than we even anticipated, the liminal space between starting the business and sustainable success felt exciting but mostly scary. This nagging voice, sometimes whispering and sometimes screaming, would pop up saying, “What if this doesn’t work out?” You have to choose everyday to just keep going. To be vulnerable, to feel unsure, to pivot, to second-guess yourself, to celebrate your wins, and then do it all again. I am also a deeply impatient person with a poor understanding of time, ha. I am forever grateful for my partner who is infinitely more patient and grounded in reality and for my friends who let me shoot off 2 am texts about my hopes and fears.

So no, I would not say that the road has been smooth, but I would say it’s been incredibly worth it. It has also only been made possible by the folks who have dreamed along with me, and I do not take any of it for granted.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
ETC is a group of practitioners who share the lived experiences of our clients and strive to embody the values of liberation, equity, and empowerment. We work most frequently with individuals at the intersections of neurodivergence, gender diversity, disability, and queerness. However, we also work with clients who do not identify as such but share the values of embodiment, liberation, and justice and desire a deeper, more authentic connection with themselves and the world around them.

As a young twenty-something, I did not have grand career plans for myself. I have always been someone that has been interested in justice and understanding others (see: neurodivergent), but I sort of stumbled into social work. I started my career in child welfare where I struggled early on working within agencies and broader systems that seemed at times to work against the missions they espoused, either due to red tape or indifference. Time after time, I became burned out in the face of systemic challenges which prevented me and many others from genuinely meeting the needs of the vulnerable populations we were committed to serving.

I pursued a masters in both trauma treatment and organizational leadership with the hope of making trauma-informed change at a systems level, and over the years I have been entrusted with various leadership roles. As a neurodivergent person with a penchant for justice, an eye for patterns, and incessant question asking, it wasn’t easy working in neurotypical settings with values very different from my own. As a trans and queer person, I was often faced with a lot of ignorance in the workplace, and there were often comments about my speech, my clothing, and my person. As a silly goose, my collaborative approach to mental health and leadership was loved by many and misunderstood by folks at the top. Despite these challenges and with the help of exceptional teams, my programs were successful, both in tangible outcomes and lasting connections.

After fifteen years of fighting for the field that I love so much, I decided to leave social work. And I couldn’t. There’s something about mental health and social justice that is woven into the fabric of my person. I have seen the magic that can happen when I show up as myself and offer permission for hurting people to do the same. So I, along with my wife and former team members, decided we would create Embodied Therapy Collective, a mental health center for people like us, run for people like us. And we never looked back.

What makes you happy?
I am my happiest on the back of a horse on an early summer morning with a cool breeze, when the world is quiet and brimming with possibility. It’s a specific sort of moment that I don’t have access to often anymore, but when I can, it brings me right back to adolescence, on my aunt and uncle’s farm. I think like many trans, queer, neurodivergent kids with limited resources and limited language for my experience, nature and animals brought me and still bring me the most joy. I also love DM’ing d&d campaigns, being silly with my wife (and co-founder!), dogs, and spending time with creative, curious, and collaborative folks.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://embodiedtherapycollective.com
• Instagram: http://instagram.com/embodiedtherapycollective