Stephanie Wu
RP, Professional Art Therapist
(they/them)
Registered Psychotherapist
AREAS OF FOCUS
- Intimate Partner Violence, Sexual Assault & Childhood Abuse
- Impacts of Oppression
- 2SLGBTQIA+ Youth & Adults
I am a queer and trans-identified art therapist, registered psychotherapist with the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario, and facilitator. I’m a 2nd generation East Asian settler with familial and ancestral roots in Hong Kong and Guangdong province in Southern China. I’m currently living, working, playing, and collaborating towards a liberatory future in Tkaronto.
“We live in a culture that denies violence, responsibility, and history…we can’t heal in disconnection and out of relationship with all that’s around us.”
I have spent years working with survivors of gender-based violence, and queer/trans youths and adults in the non-profit sector. I specialize in supporting individuals who are experiencing or have experienced intimate partner violence; childhood/adult sexual assault; family abuse; and; state and workplace violence. Other areas I can support you with include impacts of racial trauma, grief, migration, exploration of gender/sexuality, and restoring your relationship with self and others. I’m also a guest instructor at the Toronto Art Therapy Institute sharing knowledge and experience working with 2SLGBTQIA+ folks with Art Therapy.
I work collaboratively and holistically with my clients. Sometimes that may look like a combination of body-centered practices, art therapy and various talk-therapies (No previous art experience or knowledge is needed to take part in art therapy). Creativity, play and imagination can help us dream of alternative expansive futures and possibilities, and engage different parts of our brain. In my own work, I practice the processes of somatic abolitionism with other racialized folks to help myself and those around me in remembering ancestral resilience and brilliance and to heal from white body supremacy.
Outside of my therapy practice, I engage in my own art processes, garden, collect seeds, take care of many animal friends (dogs, rats, occasionally a cat), and spend time cooking.
Looking forward to working with you!