Health at Every Size® Healthcare Provider Listing
Maria Chris Hicks LAc
(they/them)
Acupuncture and East Asian Medicine
Northwest Family Acupuncture
Beaverton,
Oregon,
United States
Contact Me:
Make an Appointment:
Sliding Scale Available
Additional information about where I can practice: Licensed Acupuncturist in Oregon. Board certified with NCCAOM.
Specialties & Areas of Focus:
- LGBTQIA
- Non-Binary
- Neurodivergence
- Autism Spectrum Disorder
- Back Pain
- Chronic Pain
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Joint Pain
- Sleep Disorders
Modalities & Theoretical Lenses:
- Body Trust
- Fat Liberation
- Body Sovereignty
- Worsley Classical Five Element
- Moxa
- Chinese herbal medicine
- Shonishin
- Trauma Informed
- Consent Based
- Intersectional Feminist
- Eating Disorder Informed
- Sex Positive
- Disability Justice
- Abolitionist
Age Groups Served:
- Children (birth through 12 years)
- Teens (13-18 years old)
- Adults (18 years old and up)
- Older Adults (65+ years old)
- Children (birth through 12 years)
- Teens (13-18 years old)
- Adults (18 years old and up)
- Older Adults (65+ years old)
Additional Populations Served & Allied Groups:
- LGBTQIA+
- Nonbinary
- Neurodivergent
- Caregivers
- Activists
- BIPOC
- Chronic Pain
Languages Services Offered In:
- English
- English
My Philosophy of Care
I practice East Asian medicine for adults, elderly and children from a social justice framework. I acknowledge that structural inequality can be a barrier to wellness and not everything can be solved with individual effort. I take a community approach to care and believe in helping you to increase your resilience. I work to help individuals of all backgrounds, ages, sizes and abilities to achieve better health and a sense of ease in life. Acupuncture is commonly used for stress-relief, pain-relief, and to assist with a variety of common and uncommon health concerns. It is a time-tested, low risk approach to prevention and healing. I also practice specifically from a HAES® (Health at Every Size®), weight inclusive approach. My practice is Body Trust informed. East Asian Medicine is all about awareness and being attuned on all levels of body/mind/spirit. Learning to trust our own innate wisdom includes trusting our bodies to know what to eat, when to move, and what we need or learning systems to support these. It's about creating more ease in our life and widening our bandwidth to allow us to deal with the injustices that come our way or natural seasons of life.
About Me & My Practice
In my free time I really enjoy gardening, reading queer/BIPOC written sci-fi, bad TV, laughing at myself, block printing, and kayaking. I also spend one weekend a month as part of a mutual aid collective I co-founded offering free community acupuncture. I enjoy subbing at the National University of Natural Medicine Clinic and collaborate on teaching other acupuncturists how to create more weight/fat-inclusive practices and help to raise eating disorder awareness in the field. My wife and I are both gender queer. We have a family of two cats and one very large dog. Additionally, we have a lot of nibblings and surrogate nibblings. We take being aunties/gankles VERY seriously. Bubble tea. Just. Bubble. Tea. I deal with chronic pain myself, depression and anxiety. I'm working to dismantle my own shame around those. I share these so that you may feel seen and supported if you also struggle with these and know that "I got you" if you are my patient/friend. I'm medication positive. I became a fat-positive provider and activist when introduced to ASDAH by a dear friend. I do this work in honor of my father and my best friends and for my own liberation.
Accessibility Considerations
My office has ample off-street parking, accessible parking spaces, an elevator and accessible bathrooms. The bathrooms are not-gender neutral. The front doors to the building are automatic, but interior doors are not. I offer the choice of a chair with arms or a "Hercules" chair without arms. I have gowns up to 10 X. My treatment table is extra wide and has a weight rating of over 500 lbs. I am able to reduce lighting and noise in my treatment space. I am the only practitioner in the office when I see patients and there are no pro-diet, related materials on display in the office space. Masks are encouraged, I wear a mask and I have continuous running HEPA filtration.