Dazzling Spoons Counseling {Seattle small business branding session}
A common fear among chronically ill and disabled people searching for a photographer, especially for a professional set of portraits or business branding, is, “Will I be able to physically do this?”
“What if my photographer doesn’t understand, or rushes me, or pushes too hard?”
One of the more joyful parts of my job is getting to be the photographer who gets it — who doesn’t push, who doesn’t rush, who has the accommodations and modifications ready so that capturing branding photos is a good experience for disabled and ill clients, not just something to be endured.
A great example is this session with therapist and spoonie Christy Reichert, who’s so in tune with chronic illness care and spoon theory that she incorporated it into the name of her business, Dazzling Spoons Counseling.
Christy offers therapy, clinical supervision, and clinical consultation services.
As you’ll see, we incorporated spoons and other illness and disability concepts throughout her session, from images illustrating spoon + energy levels to compression gloves to menopause.
For Christy’s body-positive small business branding and portrait session in Seattle, we rented a venue through Peerspace that had great floors, great furniture, great walls, great windows, and — most importantly — great light.
Here’s some more about Christy and Dazzling Spoons:
I’m a therapist specializing in helping professional women who live with chronic illness and/or chronic pain in Portland, Oregon; Seattle, Washington; and surrounding areas. I also provide clinical consultation to therapists (anywhere) and clinical supervision (in WA).
Many of my clients have experienced some combination of being ignored, misdiagnosed, and gaslighted. They’re trying to be kind to themselves, to trust themselves, and to find ways to get the support that they need without having to prove that their pain is real or that they’re trying hard enough. And although it won’t ever be exactly like any individual client’s experience, this is what happened to me.
In 2018, after 20 years of it, I finally learned that the doctors were wrong. I never had fibromyalgia; I was born with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (and then went on to develop POTS, MCAS, and gastroparesis).
As a feminist therapist who is fat-positive and disability-justice oriented, I work from a liberation perspective. I believe that all bodies are good bodies. I won’t promise that I can cure anyone’s illness or pain (in fact, I promise that I can’t), because their body is not the problem. It never has been. Learn more at my website: www.dazzlingspoonscounseling.com
Hi there! I'm Lindley. I create artwork that celebrates the unique beauty of bodies that fall outside conventional "beauty" standards at Body Liberation Photography. I'm also the creator of Body Liberation Stock and the Body Love Shop, a curated central resource for body-friendly artwork and products. Find all my work here at bodyliberationphotos.com.
