Today we’d like to introduce you to Kim Fry.
Kim, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I graduated from Northwestern University in 2016 with my M.S. in Marriage and Family Therapy, knowing that I wanted to work with individuals struggling in their relationships with eating disorders and body image issues. I moved away from the frigid Chicago cold as quickly as possible – opting for the warmer Austin climate – and spent my years as an LMFT-Associate pursuing an abundance of varying opportunities to support my personal and professional growth. While gaining hours towards full licensure, I worked at a family counseling nonprofit, an inpatient psychiatric hospital, an eating disorder specialized group practice, and an eating disorder treatment center. There’s a “hustle” culture for many professionals in this field, and, clearly, I was no different. My self-care came from carving out time to connect with my body through movement, as well as by sharing that joy with others by becoming a barre instructor and certified personal trainer. At that time, there wasn’t much conversation in the professional eating disorder community regarding exercise, and it almost felt like a “taboo” to be a clinician who owned appreciation for movement. I made it my mission to find safe and supportive ways of bringing conversations about exercise into the recovery space and, ultimately, founded Autonomy Therapy at the beginning of 2021. Autonomy Therapy is a group therapy practice in Austin specializing in the treatment of eating disorders, body image issues, and compulsive exercise, and we offer mental health counseling in addition to specialized online courses to support clients in holistically healing their relationships to their bodies and movement.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
This has been an extraordinarily challenging, bumpy journey. Autonomy Therapy was originally Autonomy Movement — the very first size-inclusive exercise studio in Austin. I, like many other novice entrepreneurs, ambitiously attempted to do a million things at once. This included developing specialized education for therapists and fitness instructors on how to teach more inclusively, creating multiple online courses for more scaleable education, offering a completely subsidized barre training program for folks in marginalized bodies, and teaching multiple classes a week myself. All the while, I was still attempting to maintain my own private practice caseload, as well as hire and training mental health professionals to be able to see our Autonomy Movement clientele who needed therapy. It was way too much, especially while I was trying to keep all the many plates spinning in the middle of a pandemic.
So, in early 2021 we scaled back our services significantly to focus on offering high-quality, Health At Every Size-informed mental health services such as virtual and in-person therapy, online courses, professional consultation, and group therapy. It was incredibly hard, and I felt like I was letting so many people down; ultimately, it ended up being the best decision I could have made.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
We are a therapeutic group practice specializing in the treatment of eating disorders, body image issues, and compulsive exercise. Most eating disorder clinicians avoid the topic of exercise out of fear that they might be doing more harm if they bring it into the room; however, our clinicians know that the opposite is true. Each clinician receives a thorough onboarding training, which prepares them to work with a wide range of presenting issues and clientele. What sets us apart, though, is that we have extra training dedicated to debunking exercise myths and helping clinicians reframe — personally and professionally — how movement can be used for healing and increased connection. We are also one of the only group practices in Austin that specializes in what we do AND accepts insurance. We believe this increases accessibility for our clients, which supports them in prioritizing their own mental health care. We want to resource our clients and community to also do their own work outside of sessions, and so we have an entire tab on our website dedicated to our favorite resources. This includes our unique “Essential Guide to Enjoying Exercise”, which is completely free! We’re passionate about what we do, and we absolutely love sharing it with others — both personally and professionally.
What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
Consistently putting energy toward leading with an “abundance mentality.” The work that we do as therapists can be really challenging, and owning a business is not for the faint of heart. I had to take huge risks, and not everything worked out the way that I wanted it to. In fact, most things didn’t. I had to be open to pivoting and restructuring when things really weren’t working. The original business model was lucrative enough; however, it didn’t allow for me to put energy toward any kind of self-care or personal life, and I was constantly feeling overwhelmed, frustrated and burnt out. I needed to learn how to trust that reevaluating my values would lead me where I needed to go, which has resulted in much more joy, success, and connection both intrapersonally as well as interpersonally with my growing team.
Pricing:
- Individual, Family, Couple Counseling: $150
- Intuitive Movement Masterclass: $79
- Professional Intuitive Movement Masterclass: $79
- Barre for All Bodies Online Course: $55
Contact Info:
- Email: kim@autonomytherapyatx.com
- Website: www.autonomytherapyatx.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/autonomytherapyatx/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AutonomyTherapy
Image Credits
https://www.instagram.com/divinastennfeldphoto/ (for all pictures except the one in the room with barres) https://www.instagram.com/meeeklow/ (for the one of me in the barre room)
