This Is How We Do Therapy: Our Values at coeo

When we (Kristen and Colleen) started coeo Therapy (a mental health practice based in Collegeville, PA), we didn't want to just be two more names in Psychology Today’s therapist directory. We wanted to build something truly different. A space that felt human, where we could genuinely connect with people and more importantly, help them reconnect with themselves.

At coeo [koy-yoh], which is Latin for "come together, unite, heal," we're guided by a set of core values that shape everything we do. We didn't arrive at these values through some buttoned-up clinical process, or guided business consultant brainstorming session (to be clear, we think they can be great). Instead, they emerged from our own experiences, both as humans navigating life's messiness and as practicing therapists who've seen first hand, what truly creates change.

While the ethos of our therapy values remained the same, the language used to express them has evolved, thanks to much learning, growing, and just a touch of obsessive overanalysis about sentence structure. Because hey, as any narrative therapist will tell you, language is important. And maybe, just maybe, some of our own internal anxieties around putting ourselves out there showed up as procrastinative word-smithing. Go figure. So without futher ado...

coeo's Values and our Approach to Mental Health Therapy

Connection is the Intervention

Healing isn’t something we do to people; it’s something we cultivate with them. We're not in the business of simply relieving symptoms, nor do we believe humans need to be fixed. We're in the business of reconnection and healing. Reconnection to self, to others, to meaning, and to the terrifying yet beautiful freedom of being fully freaking alive. Because frankly, reality isn't as scary as the world wants us to think it is.

Radical Belonging

We offer the radical experience of being seen without needing to be fixed and refuse to reduce people to symptoms, labels, or diagnoses. Life is messy, people are nuanced, and healing is never linear, so why should therapy be any different? We certainly don’t claim to have it all figured out. Instead we ask questions that foster curiosity and sit with humans in the messy, beautiful uncertainty of it all. We hold space for complexity and don’t see it as a problem to solve, but rather as something to be explored, because it's what makes us inherently human, and that alone makes it worth understanding.

Do Things Differently, With Integrity

We started coeo because we are two imperfect humans who have never quite fit the mold, and who are finally comfortable enough with ourselves to stop trying to. Instead of squeezing into a system that felt rigid, disconnected, and fundamentally flawed, we figured why not buck the status quo a bit and try to do things differently. We don’t promise answers or package healing into neat, clinical language. And we certainly don’t hide our humanness behind professional facades; especially not at the expense of connection. While there is no right way to heal, we believe that process should feel human, imperfect, and relational. That means staying curious, getting creative, and not taking ourselves too seriously in the process.

Healing is Collective

We never wanted to be traditional therapists. In fact, our goal is to put our therapy practice out of business (kidding, but not really). We struggle with society’s obsession to self-optimize and reduce humans to individual metrics, parts, or pieces. That keeps people in silos; apart from each other and apart from themselves. Ubuntu, a Southern African philosophy often translated as “I am because you are,” is not ours to claim. We reference it with deep respect and reverence, not to adopt it as our own, but because its ethos so beautifully captures the essence of our vision: the belief that individuals are shaped by their relationships, and that our well-being is deeply intertwined with the well-being of our communities. We want to create spaces where people can show up fully, feel seen, and return to themselves; not alone, but in relationship. We want to give humans back to themselves and each other, because what if the point isn’t to be less broken, but more whole, together?

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Ready to find a therapist who honors your whole messy humanness? We'd love to connect with you! Email team@coeocommunity.com or schedule a brief 15 min phone call with us to learn more about our approach to therapy and see if coeo might be a good fit for you.