GSWS Caucus Mentorship Session with Justine Little
By Lindsay Dober
On November 19th, 2024, Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies (GSWS) students gathered for an inspirational mentorship session at the GSWS Graduate Caucus Mentorship Series. The mentor featured was Justine Little, a queer therapist and social worker, who shared her talk with us titled: Connecting to the Body's Wisdom: A Social Worker’s Journey to Creating a Somatic Therapy Practice. Her therapeutic practice, Somatic Experiencing, focuses on being in-tune with our sensations or feelings in the body to process trauma and empower us to know ourselves.
Justine introduced herself and spoke of her journey as a friend, family member, community member, server, and support worker. She then asked for us to introduce ourselves and to share what we hoped to take away from her talk. The topic was new to some attendees while others were interested in somatic therapy practice as an interest or possible career path.
Justine spoke on the importance of talking about trauma in a trauma-informed way, involving avoiding unnecessary details of challenging experiences. She talked us through what trauma means, including trauma as subjective, overwhelming without appropriate support, acute trauma, complex trauma, historical, intergenerational, identity-based (2LGBTQ+), and gender-based–just to name a few. While some types of trauma are in the DSM, there could be some that could not yet be documented into official diagnoses.
A key theme of the talk was delving into Somatic Experiencing (SE), which is a therapeutic practice developed by Peter Levine in the 1980s. It uses a “bottom-up” approach that begins with the body’s sensations and connects to the mind. This helps process trauma and connect the emotional and cognitive processes, as trauma often causes us to separate from our bodies. She mentioned that this is related to Indigenous ways of knowing which are rooted in body-specific knowledge.
Justine went through what a common session looks like in which she guides clients to notice particular sensations in their body. She then conducted us to try this practice by focusing on an object in the room and reflecting on why this object stood out to us and how we were feeling in our bodies. After this exercise, the feedback from attendees was the feeling of being energized and noticing certain body sensations.
Justine shared her professional journey of education in social work and focused training in SE. She emphasized the importance of her work in reflecting her own social justice values and spoke about her passion of starting her private practice. She enjoys working with clients and finding a niche of SE and serving the LSGBTQIA+ community. She spoke candidly of the challenges of building her caseload, learning business skills, experiencing fluctuating demand, burnout, and the isolation. However, prioritizing people who face challenges accessing equitable mental health support and connecting with people aligns with her values and makes the work meaningful.
A Q&A session followed, where attendees were curious about starting a private practice and asking how she helps folks who are transitioning. The session was a success as Justine left attendees with a wealth of resources and shared the transformative power of somatic therapy.
Student Biography
Lindsay Dober (she/her) is a Gender, Sexualities, and Women’s Studies Major and is completing her final semester at SFU. With over a year and a half of experience as the Marketing Manager in the GSWS student union, she has honed her skills in communication and community engagement. She is passionate about fighting against gender-based violence and aspires to work in a role that supports and empowers self-identifying women by fostering safe and inclusive spaces. She has valued her time at SFU, connecting with fellow feminists and exploring topics such as intersectionality, sexuality, and gender. Lindsay’s learnings at SFU inspires her to continue her commitment to everyday activism and her future endeavors.