Leela Ehrhart holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in counseling with specializations in addiction and trauma treatment. Her history with (S)SRI “antidepressant” drugs spans nearly two decades and she has been involved with the layperson withdrawal community since early 2017. In addition to her work as a counselor, she helps run a Facebook group for people withdrawing from (S)SRI “antidepressants” and she also consults with patients, family members, and professionals about issues surrounding psychiatric diagnoses, drugs, withdrawal, and coming home to one’s-self again.

Leela cares deeply about informed consent and about challenging the status quo when it comes to how we conceptualize dis-ease, especially as it pertains to the “mental health” world. She trusts in the wisdom of the body and has come to view experiences of dis-ease not as malfunctions or pathologies, but as adaptive, intelligent, and necessary signals of things within and without which need our attention. She sees “symptoms” as invitations to get curious; to lean in, grow, adapt, change, and ultimately to be steeped more fully in all the richness that our lives and our humanness have to offer. She believes in the power of the stories we choose to align ourselves with, and she believes there is almost nothing that a sense of empowerment and connection can’t help to improve. She is passionate about helping to encourage and support others in (re)connecting with their own curiosity, agency, inner knowing, and wholeness.

She hopes that her work with the ICI will help foster community, growth, healing, and change.

You can learn more about Leela here: www.leelaehrhart.com