Twenty Years of Practice: Expansion & Growth

You are reading the third installment of my blog series on celebrating twenty years of practice as a professional counselor. In my third act, I begin the process of starting my private practice. By May 2014, I had opened up my practice after seeing the need to make more money, primarily due to being in a long-term committed relationship and becoming a stepparent. I wanted to ensure I could financially provide, and I saw my earning potential as a trauma therapist. I also began to explore other interventions for trauma after getting stuck again with some clients who had complex trauma linked back to early developmental years. 

In this exploration for more professional experience in treating developmental trauma, I had also undergone a miscarriage. This experience led me back to therapy to process the loss. It also allowed me to start taking steps to heal my physical health after the miscarriage diagnosed polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) as the cause. During this round of therapy, I was the recipient of neurofeedback to help with some of my trauma symptoms. Neurofeedback seemed to have great potential to help people reduce symptoms of PTSD and help regulate the nervous system. I decided to add neurofeedback to my new private practice, which allowed for more referrals and clients. 

After neurofeedback, I became curious about adding more tools to offer clients in my practice. I was also becoming more open to making my practice online and offering personal and professional coaching. A colleague invited me to a women's entrepreneur Facebook group, many of whom were trained therapists looking to add coaching or other online services. Many of them became successful, inspiring me to hire my first business coach and see a certified hypnotist. My curiosity around hypnosis came from seeing how many of my clients seemed stuck in therapy due to their defenses that seemed out of their control to change. I wondered if offering hypnosis would help clients overcome resistance and be open to more healing and wholeness. After being a hypnosis client, I began seeing how my thinking was holding me back from success and happiness. I became a certified hypnotist to learn how to encourage clients to relax and free themselves from the mental chains that were preventing their healing. 

Amid business coaching and hypnosis, I began to see my curiosity about spirituality broaden. Many of the women I encountered in my business coaching programs were spiritual, and I was open to exploring all different forms of expression. With my exposure to how changing thinking can become a spiritual practice in hypnosis, I attended some retreats led by my business coach. These experiences helped me have more positive experiences with women in a receptive and supportive setting. Professionally, I took another leap of faith and began training to become a remote energy worker with ThetaHealing. This empowering method was another example of how women modeled a positive experience around healing and recovery.

These experiences built more foundations to become a remote therapist and coach. The professional tools I accumulated also allowed me to attract my ideal clients more efficiently and effectively. As my practice grew, I was able to let go of many of the insurance companies that were paying far below the national average. I was healing my physical and mental health by learning more about how our bodies carry the burden of chronic stress and trauma. But with all my privilege and help, I felt blocked in my ability to receive and give love. It was time to level up again. Next time, I will embark on my final chapter that is still being written.

Embracing Neurodiversity: A panel discussion at Gulf Coast State College

Last month during Autism awareness month, I had a privilege of being a part of a panel discussion at Gulf Coast State College on Neurodiversity. While most school years are coming to a close, we had a robust conversation among two neurodiverse students and two professionals on a wide variety of topics in neurodiversity. Since our topics share so much relevance to neurodiverse students, clients and people in the world, I thought I would share a few of the questions and answers we discussed in the panel.

Our Neurodiversity panel at Gulf Coast State College: yours truly, Crystal Grey-Hewett from FSU CARD autism program, along with Darian and William, our neurodiverse student representatives.

• In what ways do you believe neurodiversity enriches academic, professional, or creative communities? Neurodiversity can enrich many spaces with innately different vantage points in which to approach a question, problem, outlook, behavior, or viewpoint. All spaces, when approached with curiosity and openness, can benefit from a different viewpoint or way of doing things.

  • Analogy of using hyper focus: For many ND people, they have the ability to hyper focus on areas of interest. This can look like: lots of research, collecting everything about the topic, making art about the topic, sending lots of emails or communicating for long periods about the topic. In this way, if you give an ND person something to work on that speaks to already expressed interest, you have a gem of a student, employee, or colleague to help assist in any joint effort.

• How can we better accommodate neurodivergent students, particularly those with ADHD and autism? Can students where sunglasses, hats, earplugs/headphones other wearable accommodations? Can lighting be adjusted if requested? Can students write down their questions or responses before being called upon suddenly in class? What are teachers communication expectations regarding email response time, etc?

• How can we as an institution and individuals foster an environment that not only accommodates but celebrates neurodiverse people? Allow for the unexpected and unusual. Let yourself be surprised by differing viewpoints and communication styles. Allow a person to talk with you about their special interest, then trade. Make time for special help or 1:1 time: learning lab, tutors, but also instructors. Allow what you used to think was weird or “out of bounds.”

• What strategies would you recommend to neurodivergent students to be proactive in their self-care and academic success? First, self-accommodation is self care. Second, look to your previous academic year as a guide for what may work. When in doubt, look to the big five: Sleep, nutrition, time management (schedule and downtime), sensory, and support.

• How can students build a support team on campus? What roles can peers, faculty, and mental health professionals play in this team? Utilize support services for learning (tutors), accommodations (disability services), class (office hours), finding a ND buddy on campus, counseling, advising, and mental health care if needed.

• What message or advice would you give to neurodivergent individuals about recognizing and leveraging their unique strengths? Your difference is your strength. Find people who see your difference and celebrate it, are curious about it, and want to know more. Many high functioning ND people feel as though their lived experiences of the world is different than other people. So letting your story be seen, be heard, and be expressed in a space where you are safe and supported!

• If you are reading this, and are interested in working with me, feel free to fill out my application here or email me. I look forward to helping you in your neurodiverse journey!

Twenty Years of Practice: Building & Specializing

My last blog post began a series on twenty years as a professional counselor. In the first four years, I was working in substance abuse facilities, getting my independent license, and realizing that a traditional full-time counseling job was burning me out. I began to exit my full-time job and build a bridge to full-time private practice. By the summer of 2008, I found a part-time counseling job at a DUI center, which could help build my job bridge. I also joined a private practice group to develop my caseload while learning how to do insurance credentialing for the practice. My third part-time job was at the local school district as a coordinator for the district-wide mentoring program. In my free time, I was also a dog sitter. By the fall, I had quit my full-time job. These part-time jobs were my bridge to a better professional future. I was running around from one job to the next, and this feeling of freedom and mobility encouraged and energized me to keep focusing on building my skills for private practice. Despite my varying work schedule, I enjoyed the variety of experiences I had.

After a semester at the school district, I let the job go due to ongoing scheduling conflicts. I picked up weekend work at the local psychiatric hospital as an admissions counselor, another growth edge in learning to use my skills for people in crisis. This season was about building a foundation for more professional freedom. I was connecting with other therapists doing private practice on the side and discovered a colleague who wanted to branch out and start a group practice. My growing skill set in insurance credentialing helped me feel empowered to join my colleague in their group practice, and another colleague joined us from the psychiatric hospital.

Starting a private practice takes lots of work and collaboration. By the summer of 2009, we had secured office space and began seeing clients. We were excited about the new endeavor and pooled our professional connections to market our practice in the old-fashioned way. While social media existed, we weren't using them for marketing purposes. In the previous two years, I had also undergone some personal transitions that had changed my associations with my family and spiritual beliefs. I was already living with my boyfriend and attending Al-Anon meetings for ongoing support and to establish a new community outside Christianity.

By this time, I had been feeling stuck with several clients in private practice. I could see how their struggles with chronic anxiety, depression, or substance abuse affected their lives. While I would be empathetic, validate, and provide coping skills, my efforts felt futile in the face of chronic distress and disease. Even traditional cognitive behavioral therapy didn't make a dent in relieving clients' symptoms.

I attended a seminar in the first group practice held by a colleague specializing in trauma. They were talking about Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing and its effectiveness in relieving trauma, chronic anxiety, depression, and even substance abuse. The talk made me curious about this modality, and I quickly referred one of my clients to this therapist. My colleague was gracious to allow me to observe the EMDR session they did with my client, and from that point on, I knew trauma was to be my area of specialty.

I quickly started researching EMDR training and found one in the fall of 2009 while building my caseload at the new group practice. The two-part EMDR training involves practicing the experiential modality on each other in triads. The training was my first exposure to the power of this modality to clear trauma from the mind and body. I distinctly remember my back being damp with sweat after I processed a trauma during the training. I was physically and emotionally tired, but I also felt unburdened and more hopeful. I was ready to help facilitate this healing feeling with my clients in private practice.

In this season of building more freedom professionally, I was experiencing more freedom personally by discovering trauma therapy for myself. I had already returned to therapy since graduate school, mainly to help understand my chronic depression, and trauma helped to explain much of my symptoms that were cyclical. After building up my client schedule in the group practice for most of 2010 while also receiving more relief from my traumas, I let go of part-time jobs and felt more equipped as a professional and a person to continue in my career. Private practice gave me the freedom to take care of myself more often, and I was ready to keep growing and learning.

Next time, I will share how I reached another growth edge as a therapist, entrepreneur, and person as I specialized and branched out into my private practice while also becoming a stepparent.

Twenty Years of Practice: Insights on the Journey

This May will mark twenty years since I graduated with my degree in Counseling Psychology. To integrate what I have learned in twenty years, I am writing a series of blog posts to share my journey as a counselor, psychotherapist, and healer. While most of what I will share will highlight how I have grown as a professional, I also want to emphasize that my learning coincides with my personal development as a human being. I was four months shy of my 25th birthday at the time of my graduation. I had already started my healing journey by attending therapy while in graduate school. I continued to practice what I preach by exploring many healing modalities, all while getting trained to use them professionally. I am incredibly grateful for the opportunities I have had to learn and grow as a human being and a professional counselor.

The first five years of my career found me in the field of substance abuse treatment. This was not my field of choice, but it was where I secured my graduate internship and first full-time job. I worked in both residential, intensive outpatient, and outpatient facilities in Illinois, serving adolescents, adults, and people who received a DUI. The education I received by being in hospital-based programs and state-funded facilities was invaluable for a person who grew up in conservative Christianity, where using any substance was frowned upon. My client's struggles opened my eyes to the cyclical nature of substance abuse, the systemic causes of chronic relapse, and the powerless feeling of watching people suffer despite being in treatment. I had many supervisors during my first two years in practice, all providing different types of support for a junior counselor. After those two years, I was able to sit for the state exam, which grants you the license to practice independently.

After securing my license, I was able to be a supervisor for a short period of time before falling into chronic burnout. After a period of time off, I considered leaving the counseling profession. After reconsidering, I knew I needed to be in a different setting to keep my passion for counseling alive and avoid burnout in the future. I began looking for other jobs, specifically joining a group private practice.

I am very proud of the leap of faith I took in the fall of 2008 at 29. I knew I would keep burning out if I had the demanding schedule of a traditional job, Monday through Friday, 8-5. I also knew that leaping straight into private practice was unrealistic due to having to build up a caseload. I was highly motivated to bridge some part-time jobs to help me transition from full-time work into full-time private practice.

I was already using my undiagnosed autism and neurodivergent brain to accommodate my needs for more freedom in my work schedule, to decompress, and to use lifestyle medicine to prevent burnout. My intuition and natural healing intelligence knew I needed to take professional risks to keep my passion alive. I am so grateful I listened to my inner voice and took these risks while still relatively young.

I look forward to sharing my professional bridge-building and budding entrepreneurial spirit next time!

How to Maximize your Therapy Experience

This fall marks 15 years of being in private practice. During this time, I have specialized in working with trauma, post-traumatic stress, developmental trauma, religious abuse, domestic violence, chronic pain, integration for ketamine therapy and plant medicine, and coming out as a neurodiverse psychotherapist.

Since my clients pay for therapy out of pocket, the financial investment is a huge consideration in knowing how often and for how long to attend therapy. While these decisions are yours to make as a client, I want to share how to maximize your therapy experience.

1. What are my therapy goals? Knowing your therapy goals is very helpful in finding a therapist who can help you meet your goals. If you are looking for symptom reduction, be specific in what symptoms you would like to see improved and what you would like to be experiencing instead. If you don’t know your goals, I usually ask clients in our phone intake before booking a first appointment. 

2. What am I willing to invest? Based on your therapy goals and the price of therapy, this may help you determine how much or how long to engage in treatment. Many clients desire to work with me but can’t afford the investment based on their goals. We can discuss finding a frequency or time frame to create positive momentum without financial stress. 

3. What are my support needs? It is best to consider more frequent sessions if your therapy goals connect to chronic symptoms or conditions. Weekly therapy is best for building positive rapport, consistency, and support if you want to work on the root causes of long-standing or cyclic challenges. Suppose you are looking for symptom reduction linked to a life transition, a supportive check-in, or a time-sensitive issue like integration therapy for plant medicine. In that case, we can arrange a short-term arrangement. 

4. What else do I want to know? Finding the right therapist may take time. I encourage clients to formulate questions to interview potential therapists regarding their specializations, their approach to personal growth, and communication preferences. After committing to a therapist, it can also be helpful to use the first 90 days as a trial period of noticing how you feel about your therapeutic experience and if it’s the right fit for you. Don’t hesitate to re-evaluate things and keep searching! 

If you are interested in working with me, please fill out my application here, or email me. I wish you well in your healing journey!

Deconstruction: Recovering from religious abuse

A new documentary is shining a light on religious abuse. Shiny Happy People: Duggard family secrets highlights a Christian organization (IBLP) perpetuating legalism and abuse. Coming from a religious background, I am familiar with the process of deconstruction. Deconstruction is a term that is often used by people who are exiting legalistic forms of Christianity. However, I like to use the term for anyone who is in the process of questioning, examining, and redefining what religion or spirituality means to them. This can especially be true for clients born into a religious group and learning to claim their own definition of spiritual practice.

While there is no set formula for deconstruction, having a compassionate witness is a great start. For many people in this process, just allowing themselves to question and process their upbringing within religion and their feelings about their experiences can be huge. A significant first step for individuals in high-control religion or cult-like environments is asking questions. Doing this in therapy can create space for an unbiased viewpoint.

As a form of relating and disclosure, I have done my own deconstruction from legalistic Christianity. My formal education in counseling was at a seminary, alongside people training to be pastors and missionaries. While the quality of my education was good, I have had to untangle the associations with belief structures being a part of the counseling process.

While I consider myself a spiritual person today, I also keep my mind and heart open to all expressions, even simply being present in this world. The present moment is all we have, and in exploring everything from atheism to new-age practices, I strive to be compassionately present in all I do.

Trauma therapy for religious abuse can encompass any or all modalities I have to offer, as our process is collaborative and flexible. If you are deconstructing and would like support, please fill out my application here or email me.