Mental Health Intern
Uses She/Her pronouns
Julia is a Registered Counselor Agency Affiliate (pending) in the state of Washington.
Julia is a graduate student at Antioch University Seattle, studying Clinical Mental Health Counseling. At 6 years old, Julia emigrated from Kherson and, for better or for worse, assimilated into Western culture. She found her path to Opal through her own journey with her body, and relationship with food and movement. Inspired by her own life experiences and learning about HAES, Julia felt a calling to support others in their recovery from disordered eating.
Since 2019, Julia’s worked with adolescents and adults in several settings such as schools, residential treatment facilities, and PHP. Dissatisfied with the lack of alignment between her personal values and the ED spaces she previously worked in, she was attracted to Opal’s thoughtful aesthetic and holistic approach. Both of which resonate with her values. Julia advocates for ED care that prioritizes values such as adopting a diet-free, weight-inclusive approach and reestablishing healthy relationships with not only food and body, but movement too.
As a straight-size, white, cisgender, and able-bodied woman, Julia recognizes the privilege inherent in her identities. She understands that her actions, thoughts, and feelings stemming from these dominant identities, could potentially harm others in spaces intended for healing. Therefore, she remains committed to ongoing self-inquiry and learning about anti-bias, anti-racism, and her own positional advantages.
When not at Opal, Julia enjoys hiking, yoga, watching movies, cooking, decorating her space, and listening to Maintenance Phase and Psychology in Seattle podcasts.
Julia’s professional interests include attachment theory, intergenerational trauma, attuned/intuitive eating, grief+loss, gender-affirming care, somatic psychotherapy, feminist theory, and DBT.