Let’s make a good life in the midst of it all: wellbeing for complex bodies and livesHow we can work together
I work with folks with multiple marginalised and oppressed identities, often with complex chronic illnesses.
I help marginalised folks with complex bodies and lives to live well with pain, illness and trauma without disembodiment, burnout or blame.
I offer this work so you can:
Build a life that fits your body, not feel like a failed attempt at what we’re expected to want (heterosexual, cis, thin, non-disabled, white, neurotypical, middle-class living).
Set goals that fit your chronically ill body - and chronically over-packed to-do list
Feel confident going to the hospital appointment
Know what to say (and how to take care of yourself after) when facing daily microaggressions
And much more…
As an anti-oppressive therapist, I believe…
→ I believe access is liberation and justice.
→ I believe self-care can be harmful when it’s divorced from our interconnectedness.
→ I believe there is a life beyond ‘normal’.
→ I believe chronic illness isn’t our fault and I believe there may be aspects of our symptoms and/or situation we can influence.
→ I believe we shouldn’t need to struggle alone.
If we live with a non-normative body, we have probably been exposed to
The Bootstrap Wellness Narrative &
Compulsive Miracle Cure Culture.
The Bootstrap Wellness Narrative is an individualistic, perfectionist, capitalist approach to healing.
It tells us we can - and should - heal alone and if we try hard enough, we can live a “normal” life.
It assumes we all have access to the same resources like wealth, access to fresh food, transport, safe housing and green space and much more.
It invisibilities systemic inequalities and often draws on makeover stories where suffering is long past.
We don’t assume access to resources, wealth or normative ambitions here.
Compulsive Miracle Cure Culture tells us we should always be searching for a cure.
That if we aren’t performing that search sufficiently, maybe we don’t truly want to get well.
We are simultaneously blamed for becoming ill in the first place. In self-development spaces, this myth is often based on a ‘law of attraction’ belief system.
It can lead to people blaming themselves for suffering which is a result of complex interplays of circumstances.
We honour those complexities and contexts here.
What if it didn’t have to be this way?
I know it may be hard to imagine but what if you could…
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BUILD A LIFE THAT FITS YOU & YOUR BODY TODAY - NO WAITING FOR MIRACLES
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LEARN TO MAKE FLEXIBLE PLANS THAT DON’T FALL WITH YOUR NEXT FLARE
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RECOGNISE WHAT’S STILL POSSIBLE WITHOUT SHAME FOR WHAT ISN’T
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CREATE A DAILY LIFE THAT YOU CAN LIVE WITHOUT BURNOUT OR BLAME
HERE’S THE THING
Gaslighting & patient blaming are rife in medicine & wellness
While you might have tried the treatments, supplements, and expensive ‘miracle’ cures and they didn’t work. Maybe that still hurts. Why didn’t they work? It’s not because our bodies are too complex or we aren’t trying hard enough.
But it may be because most programmes expect us to follow the plan that worked for someone else’s body, diagnosis and life.
But we need to find what fits us and that’s what I’m here to support you to do.
WHAT IF THERE WAS ANOTHER WAY?
I’ve learned, the path to living well with illness is not through following someone else’s footsteps, it’s the process of learning our inner and outer landscapes and finding what’s still possible for us here - in the midst of it all.
HOW I WORKSomatic Complexity Compassion Therapy (SCCT)
I call my approach Somatic Complexity Compassion Therapy (SCCT).
It rests on these pillars: Ground, Gather, Grow (Triple G) Process, which helps us make change compassionately and sustainably.
How the Triple G Process Works
My training brings together psychotherapeutic counselling and activism in order to recognise our whole selves as we navigate systemically unjust and struggling systems. So we can make a life in the midst of it all.
NO. 1
GROUND
We’ll build strong foundations, getting to know you, your body and what works best for you in your healing.
You’ll learn how to orient the issues accurately (and how powerful it is to see who holds the responsibility.
We’ll explore how to self-advocate successfully, even in stressful situations.
You’ll find ways to reclaim agency, even (and especially) in crisis.
NO. 2
GATHER
Where we’ll be identifying & accessing right relationship to resources. This helps us make sustainable change.
We’ll practice accurately locating power and possibility in our everyday.
You’ll identify and tend the ecology of your internal and external energy eco-systems.
We’ll gather data on your body’s safe spaces, vulnerabilities and unknowns and build reliable routes to your resources.
NO. 3
GROW
Which will support us to put all this inner work into practice, in our lives. Here, we can reimagine dreams and goals in ways that fit us.
We will start to build your own wellbeing guide - the instruction manual you wish arrived on the day of the diagnosis/crisis.
We’ll practice planning within limits and with flexibility.
We’ll work on how to build community and contentment in this unstable world.
Here’s how we can work together
We’ve got options for group programmes, short workshops and longer one-on-one work.
Check out the options below to find what works best for your energy, capacity, learning preferences, budget and support needs.
Group Programmes
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An incubation programme to learn sustainable business and creativity-building practices and emerge with a business plan that fits your body, needs and life. COMING SOON - Sign up to my newsletter here to be notified when it's ready.
Workshops
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I teach seasonal workshops where we cover different flavours of the healing process, through my Creative Therapeutic Journalling methodology. Learn more and book here.
Individual Sessions
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Anti-oppressive, trauma-informed body inclusive one on one therapeutic work.
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One-on-one coaching, supporting you to build a life that fits you and lets you live well, now.
So, how is this different from the last thing you bought or that other service you tried?
Let me explain.
While many therapists focus on your individual experience and the impact of your personal history and family of origin, I know that to understand your reality fully, we need to look beyond your body to all that impacts it.
We must pay attention to all that shapes us, not only our experiences and our families, but also societal prejudices, medical trauma, systemic injustice, cultural backgrounds, and ancestral, intergenerational and environmental impacts.
Then we need to understand how this meaning can help you shape a way of living that truly fits you.
This is what we will be exploring together.
I BELIEVE IN YOU AND YOUR POSSIBILITIES.This is for you if…
✔ You’re struggling to know where to even begin when it comes to the big list of medical, self-care and wellness tasks you “should” be doing.
Now, you are questioning what’s wrong with you that you can’t do what you see your peers - or popular Instagram influencers - doing. You try, but you can never sustain the cure du jour that’s being touted this month.
✔ You are fed up of being told there is nothing wrong with you, that your symptoms are “just stress” or “psychosomatic” without any evidence - or treatment plans - being offered based on these assertions.
You suspect you are being brushed off but don’t know where to go from here. Feeling powerless and stuck is starting to make you doubt your own experience and it’s impacting you more and more.
✔ You are tired of justifying why you can’t try yoga (hypermobility) or mindfulness (triggers dissociation and risks intrusive thoughts or psychosis). You are craving a space to work through your relationship with your body in the world - but one that gets your complexities and realities. Where you don’t have to spend most of the session explaining autism, or rejection sensitive dysphoria or how meditation won’t cure OCD (no matter how beneficial the therapist themselves found it).
This Is Not For You…
✘ You want me to teach you my specific healing/treatment protocols or what I, personally use for my conditions. I’m not a doctor, I’m not prescribing, advising or giving medical advice. I support you in finding and advocating for the best options for you.
✘ You are frequently unable to meet your basic needs like food, rent or safety.
While I deeply appreciate your situation - these offerings are not mental health first aid or crisis stabilisation. It’s a lot to expect yourself to be able to do this deep work in absolute crisis.
I am happy to sign-post you to any support that could be of use and perhaps you can join when things are safer for you.
✘ If you are interested in this because you feel manipulated, fear of missing out, false scarcity, or that any hesitation you have is “just an excuse and means you don’t want it badly enough”, please do not move forward with this work, as I don’t want to be a part of, or participate in creating that experience for you.
If you feel this is a path or truth, depth, transformation, and kindness, then I am already doing my job and would love to have you join us.*
* credited to beloved and amazing Randi Buckley.
HEY THERE,
I’m Grace Quantock
I'm an anti-oppressive psychotherapeutic counsellor, writer and advocate. I help marginalised folks to live well with pain, illness and trauma without disembodiment, burnout or blame.
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