Becoming a Radical Therapist: An Interview with Danni Biondini

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Join us for a conversation with Danni Biondini where we discuss her path from radical mental health activist at the Icarus Project to becoming the Chair of the Community Mental Health Department at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS).

Topics we cover include:

  • Coming of age as a radical activist in San Francisco
  • Rebuilding after a breakdown by understanding systems of oppression
  • Using intellectual defenses as a way to grow
  • Foucault’s Panopticon - internalizing the dominant gaze of the social order
  • History of the Bay Area Icarus Project chapter
  • The power and limitations of peer support 
  • The power and limitations of working as a clinical therapist
  • Building a radical therapy practice and the importance of mentorship and supervision

About Danni Biondini:

Danni Biondini is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist in San Francisco, and  Assistant Professor and Chair of the Community Mental Health program at CIIS. She is the Director and Supervisor of a psychodynamic therapy program at Francisco Middle School, overseeing the therapy services provided to kids at the school. As a longtime school-based therapist, she has a major interest in how to intervene on schools as sites of socialization. She came to the field with a background in radical mental health, as a member of the Bay Area Icarus Project in its heyday. She brings a radical mental health lens to her work, trying to build communities of therapists working within the system to change it. 

Find Danni online:

Links to So Many Wings’ social media and website