More about Fellow Travellers Healing collective

Irvin Yalom, an existential psychiatrist, wrote:

“I prefer to think of my patients and myself as fellow travelers, a term that abolishes distinctions between ‘them’ (the afflicted) and ‘us’ (the healers)… We are all in this together, and there is no therapist and no person immune to the inherent tragedies of existence”.

We deeply align with this perspective, and based the name of our healing collective on this classic quote by Yalom.

Our Healing Collective is a group of independent practitioners from diverse professional backgrounds who work under the shared mission and vision of Fellow Travellers.

We are not experts on what is best for you. We are here to guide you as you walk your own unique path.

Our role is to guide you to connect more deeply to your own inner wisdom and resources, and to offer you the presence, validation, education, strategies and fresh perspective you may need along the way.

Fellow Travellers Healing Collective seeks to re-humanize the field of mental health and psychology by working together to address the whole person and heal the deeper cause of suffering. 

We believe that we are stronger together, and therefore envision creating a group of diverse practitioners who work collaboratively to help you get to the root of your mental and emotional pain.

We seek to dismantle traditional hierarchies in the therapy room and empower both seekers and guides on their shared journey of healing, growth and transformation.

We address mental health through a holistic lens, and seek to bring awareness to psychological, physical, creative, spiritual, intellectual and social needs in order to facilitate growth and healing. We recognize and value the complex and dynamic aspects of being human, and therefore work in a way that is deep and embodied. It is our fullest intention to help you understand and heal the root cause of your suffering.

We recognize that labels are healing for some, and harmful for others, and seek to speak in a language that aligns with you. While we recognize and treat the root cause of diagnosed mental illnesses, we also recognize that the dominant system primarily puts responsibility for healing on the individual, and often neglects to examine collective and intergenerational trauma, systemic oppressions, and environmental and societal injustices. 

Without this awareness, we may spend our time striving to be “normal” in a flawed system, rather than focusing on what matters most to us and living out our fullest potential in line with our own sovereignty. 

We are committed to being inclusive, trauma-informed, anti-racist, anti-oppressive and sex-positive.

Some sources that have influenced & informed our perspective on mental health:
Nirali Shah
214 – Conly Basham Self & daniel jacob self 
Gabor Mate – The Myth of Normal

This Human Thing is a heart-centered business focused on re-humanizing mental health through collective healing, created by founder Kellsey Calhoon. With time, the request for more traditional one-on-one counselling support kept coming our way. Fellow Travellers Healing Collective was created as a response to this request.

While the values, mission and vision of This Human Thing are embedded into Fellow Travellers, this healing collective has a unique direction of its own, by focusing also on the experience of the helper. This healing collective also allows us to deepen our work in re-humanizing mental health by trying to change the landscape of how a ‘therapy’ practice can look. 

We like to think of Fellow Travellers as a big branch of the This Human Thing tree. The two businesses are wholly interconnected: Fellow Travellers focuses on the individual (the “me”, through a healing collective) and the other on the whole (the “we”, through collective healing).