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Jillian Neill

Licensed Psychologist, PsyPact member (https://psypact.org/page/psypactmap)

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State(s)

NC - North Carolina

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Telehealth

Availability
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Professional Memberships

None of the above

My Pro-Choice Perspective

What being a Pro-Choice Therapist means to me:
As a therapist, I feel a tremendous responsibility to support my clients' decisions about their bodies, their wellbeing, and thus their lives. We are taught to view the client as the expert in their own experience and yet our society continually tries to tell people capable of pregnancy and birth that they are wrong: wrong for having sex in the first place, wrong for having children if the circumstances are not perfect (ie if they require any sort of help or support), wrong for not having children, wrong for putting children up for adoption, wrong for not carrying them to term so other people can adopt them...To be a pro-choice therapist is to allow clients considering their options the space and freedom to explore all their options without judgment. To feel validated in how they are feeling and the challenges that come from making what can be difficult decisions (no matter what they decide). And to understand the impact that our societal views on abortion have on people's wellbeing; that the shame and guilt people often feel is promoted and often generated by a society who wants people who have abortions to feel shame instead of empowerment and autonomy. So, it is to help people explore their options and to provide a safe, non-judgmental space for them to process any and all experiences around this, as well as to understand the influence of an oppressive society on our feelings about abortions and ourselves.
Why I think bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom are important:
This is a difficult question to answer. Not because I can't say why these things are important to me. But because they are important for SO many reasons. Abortion is a medical procedure that is uniquely regulated, shamed, and legislated among medical procedures. The stigma we attach to it as a society breeds shame and oppression and is used as a tool to keep marginalized people down. Forced birth and forcing people to jump through hoops are also tools of oppression and marginalization. These go against my ideals as a therapist and a human and it is vitally important to me to fight back against this, both systemically and also within my therapy practice. To affirm that clients have the right to choose what they do with their bodies and the right to choose whether, when, and under what circumstances they bring a child or children into the world is to fight against shame and oppression and to empower my clients. And ALL of these things are essential to my practice.
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