Workshops & Support Groups

Frankie Talon Rose (they/them) is a mixed-race, queer, non-binary, and neurodivergent graduate of the Gestalt Institute of Toronto and a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) with a private practice in Toronto. They work primarily with folks around the complex intersections of varying identities, particularly race, religion, sexuality, gender and neurodivergence, and are passionate about creating spaces for transformation that heal the heart, listen to the body, engage the mind and nourish the soul.

The stories of mixed folks can be vastly different depending on our racial makeup, how our parents raised us, where we were born and where we wound up living, and of course, what we look like. But the thread that ties us together - the experience of straddling many boxes and not fitting any of them entirely - can frequently give mixed folks more of a kinship with each other than they might find within monoracial communities.

This 6-week Gestalt process group will invite multiracial folks to come together to grapple with the phenomenology of what being mixed means to us. We will challenge our common experience of feeling like we don’t belong anywhere by taking up space in a transformational container that is just for us. Using embodied, experiential and discussion-based approaches gauged to the comfort level of participants and a Gestalt lens, we will explore such themes as:

• The way our identities shift and change relationally depending who we are with, where we are in our lives, and how we experience ourselves.

• The feeling and lived experience of “displacement” and “in-between”.

• “What are you?”, “othering”, and exoticization: The way the world sees us versus how we see ourselves.

• Navigating blatant racism and micro-aggressions as a mixed person.

• Mixed-race identity formation as distinct from monoracial identity formation.

• The language we use to describe ourselves in relation to others, code switching.

• Navigating the pressure to “choose a side” or “check a box”.

Note: This process group is open to all those who self-identify as multi-racial. Multi-ethnic folks are welcome if you feel that you relate in a significant way to the themes we will be discussing.