Lilia Jao, MA

About

  • Pronouns: She/Her/Hers

  • Occupation and Specialty: Mental Health Therapist, Couples and Family Therapy

  • Location (Clinic/hospital): FamilyMeans - outpatient community mental health clinic

  • Location (City): Stillwater, MN and surrounding Western Suburbs

  • Offers Telehealth: Yes

  • Contact Information: ljao@familymeans.org, 651-789-4000, https://www.familymeans.org/therapist-bios.html

  • Bio: Lilia is a pre-licensed therapist who earned her master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota. She is dedicated to understanding and attuning to her clients’ unique experiences. Lilia is honored to walk alongside her clients as they bravely explore their emotional worlds. Working from a family systems lens, she brings a warm and attuned presence for clients to feel safe and unhurried in their healing.

    She is passionate about working with families, couples, and individuals across the entire lifespan. Her clinic interests include parenting, grief and loss, blended families, and relationship healing. Her approach integrates models informed by experiential therapy, emotionally-focused, and attachment-based family therapy. In the therapy room she leans into curiosity, laughter, and the therapeutic relationship to create an affirming, non-judgmental space.

    Lilia has completed training in Level 1 Gottman Couples Therapy method. She currently provides family, couple, and individual therapy at the Stillwater clinic.

Approach to care

  • What does it look like for you to provide care to patients in larger bodies? How is, or isn’t, your approach different from how you care for patients in smaller bodies? If you work with children, how is or isn’t your approach different when working with children?

    As a relational therapist, how we relate to the relationship with ourselves and bodies is how we interact and engage with others and vice versa. It is also how we engage with dominant social discourses and messages. In therapy we often explore these different types of relating, discourses, and narratives and how they have impacted us, what they mean, and what they do to our internal landscape. No matter the size you can expect a warm and attuned approach to therapy.

  • What is your perspective on how weight is or is not related to health?

    I see in my work how the word "health" can hold a lot of different meanings, and I like to explore what "health" means to the client. Weight is no way an indicator of health and we have known this for quite some time now!

  • Finish this sentence: “Fat people are…” 

    Amazing, beautiful, sexy, and my friends, my family, and myself

  • How do you, your clinic, and the healthcare system you work in use BMI (i.e BMI cutoffs for accessing certain services, BMI on charts and printouts, etc)? Is this flexible?

    N/A

  • If a patient declines to be weighed, how do you and/or your staff proceed?

    N/A

  • If a patient declines to discuss weight loss, nutrition, and/or exercise, how do you proceed?

    N/A

  • Do you offer weight loss as a service, and if so, how much of your practice is this? What do you do if a patient requests your assistance with losing weight?

    I do not offer weight loss services. If a client is interested in exploring the idea of losing weight, in our work together I would follow their lead in what the exploration looks like. Sometimes it is exploring the narratives we have around weight and feelings surrounding the idea. The client's autonomy is always respected.

  • What does the physical accessibility of your office space look like? What kinds of accommodations are present for people in larger bodies? Are there things you wish were in place that are currently not? 

    FamilyMeans therapy space has a large waiting room with comfortable plushy chairs without arms. The hallways are wide and spacious. My therapy room has a variety of different seating from chairs without arms to soft loveseat couch.

  • What do you do to allow fat people to feel comfortable and welcome in your office? 

    Being my authentic and genuine self for clients to feel safe in embodying their authenticity and vulnerability in non-judgmental, welcomed space.

  • If you’d like to use this space to talk about any identities (gender, race, size, sexuality, etc.) you hold and how this relates to your care, please do so. 

    I am a white cis plus size woman who uses she/her pronouns. I am a mom and a feminist. These identities are part of my lived experience, the lens I carry, and the work I need do.

Profile last updated June 2026