Founding Principles and Evolution of The Lotus Collaborative
In the video, Dr. Liz talks about 3 core principles of The Lotus Collaborative:
1: We value collaboration.
We heavily invest in training our staff to offer quality, cutting edge, evidence based, heart centered, effective clinical care. We value quality when hiring and investing in our staff. We have trained, educated, and supervised many eating disorder specialists in our SC and SF communities. We believe recovery can happen when there is excellent support.
2: We honor our client's Hero/ine's Journey.
Lotus believes those who suffer from eating disorders are gifted, sensitive folk. We collaborate with our clients that their health crisis and recovery are a quest to fully become the hero/ine they are meant to be. Eating disorders are a symptom and a calling from a person's heart and soul to evolve and change. We see the gifts our client's possess and partner with them, to actualize those gifts to achieve recovery. We offer solution based treatment that doesn't pathologize our clients or eating disorders.
3: We are light we want to see in the world.
Treatment at Lotus inspires hope. We believe that at our core is luminous light. Trauma and hardship can cover that light, make us doubt our capacity. We honor that inner light in ourselves and support our clients to remember and recover their inner light as well.
Lotus' Evolution Over the Years
Dr. Liz is the founder, owner and CEO of The Lotus Collaborative. Their first program opened in 2011 in Santa Cruz and 3 years later in San Fransisco.
In 2020, Lotus opened a mood and trauma treatment program. They began and continue today offering online virtual programming for eating disorder, mood and trauma treatment.
In 2021, Dr. Liz opened a psychedelic assisted psychotherapy division of Lotus, called Luminous Healing Center. They are one of the few centers in the nation approved to offer MDMA Assisted Psychotherapy under the Expanded Access label. Currently they are offering Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP).
Over the past decade, many eating disorder programs were bought by investment banks. Despite plentiful offers to sell, Dr. Liz remained committed to offering quality treatment programs, run by eating disorder treatment specialist professionals.
How can business decisions trump, what is in the best interest of the client, and the hard working professional staff that run the programs?
Many programs don't consider the health of their staff and organization, cutting corners to increase profits, but sparing quality treatment. Dr. Liz has personally recovered from trauma and an eating disorder, has been an eating disorder therapist, a clinical director, an executive director, a founder, and remains a CEO and owner. Lotus hires staff to run the programs that have recovered as well. Our clinical, business and financial decisions, focus on the best interest of the client, the staff and the organization.
The Lotus Collaborative today remains one of the few, women-led, privately owned and operated, eating disorder treatment program in the nation.
Lotus believes in clinical professionals leading rather than banks and business investors. They aren't beholden to anyone so program offerings remain quality, client centered, run by professionals that have personally recovered.
