Grayson Best
University of Texas
Austin (30.2° N, 97.7° W)

featuring Andrew Tessmer, Counselor & LGBTQ+ Therapist, Eddins Counseling Group, Houston (29.7° N, 95.3° W)

Andrew Tessmer is a professional counselor who is a member of the LGBTQ+ community and currently specializes in eating disorders and LGBTQ+ concerns. He works at Eddins Counseling Group in Houston, Texas. Andrew graduated from Texas A&M University with a psychology degree in 2010 and then completed a master of education in counseling at University of Houston in 2013. Andrew discussed interesting and unique aspects to the counseling field with me.

Andrew’s parents encouraged him to follow whatever path he cared for as long as he maintained his academic standing. When it came to the decision to become a counselor, it was not until the fall of his senior year that Andrew felt sure about his decision on what he wanted to do. There was no grand switch or leading cause that influenced his decision; rather, small experiences scattered through his development showed him who he was and what he liked to do. For instance, in late high school, Andrew discovered his interest in psychology; through volunteer work in college, he learned of his preference for one-on-one interaction. He then refined his interests in graduate school.

Finding a keen interest in exploring forms of anxiety, Andrew studied the ins and outs around eating disorders during college, as it gave him a good opportunity for research. During college, Andrew had unique working experiences, some of which included bartending and being in service work. He explained how he thinks working in a service position helps develop important skills that are very useful in counseling. According to Andrew, a service position develops your social skills and helps you build a resistance to less-than-ideal social situations. Along with this, it is important to have a job you need to stay “on” for, one where you cannot choose not to assist people because you don’t feel like it or they are being rude. Since therapy is more than just listening to someone, a service position is a solid introduction to some of the skills that are used in counseling, such as how to handle people.

When it comes to counseling, many areas do not have a counselor who has in-depth, specific training and expertise on LGBTQ+ concerns, which leaves a huge gap in the counseling field where many people may not find the connection they are looking for in their geographic area. This puts Andrew in a unique position to help people, who might otherwise not be able to find such a connection, using video calls. This is one of the things Andrew enjoys about technological integration in the counseling field. For example, one of his clients is only able to visit him in person for several months out of the year. With weekly video calls, they are able to continue their sessions and the relationship they have built. Andrew made a point of specifying how not every innovation is a good one, though. The sudden influx of mobile applications that attempt to regulate your breathing or make you feel calm are not replacements for counseling—but they are sometimes treated as such. It is an easy entry point for self-care and lowers the accessibility bar, but a mobile application or the process of texting your problems cannot replace the human connection built in counseling.

While he touched on many issues in therapy, such as accessibility and affordability, he felt the lack of standardization is the biggest issue in the industry right now, due to how it can limit the work a counselor can do and the help they can provide. Each state has its own requirements you must meet in order to become a counselor. This means you have to go through many hours of training in whatever state you would like to practice in in order to become licensed and then work in only that state. While it is possible to transfer your LPC (licensed professional counselor) license to another state, it is a cumbersome process. The lack of standardization creates an inconvenience for counselors and adds extra hoops to jump through in order to help people.

I find it incredibly interesting to think about the specificity of Andrew’s position in what he can offer as a counselor to another person. When thinking about counseling, I had not previously considered how your personal story or characteristics can affect the clients you bond with. When I hear people talk about looking for a counselor and things not working out, usually the reason is something along the lines of “just not connecting.” After talking with Andrew, however, it seems that being more open about personal aspects of your life, as a counselor, may allow clients to select a counselor fit for their lifestyle and connect more effectively with them. This is also a reflection on how counseling uses more than just a degree and practice experience; it uses your own life experiences as well.

Grayson Best
University of Texas
Austin (30.2° N, 97.7° W)

featuring Elvin Aydin Keles, Online Life Coach and Psychotherapist, Houston (29.7° N, 95.3° W)

Dr. Elvin Aydin Keles is a web-based life coach and psychotherapist currently based in America. Originally from Turkey, Elvin ended up studying in Istanbul, the US, and the UK before graduating with a PhD in psychoanalytic studies. Having also worked in these countries, she is able to point out some of the key differences within the mental health field in the US and how it can change for the better, along with what we can do as future mental health practitioners to improve the field. Elvin and I discussed her background and educational process, the intricacies of working online, and her personal experiences that highlight the diversity of the mental health field.

Elvin did not intend on studying psychology at first, but she fell into it once she had been accepted to Boğaziçi University in Turkey. After two years, her father encouraged her to transfer to a university in America, with the hope that she would take her studies more seriously. She then transferred to California State University, Los Angeles where she experienced the different approach of American psychology professors. After finishing up her degree in the states, she moved back to Turkey and worked in human resources for seven years, eventually realizing she needed the ability to work with people’s internal dynamics. This spurred her to get a master’s degree in psychoanalytic studies in the UK, followed by a PhD in the same area. At the same time, she completed a four-year post-graduate psychotherapy training in the largest humanistic psychotherapy institute in the UK.

Currently, Elvin is in the process of getting licensed in the US, which means she’s getting another master’s degree in counseling. But along with this, she has her online private practice. Because her clients are outside of the US, she does not need an American counseling license to work. She explains how online counseling is very similar to counseling in person; there are things to take into account, though, ranging from assessing the client’s risk to harm himself or others to making sure you both have a solid connection or the client is in a private space to talk. Elvin has noticed, however, that psychotherapists tend to be more conservative and oppose this oncoming wave of online therapy. For Elvin, there are clear advantages with online counseling, and it should not be brushed off as easily as it is. It is important to have a consistent relationship with your counselor, but not everyone can come in for an in-person session; this would be an inherent challenge for certain lifestyles. Elvin also brings up the dilemma of someone living in a foreign country, where it can be difficult to find effective counseling in your native language. In our bustling and diverse world, the audience for online counseling may only grow, so it’s important to acknowledge its presence and encourage its growth.

When talking to Elvin, one of the most interesting things she brought up was the conservative nature in American psychology. She explains how, in her experience, America’s mental health program is very different. It is heavily regulated, which is typically a good thing, but this removes the ability to be flexible in the field. This contrasts with the UK and Turkey, she explained, as insurance companies and the government do not interfere with mental health regulations. She also brings up how instead of feeling ethically driven, the mental health field seems more litigiously motivated; people care more about not being sued than what is right for the client. Along with this, in the UK there are many places for training psychotherapists to do volunteer work under supervision and see hundreds of people for free, greatly expanding the reach of mental healthcare. Since US counselors need to have supervised experience in order to be licensed, this would be a great addition to the American health system. Mental health is still a heavily stigmatized field in society, and the introduction of these clinics would not only help with destigmatization but help counselors-in-training reach their required hours while helping many people in the process. Finally, in America, it is generally encouraged that a counselor have a counselor of their own to avoid burnout, but it is not required. In the UK, however, even though it is easier to be licensed, you are required to have your own personal therapist. This promotes not only the importance of mental health but also a dependence on others in our traditionally conservative mental health field. Elvin describes attempting to work in the mental health field without seeing a therapist of your own by saying, “You can’t. It will be very, very confusing and difficult.”

It’s important to remember that while psychology is an old field of study, it is still a developing discipline with many areas to be improved upon. There are plenty of areas for growth; no matter what you decide to specialize in, you can learn from the trials and efforts of other countries. By challenging the traditional process in an ethical way and attempting to advance the field as a whole, we can improve mental health for clients as well as counselors.

Highlights from the interview

Could you tell me about how growing up in Istanbul fed into your decision to be where you’re at right now?

In Turkey, typically for the university entrance, you take a centralized standardized exam. And as I took mine, I was sure that I was going to study either economics or business, but my grade wasn’t high enough, so I got into psychology, and I thought that was a failure. But after studying two years at that university in Istanbul, which was like the best university in Turkey, Boğaziçi University, I ended up transferring to California State University Los Angeles because my father said that I would be taken more seriously when I’m in the states. Once I came here to study, the professors, the approach to teaching, everything was very different, and I really liked what I was studying then, so I finished the four year and all the residence requirements, and then I returned back to Turkey. I worked in HR, and then seven years later I realized that you need to be able to work with people’s internal dynamics, for which I decided to do just a master’s degree to have a bit more insight. So for that reason I chose England, because it’s closer to Turkey and it was an easier way to go. So I did my master’s there, and that was followed by my PhD because once I got there, I fell in love with what I was studying, which is not the typical road, by the way. I studied psychoanalytic studies; it’s a bit more philosophical than the typical psychology master’s.

So you mentioned that your dad wanted you to come over to United States for studying, was he a big part in making you who you are today?

Yes and no. My work ethic comes from my parents; they were both working very hard. They both worked in international companies, they travelled a lot, and they were working very, very hard, so for me it was—I wanted to be like them. I wanted to have a good job, and be able to travel, and have contact with different cultures.

Were they supportive of your pursuit of psychology?

They wanted me to get a degree, that’s for sure. But I don’t think they ever wanted me to become a mental health professional, because—I think that generation, for them, being a psychologist is working with crazy people. Literally. So I think my dad still doesn’t really understand what I exactly do, even though I tell him a hundred times. They just can’t relate. My mother is not alive anymore, but they just can’t relate to what I do. But I understand that. It’s a different era—it was different—they have no concept of what I do really, even though I explain it to them. It’s very, very different. So in many ways yes, but not the subject I chose.

So you’re in private practice. What exactly are you doing currently?

So, I’m in the US because we came to Houston, Texas because of my husband’s job; we had to relocate. We used to live in England before, where I was working in my own office seeing clients—not patients, because they’re not patients; they’re not sick. In the US, I’m in the process of getting licenses, which means I’m doing another master’s degree, this time in counseling, just to get my LPC—license professional counseling licensing—which I will get in December of this year. But at the same time, I have an online practice, where I see clients from all over the world. They’re not in the US; that’s why I don’t have to be licensed.

When you started working online, was there anything…you thought was going to be easy, or set out for you, that wasn’t initially, that you kind of had to work around?

Well…people’s attitudes. Especially my colleagues, not the clients. So this started out because one of my clients referred me to someone who was in the states; I was in Turkey at the time. She said to me, “I have a friend who’s in Chicago. She’s doing a PhD. She needs support. Can you help her?” I said, “Well, I can try.” I started out with this person, and I saw that it’s working amazingly well. She had this connection over Skype, it was like a lifeline for her, and I worked with her for over four years, I think, and it was really amazing. And during that time I got other requests as well, and I started doing this, and I got better and better at it.

The one thing that you need to do is that [you] need to remind your clients they need to be alone whenever they’re going to talk to me. Like not in a coffee shop or outside in a park. So there should be some privacy and a good connection, because there’s nothing more annoying than a substantial conversation being constantly interrupted with bad network or something like that. So once you set those things in place, it’s not much different than proper psychotherapy. You still need to have proper supervision for seeing your clients, you still need to be very careful around everything. I mean you still do the job; it’s just online, the person doesn’t come in.

Are there any personal skills that you’ve found most helpful in your job setting? 

In my job setting meaning online therapy or doing my psychotherapy or being a psychotherapist? Which one?

Either if you want to explain both.

So I am…okay, the thing I found most helpful doing my job is that I have a background in human resources consulting. I have seen very, very different industries, very different jobs; I have a very good understanding of the business world. And that makes a substantial difference in the way that I relate to my clients. They know that I can really understand where they’re coming from, mostly because I mostly work with people who are self-paying. Obviously the conversation comes to their work, you know, professional life as well, and I really can understand where they’re coming from. Also, having had a business background was very helpful in me setting up my business, because it is a business. It is psychotherapy and psychology, but it is a business. So I’m very good with taking care of accounting and getting my company registered, getting my cards printed, advertising, networking; I’m very good with those things as well.

What’s been your favorite part of everything so far?

That I get to listen to different life stories. It’s mesmerizing for me. You get to meet people literally from all walks of life. I do. And I see it as a privilege. And people share with you their deepest, darkest secrets and their—literally—their hearts, and it’s a privilege. I find it very uplifting and energizing that people see me worthy enough to talk to me.

What’s the typical team dynamic among your colleagues?

Usually typical psychotherapists tend to be a little conservative, so they don’t like the idea of doing online therapy just because they really haven’t tried yet. They have in-person practice, which I respect; there’s nothing wrong with it. I think it’s wonderful that you can have that, but for people who can’t have that—like, if you’re travelling a lot. Say you’re a professional business person, and you have to travel a lot, or you live like my first online client—you live in another country, and you need therapy in your own language—and you can’t find anyone around you like that. So all those are lifelines for people who need help. So before you judge, you need to see whether it works or not for yourself. There are very conservative psychologists and psychotherapists, and there are more openminded ones and the most important thing is you’re ethical. No matter what you do, how you do it, that you do it ethically. That’s the most important thing.

Have you found a more conservative setting in the US or elsewhere?

Yes, definitely. US is very conservative and very much insurance-driven, unfortunately. Here the insurance dictates what kind of therapies you do, what kind of approaches you take, how you work with the client. I think that’s outrageous. 

If you had any changes you could make with the US system, what would they be?

In the UK, the government has psychotherapy clinics, where a lot of training psychotherapists come and work voluntarily, but they are supervised properly. And that’s literally free, and they see hundreds of people everyday, and they really help people. So that’s not rogue therapy; that’s proper therapy under supervision, where people who are underprivileged can get the care that they need. So, setting up clinics like that where volunteers can work and train and earn their hours—because to get licensed in the US as a counselor, you need to get at least 700 hours until you’re [licensed]. Until then, you cannot be paid anyway. So, if they would open these types of clinics, that would be fantastic. That would increase the number of people who can get help tremendously.

Since you’re working online currently, how do you see that developing for the future or your profession?

So that’s taken off because there are companies like Talkspace and iCouch. There are many more. They are offering online services to their clients. So there’s a problem. When you are a client to one of these companies, they claim that they are available 24/7, so you get to talk to a random therapist there, and they see all of your information in front of them on the system. That is a problem. But if you engage with a private therapist online, and they are using a HIPAA compliance method, like Zoom for example, where there’s full confidentiality and all, then I think it’s amazing. Because you don’t have to then leave your office to come see your therapist, you can just lock your office door during your lunch hour and have a proper session with a therapist. Or say you’re a mother at home, a nursing mother with a baby, while your baby is sleeping in the next room, you can see your therapist.

Otherwise, when you talk to companies with 24/7 service, your information is on a system, where different therapists can access it. And I find that a bit questionable. This is a very personal thing. You don’t want to work with a random therapist, you want to work with one person.

Develop a connection.

Yes, definitely. That’s like fifty percent of the work.

What advice would you give to students?

What I would suggest is…to become a psychologist, you definitely have to do a master’s degree in counseling, et cetera, or a PhD in clinical psychology. So I would suggest for them to get acquainted and do some kind of internship in a clinic to see whether they are cut out for this kind of work, because it’s not easy work. You are in there with them, day in, day out, and if you’re not cut out for this kind of work, it’s a very long education to go through.

All right, so are there any beginner jobs that students could go to…

Definitely, there are lots of mental health agencies to volunteer at. I think in every city there are agencies that accept volunteers who are working with the underprivileged. Just go there and observe what they’re doing. This is a difficult job; you deal with very— sometimes very tricky illnesses. You need to know what you’re doing.

Is that something you did?

Yes, I worked in London with people who were human rights immigrants. So they were people who have been tortured or they were asylum seekers. So when I was training, I did my internship there, and that was very eye-opening. I thought if I could do that, then I can do anything.

So what was your most memorable experience?

I had a client who had immigrated to England thirty-seven years ago, and she was an elderly lady. Not that old, but she looked older than she was. She was illiterate, and she came in to visits with a bag of medication. After seeing her only for twelve weeks—that was the time allocated to us—she ditched all the drugs. She was walking with a cane. She ditched the cane. She taught herself how to read and write. That was the difference between someone compassionately lending her an ear and not—I’m not a miracle worker. We are just people who are very good listeners and trained for being very careful. If you hear something you need to refer them on and work with the doctors, et cetera. But this was a very deep connection, and this poor woman was really suffering, and I was just so privileged to be able to see the change in her. And she was so sweet.

Is there a difference between private practice in England and in Turkey?

No, not really. Because the insurance companies and the government do not interfere with regulations in both of those countries.

In America?

Very different. Very, very different. It’s heavily regulated, which is good in a way, but it takes away some good things as well. It takes away the flexibility. What I notice here is that instead of being very ethically oriented, I think people are more litigiously oriented. So they care more about not to be sued than doing the right thing by clients.

In the US, there is no personal therapy requirement for a therapist. I think it’s recommended, but it’s not compulsory, whereas, funny enough, in England it is. I say funny enough because the licensing is way easier in England, whereas in the US, it’s very, very difficult, but there is no requirement for personal therapy. I think that if anyone is going into this job, they should definitely have personal therapy. This is not the kind of work that you can do without having been through an intensive therapy experience. You can’t. It will be very confusing and difficult.

(Interview excerpts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability and approved by the interviewee.)

Grayson Best
University of Texas
Austin (30.2° N, 97.7° W)

featuring Ashley Hamm, Hamm Counseling, Houston (29.7° N, 95.3° W)

Ashley Hamm is a licensed professional counselor, certified health coach, and a registered health coach-specialist who has started her own private practice called Hamm Counseling while balancing her work at a behavioral health hospital as a mobile assessor. She has a Bachelor of Arts in English from Rice University and a Master of Education in Counseling from the University of Houston. From discovering how she wanted to become a counselor to learning how she started her own firm, my interview with Ashley was an eye-opening experience that showed the nuances of following a career in counseling and how unique each path can be. In our talk we discussed her personal background, the diversity of the mental health field, as well as some advice to those interested in counseling.

Ashley didn’t always know she wanted to be a counselor. She first wanted a career in theater and followed that passion for a few years. It wasn’t until her mid-twenties when she visited a career counselor that she realized her desire to help others in counseling. She explains that she noticed, in hindsight, how “there were always these little hints that I might go down that path.” She had even considered majoring in psychology but wasn’t set on her choice until her talk with a career counselor. At first, she was concerned that it was too late for graduate school when she had no prior counseling experience; her career counselor, however, explained that there are always still plenty of options. After that, she soon started studying counseling at graduate school at the University of Houston.

While in graduate school, Ashley volunteered at a crisis hotline. She avidly recommends this experience to get a feel to see how driven you are in the field. She explains that it can be very draining, either from getting tough calls one after the other or working too many hours. This was her first experience with therapist burnout, a state of emotional fatigue from working as a mental health worker. An important factor is recognizing when burnout is happening in order to properly take care of yourself. You would never want your emotional exhaustion to affect your work, so it’s important to be self-aware in this setting. When it comes to dealing with therapist burnout there are multiple methods to go about it; Ashley feels that “a lot of self-care should be preventative” and “be part of your daily life.” She recommends having a good life routine and healthy habits as they can go a long way in preventing a burnout. That being said, she still occasionally feels a burnout every now and then where she resorts to confiding in a trusted friend for support.

Even after her experience at University of Houston, Ashley had a lot to learn. She was given the experience to work as a licensed professional counselor intern under some supervision. Her supervisor checked to make sure her practice was ethical and that no situations outside of her competency level arose as counseling can be a very intense field. Because this process takes two to three years to get your required hours, it was a huge learning experience for Ashley. She explains how, on top of learning all the modalities and techniques of therapy to effectively help people, she also needed to learn about all the reasons someone might go and see a therapist, as there can be many individual cases. Even though she learned a lot in graduate school, actually practicing therapy taught her the most as there were many times she found herself talking to supervisors for help on certain situations.

Many sought-after jobs aren’t initially available to new graduates as they require work experience. The options she found for herself after her internship were positions such as working for psychiatric hospitals or community centers. It was not the intimate one-on-one experience she was expecting. She was not in the private practice setting she had anticipated and was instead helping people in crisis. This extreme setting was stressful but eye-opening as she was learning a lot dealing with such individuals. She explained how she was grateful for the experience, but it was a process to get used to the idea of working to her own private practice.

Personally, I found the most insightful aspect of our conversation to be her private practice. It’s relatively new to her and is still being established, so she has a fresh perspective on how to go about it. She started planning for it about a year ago, starting with a lot of personal research. She taught herself about marketing and running a business on top of many other little details that would come up in this practice. Struggles like attracting clients and advertising yourself to them can be tough, so Ashley has opted to work part-time at a behavioral health hospital to help compensate for a smaller-than-perfectly-sustainable clientele for her firm. This allows her to have a smoother transition between working under someone to having her own business as opposed to dropping everything and hoping for the best. The most informative part on how to start your own private practice was when she explained how it is best to talk to people who have already done it. She says it was somewhat intimidating at first, but she learned to build out relationships with other people in the field, which gave her a broader knowledge of what to expect.

Ashley’s passion for learning and helping others makes her look to one future possibility in the mental health field: technology integration. Ashley has an interest in having video sessions with her clients. Technology integration is something that could potentially really change counseling and make it more accessible and comfortable for people. Ashley explains how there are plenty of scenarios where someone can’t attend counseling. Apart from scheduling, there are plenty of mental health reasons to keep someone from counseling, such as being too anxious to leave the house. Video sessions would allow for such people to have access to previously unavailable counseling. She acknowledges how, in this territory of the field, it is unknown how technology will overall affect results, but she generally views it as a positive as it brings more access to people who need it.

If there was any one conclusion to this interview I could draw, it’s that the mental health field is far more diverse than one can imagine. There are plenty of opportunities at every point in the field, no matter your experience level. While they may not be the immediate job you want to jump into, the experience of working through the field is necessary to establish a professional grasp of what you want to do and to know what to specialize in. It’s definitely a field that requires a true passion to help others in order to learn and develop. The more effort and passion someone puts into this field, the more they’ll get out of it.

Highlights from the Interview

Did you always want to become a professional counselor, was that encouraged of you?

One thing that was probably pretty influential to me was that my mom was a teacher and my dad was in the army reserves, so I was raised with a sense of doing meaningful work, contributing to the community. I always knew I wanted to do something that was meaningful, but I really didn’t know I was going to become a counselor until basically my mid-twenties. I always loved learning about the mind, and I always found people really interesting. In college I took some psychology classes, thought about majoring in it but I didn’t. Actually I had a career in theater for a couple years before I went to grad school for counseling. When I look back, there were always little hints that I might go down this path, but I didn’t really know until I visited a career counselor and they helped set me on the right path. They helped clarify where my interests were and clarify some myths about it. I had in my head that it was too late to change careers and doubts like how would they ever accept me to grad school when I don’t have any prior experience. They helped me see what was possible.

Was there any main person besides the counselor that really influenced you?

As a kid my mom was very influential. Being a teacher she was always trying to supplement my education. Throughout the summers she would always make sure we were reading extra books and learning. So she helped spark a curiosity and a drive to continue to learn, which is really useful as a counselor. You can never learn it all when it comes to mental health or therapeutic techniques. I’m really grateful to have that curiosity about learning more from her.

What led you into the position you are in now, where you have your own firm and you work part-time at Westpark Springs?

I went to grad school for counseling at University of Houston, and right out of grad school I worked for a year at a psychiatric facility. It was called a partial hospitalization program, and it’s basically a step down from an inpatient psychiatric hospital, so it’s for people who maybe if they don’t get any support they might end up in a psychiatric hospital, so it was our job to give them some therapy and support. They would come all day long and do therapy all day long; sometimes they would stay several weeks in our program. It was for people who had pretty significant mental health issues. Then I got a job with a hospital employee wellness program, and I did that for about four years. I did counseling for the hospital employees and got trained as a health coach, so I would help people change their health habits to help them get healthier. I did a lot of work with stress management. Finally, I decided to look into opening a private practice. I think it was something that was always in the back of my head, something I eventually wanted to do, have a private practice, have a little more freedom to see the kind of clients I want to see, and pursue the areas of specialization that I’m interested in. About a year ago I started planning the private practice, doing a lot of learning. There’s a lot of learning you have to do about marketing and running a business that I had to learn from scratch basically. At the same time I have been working at the mobile assessment job with Westpark Springs to help me supplement my income during this transition period.

When you said you learned the business side from scratch, did you have to take a class or is this all your own research?

My own research. Just a ton of reading on the internet and listening to podcasts and reading books and talking to other therapists and learning from what they did. I joined a bunch of Facebook groups for therapists in private practice, and that’s been really useful. I could learn from whatever questions that people are asking in these forums. So I’ve had to figure it out a lot on my own.

Do you think there are any misconceptions about your field?

I think in my head, I thought when I went to grad school, I thought that I would graduate and get to go out into the world and get a job where I sat in an office and people showed up for therapy sessions. Like a traditional idea of going to therapy. And really a lot of the initial jobs for people right out of grad school are not that. A lot of it, a lot of the jobs available right when you graduate grad school are working for things like psychiatric hospitals or community centers. Places like that where you’re not quite just sitting one on one or getting deep into someone’s issues, you’re really kind of helping people a lot of times in crisis or trying to help people with very chronic and severe mental illness. So that was an eye-opening experience for me; I had this idea that I would sort of be in a private practice type setting where just people are showing up and coming to therapy. The jobs that were available to me were these—a little bit more, I would say—high-stress jobs, where you are dealing with some pretty intense situations. Which I’m grateful for, I really am glad I had that experience, but it’s sort of a little bit of having to work your way up to that idea I had of someone just showing up to your office for counseling.

How did grad school prepare you?

I went to a two-year graduate school program. Some programs are longer, some are three-year programs, or if you’re a psychologist there are longer programs. I did two practicums where I actually worked as a counselor under some supervision. So you do have the opportunity in grad school to start being a therapist, and then after grad school you’re classified as a licensed professional counselor intern, which means if you practice therapy you have to be seeing a supervisor weekly, to make sure you know you are practicing ethically and there aren’t any situations that come up that are outside of your confidence level. That was a huge learning process. It’s just a lot to learn to become a therapist. If you think about it there are so many different reasons people go to therapy so there’s a lot to learn in terms of all the different things people might need to see a therapist for, and then there’s all the techniques and modalities and ways you can help people so there’s a lot to learn and a lot of it is—grad school I felt like I got all the foundation and all the background, but the practicing therapy a lot of it you learn as you do it. You just kind of have to get out there and sometimes muddle your way through it and talk a lot with your supervisor when you get stuck and eventually you get better.

Have you ever experienced therapist burnout?

It is inevitable. I’d say that probably most therapists experience burnout at some point. Just the nature of hearing people’s stories all day, hearing—just encountering people who are suffering over time, that is going to wear you down a bit.

Do you have your own self-care tool kit?

I think a lot of self-care should be preventative, that it should be part of your daily life. So I try to do a lot of that kind of thing, making sure I have good routine and I have some healthy habits in place. Also when I am feeling that burnout coming on, I have a close friend that I sometimes talk to. She is a social worker so she has a similar career and understands, so that sometimes helps. Just talking to somebody. Sometimes just not over-scheduling myself. Making sure that if it’s been a rough couple of days, maybe just having a day where I don’t have a lot on my plate, and I can just chill out. I think that’s really important for people in a mental health career to have the ability—when you do notice the burnout—to have the ability to scale back a bit.

In your type of work, you’re one-on-one with a patient, there’s not a lot of technology involved. Do you think it could be shaped by further innovations of technology?

Yes, that’s something I’m interested in for my private practice. I’m hoping to offer video sessions; it’s something I think is really useful in the mental health field. I can think of so many scenarios where someone might be not able to come to counseling. If you even think about for mental health reasons, maybe they have some anxiety that makes it difficult to leave the house, to be able to have a video session allows them to experience therapy that they really need, in a way that, in the past, they wouldn’t have had access to. So I think that using technology is really great for the mental health field. It’s something I plan on offering in my private practice. I do think it has to be used with caution, because it’s such a new thing, there haven’t been—maybe our ethics guidelines are trying to catch up. Trying to decide what are the ethical parameters of using technologies. It is sometimes a little bit scary to venture into this territory where we haven’t thought through all the consequences of using technology. Personally I ultimately think it’s useful and brings more access to more counseling to more people. I see people a lot of times in crisis because they have let things accumulate and haven’t sought help. I see the importance of making more people aware of the usefulness of getting mental health treatment and making it more accessible to more people so that’s what I think technology can really be useful for. Some people may have privacy concerns, they don’t want to be seen walking into a counseling center, and doing a video session or even like a texting session might be something that feels a little more private and makes them feel a little more comfortable reaching out to somebody and talking to somebody.

Any advice you’d give to students interested in the field?

I would say one thing I wish I did when I was thinking about getting into the field and thinking about going to grad school for counseling, I wish I had actually gone in and interviewed a counselor or maybe interviewed a couple of different people in different mental health fields. Just to get a better picture of what is their day-to-day actually like, what do they love about their career, what mistakes did they make that I could maybe learn from, things like that, talking to somebody who is doing the work is actually very useful.

I think we all get a little nervous when we’re reaching out to somebody we don’t know, and asking them for something, but in my experience people have always been really happy to talk to me. So there’s no harm in asking, so I would encourage people to do that, to, you know, look someone up who has a career that you want and kind of talk to them and kind of see what their experience has been like. That would be my recommendation.

(Interview excerpts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability and approved by the interviewee.)