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Therapeutic Animism is a counselling approach that merges social work practice with animist ways of understanding the world. It is grounded in the idea that humans are not isolated minds, but relational beings shaped by body, land, culture, history, and the living systems they belong to.
Rather than focusing solely on individual symptoms, Therapeutic Animism understands distress as something that arises within broken or strained relationships with self, others, environment, and meaning. Healing, then, is not about fixing a person, but about remembering relationship and restoring connection where it has been disrupted.
This work is informed by trauma-aware social work, nervous system regulation, and ethical therapeutic frameworks, while also honouring animist perspectives that recognize life as alive, responsive, and participatory. Land, season, ancestry, imagination, and the non-human world are understood as active supports in the healing process, not metaphors.
[Learn more about Therapeutic Animism →]
Therapeutic Animism sessions take place at Earth in Sky, a dedicated therapeutic and ceremonial space located in Hamilton, Ontario Canada. Earth in Sky functions as a sacred way station and is a place designed to support reflection, nervous system settling, and relational repair in community with others. The space itself is treated as part of the therapeutic field, intentionally shaped to support presence, safety, and reconnection. Click the Earth in Sky logo to visit the website.
Therapeutic Animism invites a shift from carrying life alone to being held within relationship again.
This work is offered by Chauntell Dietrich (Enchaunti Waroway) a registered social worker and animist minister, and the founder of Earth in Sky.
Her practice is shaped by years of clinical training, lived experience, and a commitment to relational, non-pathologizing approaches to healing. She holds Therapeutic Animism as a shared practice rather than a fixed system, and approaches this work with humility, care, and respect for its ancestral and contemporary roots.
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