June 3, 2025
Where it all began…
The story of Take Root Counseling and Coaching is a multi-faceted one and I took some time deciding what felt best to share. Afterall, I didn’t just whip up a business. I developed a foundation of good soil, planted a seed, tended to it, believed in it, believed in myself and eventually, there was a sprout. When I sat with the idea of writing up a Take Root origin story, my brain first went all the way back to my grandparents, my roots. They came from farming families who struggled through the great depression. The summer that I started Take Root, I was doing some of my own personal work around intergenerational healing and the presence of my grandparents was with me a lot. Maybe even more than they were ever able to really be with me during their lives. They’d all passed away during my childhood and as I considered what may have been like unburdened by the weight of their own challenging experiences, the many metaphors for therapy and healing offered up by horticulture began to grab my attention.
At this same time I was fumbling through my first attempt at growing a garden (like an actual vegetable garden) while starting a business. In all honesty, I didn’t have the idea totally fleshed out and sorted. I knew deep within me that it was time to begin and “Take Root” felt like a good and certainly a good enough name… and isn’t that how we have to do life? We may not have it all figured out. Most of the time we really do not, and if we do, life is sure to send a drought or heavy winds, or crows or squash bugs (all the gardeners know what I’m talking about)! When we are ready, we must begin and we can only begin from where we are even if we don’t know what in the world the final result will be or exactly what will sprout up or root down.
A mentor recently asked me, “What is the thing your business is the best in the world at?” An evocative and intimidating question no doubt. But when I think about my team and what we do and the many ways in which we do it, the answer came easily:
We are some of the best at sitting with the good seed. We sit with folks from all walks of life and we see them, we see their goodness just as they are. We sit with the potential of their human spirit and what it wants. It is the nature of our work, and in the clinicians that I carefully invite to join us, to believe in that potential even when the individuals we work with feel it is impossible.
Often, what a seed needs first, in order to take root, is for someone to believe and hope that it can. The soil that it’s in, the resources it has access to, how it is tended to along the way – this all makes its impact, but ultimately it wants to sprout and grow and flourish. We see that want in our clients and we tend to it. That is the concept in which we sowed the seeds of Take Root. It feeds and waters the work we do with clients. And our garden has grown.
– Christine, Owner/Founder
Meet our new Fellows! Take Root has a Fellowship for Somatically Integrated Eating Disorder Treatment. These providers are passionate and deeply committed to using body-based approaches in their therapeutic work with clients. Our fellows come to us with impressive clinical skills and start their training with Tier 1 of Embodied Recovery for Eating Disorders, an attachment-based, trauma-informed, and somatically integrative approach to treatment. They continue that training throughout their fellowship year with weekly training with Christine Northrup. Both fellows are currently accepting clients for virtual and in-person sessions.
Lauren Kenney works with adolescents and adults, specializing in serving individuals dealing with eating disorders, body image concerns, depression, anxiety, trauma, attachment concerns, and life transitions.
Megan Medfisch works with clients 16 & up through a Health at Every Size (HAES) lens and is committed to supporting clients of all backgrounds and identities. She’s passionate about working with the LGBTQIA+ community and strives to create an affirming and inclusive therapeutic space.
New Therapist: Victoria Hassell
Welcome Victoria! Victoria works with adults, specializing in serving individuals dealing with anxiety, depression, trauma, relationship difficulties, and eating disorders. Victoria is currently accepting new clients!
Learn more about Victoria HERE.
Our Community Partners
Lutz & Alexander
We are starting the next round of our in-person nutrition + meal support group in June!
Led by Annie Penrose, RD, and Hannah Waspi, RD, this group will run on Mondays for lunch (12:30-2 pm) and Thursdays for breakfast (9-10:30 am) and meets in our Raleigh office. The Monday group begins on June 2nd, and the Thursday group starts on June 5th. The group runs for 6 weeks. Participants are welcome to join both days or just one.
Visit their website for more details: https://lutzandalexander.com/groups/ed-recovery-group/
*Reminder: The group can be billed to insurance.*
The group is appropriate for anyone with an eating disorder/disordered eating, with a treatment team, who needs increased support and/or may benefit from being a part of a group.
Woven Wood Integrated Therapy
This offering is open to any persons 18+ who are interested in the opportunity to slow down, deepen their consciousness and feel connection to the earth and beyond. Led by a licensed therapist, ecosomatic sessions can be in tangent with current healing modalities, an opportunity to learn about ecotherapy for client, therapist, healer, or support, or an ongoing therapeutic experience. An ecosomatic session may include slow-intentional forest walking, a safe container to feel and talk about climate crisis/anxiety, a place to use your senses to find more presence and connection in the moment, or opportunity to be in community with the more than human world. Learn more about ecotherapy, Sara and how to go about scheduling a session at www.wovenwoodintegrativetherapy.com.
Mark your calendar for the Take Root Open House! Come enjoy coffee, delicious breakfast treats, and our make-and-take beaded bracelet station. We look forward to spending the morning with you and sharing our new space!
Happy Pride to all! We feel so happy and lucky to serve our LGBTQQIP2SAA community. You are a valuable part of this community. We are glad you are here and want you to experience as much celebration as possible about who you are. Take Root tends to everyone this month and all year through.
This year, we feel it is particularly important to emphasize our support for trans kids, and we continue to advocate that these kiddos can access safety, warmth, and compassion wherever they go. You are worthy and wonderful just as you are, and the world is a better place with you in it.
-The Take Root Team
We are so pleased to announce that Jordan Poole “JP” has been promoted to Clinical Director of Take Root Counseling and Coaching. JP is a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor Supervisor with well over a decade of experience of treating folks with eating disorders. She is a fierce advocate for social justice and believes therapy and clinical supervision can be a tool for radical change. JP was a very intentional first hire for Christine after she opened Take Root after the two worked together in higher levels of care.
Christine shares:
“I don’t remember much from my first day of work at this treatment center, but I do remember observing Jordan Poole in a community meeting. She had such a stunning balance of professionalism while standing sturdily in her own humanity and seeing the humanity of the brave individuals we were serving. JP is deeply respectful of the recovery journey, profoundly ethical in her delivery of clinical supervision, and impeccably organized… She is also hilarious, and speaking of organization, you should see her podcast library! I could not be prouder to be promoting JP as Take Root’s first Clinical Director. We are lucky to have her as a leader on our team.”
