Welcome to The Freedom Collective
Where healing begins
in community.
Freedom Collective Therapy was founded in 2025 with a singular belief: that access to quality mental health care is not a privilege, it is a right and that the path to healing doesn't have to be walked alone.
Our name carries meaning that runs deeper than words. Freedom, which derived from the Old English root frēodōm is tied to the name Frank, itself a name rooted in the ancient Germanic word for "free." That connection is not a coincidence. It is a tribute.
Freedom Collective Therapy was named in honor of Shahem's grandfather John Frank McLaurin, a man who embodied community in everything he did in life. John Frank passed away in 2022, leaving behind a legacy that stretched far beyond the memories he left with his children and grandchildren. He was a cornerstone of his community: the kind of person who showed up, who listened, who gave freely and generously, his wisdom, and his love. He understood instinctively what many of us spend years learning, that people heal when they feel held, seen, and connected. His spirit lives in every session we hold, every barrier we dismantle, and every person who decides to be a part of our collective.
Access
Removing financial, cultural, and logistical barriers that keep people from getting the care they deserve.
Community Center
Healing is collective. We build practices and spaces that reflect the communities we serve.
Culturally Affirming
Every person deserves a therapist who sees them fully, their identity, their history, their whole self.
Built on community. Rooted in belonging.
John Frank's life taught us that community is not a backdrop to healing: it is healing. He cared so deeply for the people around him; he wove himself into the fabric of those relationships with intentionality and love. Beyond his wise words, humor, and creative methods of teaching, he demonstrated how consistency in community can aid the development and growth of others. That philosophy shapes everything we do at Freedom Collective Therapy. We are not simply a practice that treats individuals in isolation. We are a collective and that word is deliberate. We believe that mental health care, at its best, is communal. It is relational. It is reciprocal.
In founding this practice, we made a conscious choice to center accessibility. Too often, mental health care has been designed for those who already have the most: financial stability, geographic proximity, flexible schedules, cultural representation in their provider. We are working to change that, not incrementally, but fundamentally. Making healing accessible is not a feature of what we do. It is the reason we exist. Although the journey is at the beginning, we hope you can join us along the way.
Care for those who have been left out.
Our deepest commitment is to marginalized communities, those who have been historically underserved, misrepresented, or actively harmed by mental health systems. Black and Brown individuals, LGBTQ+ people, low-income communities, those without insurance, those who have been told their pain is not valid, those who never saw themselves reflected in a therapist's face or felt safe enough to speak honestly in a clinical room. These are the people Freedom Collective was built for.
We know that for many people in these communities, the barriers to care are not simply a matter of logistics. They are historical. They are rooted in generational trauma with systems that were never designed to protect them. We hold that knowledge with humility, and we work every day to earn the trust that those systems have broken or never worked to begin with. Providing care to marginalized populations is not charity, it is a reckoning with what equitable mental health care actually looks like in practice.
What does access truly mean? It means sliding scale fees and flexible payment options so finances never become the reason someone goes without support. It means telehealth options that reach people regardless of access to transportation. It means therapists who reflect the cultural and lived experiences of the people they serve. It means being told: you belong here, and you are welcome exactly as you are.
We are not here to maintain the status quo.
The mental health field is at an inflection point. Old models of care (gatekept, pathologizing, inaccessible) are increasingly insufficient for the world we live in. Freedom Collective Therapy was founded to be part of the solution: a practice unafraid to ask hard questions about what healing looks like when we center the people who need it most.
Revolutionizing care means reimagining what a therapy practice can be. It means stepping outside the clinical room and into the community. It means engaging in psychoeducation, advocacy, and public conversation about mental health and societal issues in ways that meet people where they are, not where it is comfortable for the system. It means holding both the individual and the collective in mind at every step. A person does not exist outside of their context, and we refuse to treat them as though they do.
We believe in transparency, in curiosity, and in the kind of care that evolves. We are committed to ongoing education, to staying accountable to the communities we serve, and to building something that lasts, something John Frank himself would have been proud of.
Beyond The Session
Freedom Collective Podcast
Because healing does not only happen in a therapy office. The Freedom Collective Podcast is an extension of our mission into the broader public conversation, a space where we explore mental health, community, identity, and access with honesty and depth. Whether you are currently in therapy, curious about starting, or simply someone who cares about the wellbeing of the people around you, this podcast is for you. Through bringing in voices from across disciplines and lived experiences to challenge, expand, and humanize how we think about mental health we hope to challenge and expand mental health care.
