The countercultural healer’s guide for building a sustainable and values-driven practice: work toward your purpose, grow your client base, and thrive with integrity in an unjust capitalist system. The time for healing—and the time to be a healer—is now.
Therapist Laura Mae Northrup navigates the complexities of being a healer today—and shows how you can stay true to your calling in a world built from systems that were designed to extract, oppress, and exploit.
Addressing fundamental tensions that arise for practicing healers working in a late-stage capitalist culture, Northrup shares how to:
Maintain your ethical framework even while prioritizing financial stability
Market and brand your practice authentically, without resorting to fear-based tactics
Recognize the unconscious biases and unexamined motivations you unintentionally bring to work
Honor your limits within a culture that valorizes overwork and perpetuates burnout
Prioritize your emotional needs and spiritual goals—and honor their place in your healing practice
Structured in accessible, to-the-point chapters with practical writing and reflection prompts, Northrup offers an authentic, spiritually grounded approach to healership, going much deeper than the promise of a million-dollar practice or a minimum-effort game plan.
Written for healers of all modalities—including radical therapists, functional practitioners, reiki workers, bodyworkers, and healers who have been sidelined, underfunded, underresearched, or delegitimized within a Western capitalist framework—this book offers a nuanced, political, and social-justice informed guide to building the practice you want—and thriving as the healer you were born to be.
ISBN-13: 9781623175993
Media Type: Paperback
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
Publication Date: 02-22-2022
Pages: 200
Product Dimensions: 5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)
Laura Mae Northrup, MFT, is a practicing psychotherapist and educator based in Oakland, CA. She is the creator and host of the podcast Inside Eyes, a series that explores the use of entheogens and psychedelics to heal sexual trauma. Her work focuses on defining sexual violence through a spiritual and politicized lens, mentoring healing practitioners in creating a meaningful path, and supporting the spiritual integrity of our collective humanity. Radical Healership is her first book. You can find more information about Laura and her projects at www.lauramaenorthrup.com.
Table of Contents
Introduction 1
1 Heeding the Call 7
2 Why? 23
3 The Shadow-Why 31
4 Who Are You Here to Work With? 47
5 Creating a Niche, or Writing Your Prayer 59
6 Engaging the impasse 67
7 Communicating the Essential (or The Deconstruction of Marketing and Branding) 83
8 Methods of Communication 97
9 Accessing Spirit: intentions, Rituals, and Rites of Passage 109
10 New Healing Relationships 129
11 Allowing Love: Reflections on Class and Practice- Building 141
12 Degradation of Healership and the Path Forward 161
13 A Prayer 171
Notes 173
Bibliography 175
Acknowledgments 177
Index 179
About the Author 189
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