Open Door Counseling’s Statement on
Social Justice and Non-Discrimination

Open Door Counseling is committed to the prevention of harassment, inequality, and prejudice in all its many forms. This includes advocating for the protection of transgender, gender non-conforming/gender expansive, and LGBTQ+ clients within our paperwork, our offices, and our staff at Open Door Counseling. We acknowledge the fundamental right of every human being to be treated with respect, dignity, and care, no matter their immigration status, gender, sexual orientation, ability, race, ethnicity, or economic status. We believe all human beings have a right to safety, security, and the right to thrive. We commit to advocating toward equality for all in Tennessee.

Our stance on equality continues: we believe our clients deserve to know about their rights as clients in the therapy room, and their rights to affordable mental health care. If we cannot provide this immediately, we will refer to appropriate providers who can.

As such, we believe our staff is deserving of rights as well: Open Door Counseling believes that our clinicians have a right to fair pay, including paid time off and sick/mental health pay, and time off during calendar holidays for religious celebrations of all kinds. This also includes ongoing communication with our own staff about their right for fair compensation and their right to advocate on behalf of themselves for promotion and higher wages. Open dialogue with our skilled clinicians about their value as human beings is critical to our organization’s success.

We celebrate the diversity of our clinicians and their lived experiences. Because we strive to serve the many diverse communities of Nashville and because our clinicians come from a variety of backgrounds, our clinicians are committed to constantly evaluating their own gender, sexual orientation, race/s, ethnicities, class, biases and privilege. Our therapists receive the training “Becoming an Antiracist and Anti-Oppressive Clinician” by Drs. Raquel Martin and Han Ren as part of our ongoing commitment to self-exploration.

We acknowledge that we are providing mental health care on stolen land. The land on which we are located has been inhabited by Native Americans for over 14,000 years prior to their displacement and genocide by various European and American settlers and governments. This land was inhabited by the ᏣᎳᎫᏪᏘᏱ Cherokee, the Yuchi, the Shawanwaki and the Shawnee, until their traumatic and forced removal in the Trail of Tears, along with many other tribes. The arduous and deadly journey of over five thousand miles passed through Nashville and ended in Talequah, Oklahoma. The signing of the Indian Removal act of 1830 under President Andrew Jackson instigated the forced removal of Native peoples from their land in the Southeast and continued to the end of the 1830s. Over 15,000 people died or were killed during this removal.