Meet Elizabeth Wellington: Psychotherapist & Founder of Kinship Collaborative

We had the good fortune of connecting with Elizabeth Wellington and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Elizabeth, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
I am a psychotherapist by training and love working with people to enhance their emotional wellbeing, relationships and overall quality of life. I also am by nature a “truth seeker” and am always applying psychological thought and various philosophies to my own life and experience of being a human, and I bring this into my work. When I was engaged to be married and began planning my wedding in 2019, I was totally caught off guard by how emotionally intense and challenging the experience was. As a result, I had to do a lot of internal self-work, guided by my therapists, to understand the nature of this transition and why it felt so destabilizing for me. I realized that there is an absolute lack of normalization for how tumultuous this time can be. The fairy tale of being engaged and planning a magical wedding is a total farce, yet because no one is talking about the reality, it feels taboo to be having a hard time or feel disappointment when you’re engaged. It’s easy to blame yourself, since there is no one naming that this transition is inherently destabilizing. I decided to create a business that was inspired by my own journey being engaged, and my love of psychology and psychotherapy, to support engaged people to use this unique life stage to thrive. 

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Kinship Collaborative is the only community that offers support for engaged people (I call them “nearlyweds”) based on a sophisticated psychological understanding of human behavior, interpersonal relationships, and family dynamics and a theory on the psychodynamics of getting married. I am trained in psychoanalysis, and also have deep experience with meditation, yoga and other wisdom traditions, and all of these influences are infused into Kinship Collaborative and the support we offer to our nearlyweds. While there are other engagement and marriage “coaches” in the space, Kinship Collaborative presents a systematic approach to not just “coach” people through the engagement experience, but to actually leverage this time for psychological growth and healing.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
This is fun question! I am going to pretend this is a non-COVID world for a minute! We would certainly do a lot of wonderful outdoor activities – likely a hike in Boulder (Mt. Sanitas is my fav) followed by burgers and beers at Mountain Sun. Running at North Table Mountain in Golden, riding bikes out in the mountains, perhaps Vail Pass! A sandwich at my favorite neighborhood sandwich shop and brewery, the Grateful Gnome is a must – their beer and sandwiches are wonderful and it’s just such a lovely chill vibe. How can you resist a Grateful Dead and garden gnome-themed brewery?

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I feel so grateful for my mentor, Dr. Elizabeth Olson, who has supported me since I finished graduate school and began my career as a psychotherapist. Over the years, Dr. Olson has been the most influential mentor in my life, by sharing with me her love of modern psychoanalysis and taking me under her wing to become a sophisticated, confident, and creative clinician in this tradition. She generously helped me launch my private practice and is a steadfast role model for finding success, passion and fulfillment in this field.

Website: https://www.kinshipcollaborative.org/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kinshipcollaborative/

Image Credits
Photography: The Scobeys