“Let’s practice going to therapy with the intention of wellness, not just when you’re in crisis. Therapy is a space to learn more about yourself, your relationships, and how your life experiences impact you. You can go to therapy without having a major life problem and with the intention of growth, remaining productive, and just to talk to a neutral party.” -Nedra Tawwab Hello! I’m Sophie! I am licensed therapist in Minnesota with 8+ years of post-licensure experience. I have experience in helping people with stress and anxiety, motivation, self esteem, and confidence, & depression. I am honored to hold space with you on your journey of becoming. I am guided by The Principles of Community/Cultural Health Practices (Adopted by the Health and Wellness Committee of the Board of Directors Of the Powderhorn Phillips Cultural Wellness Center December 9, 1996). “Center practitioners, e.g. instructors, facilitators, teachers, advisors and therapists, will: 1. Embrace a variety of safe, effective options in assessment and instruction, including: a) education for lifestyle changes and self-care; b) cultural and complementary practices; and c) conventional health care services; d) an enhanced sense of community and the philosophy of community in the approach to assessment and instruction. 2. Assist persons in searching for the underlying causes of disease in the cultural and community context. 3. Create a foundation of confidence in self-healing as the context for discussions of disease and health problems. Recognize that a person’s own innate healing capacities are the most powerful means for sustaining and improving health. 4. Help people to take responsibility for their health and get the information they need to be well. A tremendous amount of healing takes place when people take responsibility for their own healing and the healing of their community and when the community takes responsibility for the healing of its members. 5. Engage persons in self-assessment and personal goal attainment that is connected to family, kinship, and community and culture. 6. Teach and guide those persons living with a disease as whole persons and all persons as members of a community. 7. Present, when possible, lifestyle changes and renewed decision-making within a cultural context as preferable to clinical options. 8. Emphasize prevention over treatment and teach that prevention must involve the whole community. 9. View illness as affecting a person within the context of a whole community, not as an isolated event. 10. Teach that the ideal healing relationship considers the spiritual, physical, historical, creative and cultural evolution of the problem and the maturity of the person and the practitioner. © 1996 Powderhorn Phillips Cultural Wellness Center 11. Understand that the quality of the existing relationship between the person and the practitioner is a major determinant of healing outcomes. 12. Recognize that practitioners significantly influence healing persons by the example they set. 13. Understand that quality of life, life cycles, illness, pain and the dying process can be learning and healing opportunities for persons, families and practitioners. 14. Teach each person to learn how their tradition presents the healing power of love, hope, creativity, sharing, trust, affirmation, humor and enthusiasm and how that tradition teaches how to work with hostility, shame, greed, depression and prolonged fear, anger and grief in the healing process. 15. Strive to adopt an attitude of cultural dignity for persons, themselves and other practitioners. Community connections and cultural dignity are powerful medicines. 16. Understand that optimal health is much more than the absence of sickness. It is the conscious pursuit of a community’s highest qualities of the spiritual, mental, emotional, physical, environmental and social aspects of the human experience. 17. Give assistance to persons in tracing and renewing a sense of connectedness to tradition and community in order to establish a large number of people in each community who can facilitate cross-cultural interface as well as assess and establish the standards for community health improvement. 18. Recognize and teach that a person’s wellness, the wellness of the community, and the wellness of the planet are all interconnected. 19. Support people to recognize and accept the wisdom within themselves and their elders and to tap into the life-affirming ceremonies, rituals, practices, disciplines and philosophies from their cultural tradition. Help them to understand their actions and how they view themselves affect and are affected by the community. 20. Honor each person’s and each tradition’s private space in the spirit of respecting sacred space and vulnerability. Recognize that safety is key to the healing process. Honor the place where a person is and the pace at which they choose to move from that place. 21. Teach that the necessary health resources are accessible to all members of the community when the ancient wisdom, the symbols and new knowledge from each culture are visible and when the skills and knowledge of all members of the community are shared.” © 1996 Powderhorn Phillips Cultural Wellness Center