Abolitionist Community Worker & Educator
Sage M Stephanou
Sage is a highly experienced community worker, facilitator and educator with a background in Art Therapy, Creative Expressive Therapies and academia. Their work is focused on liberatory methods of healing and education, using anti-colonial, abolitionist and transformative justice frameworks. Their clinical and community work is influenced by their lived experience as a working class, disabled person of the global majority (PoGM).
Sage is the founder and a co-director of the Radical Therapist Network, and currently working as a clinical supervisor, educator, and group facilitator, with a specialism in abolitionist, somatic intersectional, anti-oppressive therapeutic praxis.
Their approach as an educator, facilitator and community worker is explicitly tied with experiential, creative, socio-political/cultural and embodied group processes, and co-created healing and un/learning spaces.
Areas of Focus
Somatic and embodied abolition & transformative justice
Developing and working within an ethical, anti-capitalist, anti-racist and intersectional therapeutic practice
History and impacts of white supremacy, colonialism and capitalism in therapy
Intersectionality
Anti-Oppressive praxis
Experiences of liminality, plurality and Otherness
Crip theory, accessibility, disability justice and disabled-led practices
Marginalisation and systemic violence
Consent
Collective care and community-centred practices
Gender, Sexuality and Relationship Diversity (GSRD)
Dynamics of power & oppression at interpersonal, group and systemic levels
Social justice led approaches to training and therapy
Anti-racism, anti-colonial praxis and abolitionism
Defence mechanisms, white supremacy and (cultural) whiteness
Racial / cultural / intergenerational / trans-generational / complex trauma.
Testimonials
“Sage's supervision has transformed my relationship with justice, self and collective care. Their extensive knowledge and care enable me to feel fully seen and held accountable in my intersecting and complex identities and commitment to transformative justice. It truly feels radical.
I recommend their supervision, consultation, workshops and facilitation to everyone.”
“Sage is an exceptionally skilled supervisor, who supports me in navigating both the breadth and depth of my work with clients. They are committed to and invite the steadfast unravelling of tightly wound constructs of oppression and supremacism - while being rooted in humanity, kindness and compassion.
They embody and model the awareness and curiosity that is vital for decolonial and liberatory therapy work. The experience of co-regulation, co-exploration and practice of collective care during our supervision sessions greatly informs and impacts the space I hold for my clients. I’m truly and deeply grateful to Sage for their supervision, presence and support.”
“Sage has a gentle yet challenging approach that continues to enhance my awareness of all aspects of art psychotherapy practice; I have really appreciated the insight, knowledge and experience that they bring. Regular artmaking and somatic check-ins are particularly supportive and encouraging in our sessions. Sage’s commitment to collective care is highly motivating - supervision with them has been of huge benefit to myself, empowering me to be of benefit to the community I work alongside.”
“Sage has only been my clinical supervisor for a short while, but they have already supported me to reflect deeper on my practice as an anti-racism and justice worker, especially around holding my own boundaries. They always validate and challenge as and where appropriate. I really look forward to continuing my journey with them.”