Sean Stefon Bell

Early exposure to the mental healthcare system taught me that oppression can be as multi-layered and intersectional as the oppressed, and diagnosis will continue to be an act of oppression if it ignores cultural context, societal phobias, and systemic oppression. For a great number, our mental health is a representation of how we survive our social climate. To see things creatively is to see symptoms as keys to recovery and radical healing. Before I was a therapist, I was a visual artist and writer. So not only have I been able to see things through a critical lens, I learned to appreciate imagery, symbolism and metaphor in life. Creativity and art making can be so healing and life-changing. With use in therapy, creativity can be used as a form of resistance, thus enabling us to live creatively. Art adapts to every conceivable problem and lends to transformative, insightful, and experience-heightening powers to people in need. Of course, you have the agency to decide. The work is collaborative and based on the richness of intersectionality, values, strengths, authenticity and wellness in a world that wants otherwise. I aim to help clients re-author their lives and create new possibilities for themselves, and develop a critical consciousness, shifting from oppression to liberation.