12/05/2025
8 years. This year I am celebrating 8 years of working as a mental health therapist.
Let me share with you a little about my career journey.
Shortly after graduating from grad school, I began working at psychiatric hospital on the inpatient adolescent unit and the residential eating disorders unit. It was here that I began to master valuable skills such as facilitating group therapy on the unit, and providing meal support to teens with eating disorders. I had some amazing colleagues, and one of my proudest accomplishments during this time was the creation of a "Re-integration of Physical Activity Group" to the teens on the eating disorder unit with the Recreation Therapist. This was pretty bold at the time, because most ED units require the patients to be sedentary.
From there, I moved to the Partial Hospitalization Program (a mental health day program). I eventually took on a team lead position and began to run the program from the inside out with managing staffing, creating schedules, the works. Unfortunately, during COVID, this program was shut down. It was a place of recovery and community for many, and I think all the staff can say that working in PHP were truly the good ol days.
Following this, I joined an outpatient team. Waitlists were a major problem. It was incredibly sad and frustrating. Everyone is truly doing their best, but I felt powerless to certain systemic issues.
Along the way, I began my private practice part time, seeing clients after my hospital job was done for the day. I knew that this wasn't sustainable for me, burnout was nearing, and that I had to make a choice. I took the leap of faith into private practice full time, and the rest is history!
