Frances brings a grounded, warm, and curious presence to therapy and views the therapeutic process as a collaborative journey of exploration. They strive to create a space where people of all ages can feel safe being fully themselves. Frances believes creativity, movement, imagination, and play help us access insight, resilience, and healing in ways that words alone sometimes cannot.

Outside the therapy room, Frances’ go-to art media are mosaic and collage. Their interests include science fiction, thunderstorms, anatomy, activist art, and swimming holes. They can’t imagine life without their two rescue pups, Skeeter and Dexter.

Training and Education

Frances has 15 years of experience as a trauma-informed somatic bodyworker and holistic gender-affirming care practitioner. Their work has focused primarily on supporting LGBTQIA2S+ clients, people living with chronic illness or medical trauma, and individuals navigating body image concerns, neurodivergence, gender dysphoria, dissociation, and the effects of trauma and marginalization.

Frances earned their bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Smith College in 2000. In 2011, they graduated from Potomac Massage Therapy Institute and became a licensed massage therapist specializing in trauma-informed care, somatic healing, embodiment practices, and holistic gender-affirming care. They later founded Freed Bodyworks, a wellness center serving marginalized communities, where they led a multidisciplinary team of holistic and mental health practitioners for over a decade.

Frances is currently earning their master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling with a specialization in Expressive Arts Therapy at Lesley University. Their clinical work integrates somatic approaches, expressive arts, and talk therapy to support emotional healing, self-understanding, and nervous system regulation.

Supervisor: Kelsey Dugan, LCPAT, ATR-BC®

Therapeutic Approach

Frances integrates traditional talk therapy with creativity, movement, mindfulness, and body awareness. In sessions, clients may use art-making, imagination, sensation, storytelling, or movement to explore experiences that can be difficult to fully access through words alone. Frances works collaboratively and at a pace that feels safe and supportive, helping clients build emotional awareness, resilience, self-regulation, and a stronger connection to themselves and their bodies.

Their work is person-centered, humanistic, rooted in somatic psychology, and informed by feminist, queer, and disability justice perspectives. Frances incorporates mindfulness, embodiment practices, creative expression, and nervous system regulation strategies to support clients navigating anxiety, stress, identity exploration, trauma, chronic pain, dissociation, grief, and life transitions.

Positionality Statement 

I am a white, transgender, non-binary, able-bodied, normatively-sized, US citizen married to a cis woman. I was raised in Texas and have lived in New England and the Mid-Atlantic for 28 years. Our identities are always in the room, and I believe that acknowledging and embracing them builds a stronger therapeutic relationship.

Resources

https://francesreed.com/ 

https://healthybinding.com/