WELCOME TO THE FREEDOM COLLECTIVE
Where healing begins in community.
Freedom Collective Therapy was founded in 2025 with a belief that continues to shape everything we are building: quality mental health care should not be reserved for those with the greatest access to it, and healing does not have to happen alone.
Our name carries a story.
Freedom is connected to the Old English frēodōm, a state of being free. For us, the name carries a deeply personal connection to John Frank Mclaurin, the grandfather of our founder, Shahem Mclaurin.
John Frank passed away in 2022, but the way he lived continues to inform the work we do. He was a cornerstone of his community, someone who showed up for people, listened deeply, shared his wisdom generously, and understood the importance of connection. The name Frank translates to "free man" and holds special significance to our mission: honoring John Frank Mclaurin's legacy while reflecting our belief that healing can be a pathway toward greater freedom, agency, and access to a life in which people have the support they need to thrive.
His life demonstrated something we believe deeply at Freedom Collective Therapy: people need spaces where they can feel seen, supported, and connected. His legacy lives in our commitment to creating those spaces, and in our vision for a mental health practice rooted not only in individual healing, but in community. Read the story behind the waves →
John Frank's life taught us that community is not simply the backdrop to healing. Community can be part of healing itself. Through his consistency, humor, wisdom, generosity, and care, he demonstrated what can happen when people intentionally invest in one another. That philosophy shapes how we think about mental health.
The word Collective in our name is deliberate. We recognize that people do not experience mental health in isolation. We are shaped by relationships, families, communities, identities, workplaces, cultures, histories, and the systems we encounter every day. Our approach to therapy makes room for that complexity.
We also recognize that access to mental health care remains deeply unequal. Cost, insurance coverage, geography, scheduling, cultural representation, and previous experiences with health care systems can all influence whether someone is able or willing to seek support. Freedom Collective Therapy is working toward a different future, one where high-quality, affirming mental health care can reach more of the people who have historically had the least access to it.
That work is still growing, and we believe transparency about that journey matters.
Accessibility is not simply an aspiration. It is part of what we are actively working to build.
As part of that commitment, we are developing the Freedom Collective Therapy Access Fund, a future initiative intended to help reduce the financial barriers that can prevent people from accessing ongoing mental health care. When launched and as funding allows, the Access Fund is intended to support eligible individuals experiencing financial barriers through significantly reduced-cost or no-cost therapy.
The Access Fund is currently in development and is not yet accepting applications. As the initiative grows, we will share additional information about eligibility, funding availability, participating services, and how prospective clients can apply. Our goal is not to promise access before the infrastructure exists to sustain it. Our goal is to build access intentionally, transparently, and in a way that can last. Follow the Access Fund →
We are deeply committed to creating affirming spaces for people and communities that have historically been underserved, misunderstood, excluded, or harmed within mental health systems. That includes Black and Brown communities, LGBTQ+ people, people navigating financial barriers, people without adequate insurance coverage, and people who have struggled to find providers who understand the cultural and social contexts of their lives.
For many people, barriers to therapy extend far beyond scheduling an appointment. Distrust of mental health systems can be shaped by generations of exclusion, discrimination, misdiagnosis, lack of representation, financial barriers, and experiences of not being heard or believed. We do not pretend that a therapy practice can repair those histories on its own. We can, however, be intentional about the kind of space we create within them.
That means approaching care with cultural humility. It means listening before assuming. It means understanding people within the context of their lives rather than reducing them to symptoms or diagnoses. And it means continuing to examine how our own practice can become more accessible, accountable, and responsive to the communities we serve.
You should not have to leave parts of yourself outside the therapy room in order to receive care.
Financial accessibility matters, but meaningful access requires more than changing the price of a session. It means offering telehealth when transportation or geography creates barriers. It means recognizing that work schedules, caregiving responsibilities, disability, insurance coverage, and financial circumstances all shape someone's ability to participate in therapy. It means cultivating a network of clinicians who understand that identity and culture are not separate from mental health. And it means creating an environment where clients can talk openly about race, gender, sexuality, relationships, family, trauma, work, community, politics, and the systems affecting their lives.
Access
Working toward a future where financial, cultural, and systemic barriers do not determine who gets to receive quality mental health care.
Community-Centered
Healing happens in relationship. We are building a practice that values connection, community, and the environments that shape our lives.
Culturally Affirming
You deserve care that makes room for your identity, your history, your relationships, your community, and your whole self.
Mental health care continues to evolve, and we believe therapy practices should evolve with it. Freedom Collective Therapy was created with a willingness to ask difficult questions about who has access to therapy, who feels represented within it, whose experiences are validated, and what healing can look like when we understand people within the full context of their lives.
For us, reimagining mental health care means looking beyond the therapy room. It means psychoeducation. It means community engagement. It means advocacy and public conversations about mental health. It means creating opportunities for people to better understand themselves and one another. And it means recognizing that while therapy can support individual healing, many of the challenges people bring into therapy are connected to families, communities, institutions, cultures, and systems much larger than any one person. We hold both the individual and the collective in mind.
Freedom Collective Therapy is still growing. So is our vision. We believe in transparency about where we are today and ambition about where we hope to go tomorrow. We are committed to continued learning, clinical excellence, cultural humility, accountability, and listening to the communities we serve. Over time, we hope to expand not only the care we provide, but who is able to access it.
At the center of it all remains the lesson John Frank modeled throughout his life: show up for people, invest in community, and leave something behind that helps others grow. Freedom Collective Therapy is our attempt to carry that legacy forward.
Healing is personal.
Healing is relational.
Healing is collective.
And there is room for you here.
BEYOND THE SESSION
Freedom Collective Therapy was founded in 2025 with a belief that continues to shape everything we are building: quality mental health care should not be reserved for those with the greatest access to it, and healing does not have to happen alone.
