Recently, Counselor Leah was recently interviewed by Christa Flitcroft. You can read the interview below, or if you’d prefer video format, click here.
Christa: If you would tell me what it is that your career is and what that looks like for you on a day-to-day.
Counselor Leah: I’m a licensed professional counselor and supervisor in Alabama, but I have two specialties. One in Play Therapy and one in Sex Therapy, and so basically, what that means is that I use methods of play with all ages. And then when it’s specific to something that’s sex-related, that could be anything from like abuse to education and curiosity or lifestyles and relationships or pain. Then I also provide supervision for people that are getting licensed in Alabama and then Play Therapy as well. So I’m a registered Play Therapist supervisor as well there. But those are the things that I do regularly, and I think day to day that kind of just looks like I see clients most of the day. So I’m 8 to 5 and see probably five to six people a day.
Christa: And thinking specifically what led you to your interest in being a therapist to begin with, but also what led to your interest those two areas of specialty?
Leah: So, bless it, I didn’t have a course like this in college, I don’t think, because I have my undergrad in Psychology, and once I graduated, it was like, “what can I do with this? I can like basically go research or therapy. I have no idea what’s in between” and at that point I had no idea that I needed a CACREP accredited school to do counseling. And so I applied to some schools and got accepted and then found the counseling path. So I kind of, I wouldn’t say, fell into it because it was something that I chose, but I had no idea with an undergrad what I could do in the field and I chose counseling and then got through the program and was like “huh, we didn’t really talk about much marriage and family stuff.” Like I know that that is the LMFT licensed marriage family therapy, but like that wasn’t, I didn’t learn enough of that in college and so that kind of led me down like that “how do we address these things?” And that was kind of how I stumbled into counseling a little bit and then found the love and passion for it because helping people was always one of the goals, but figuring out how, and nursing was not my thing, was the way that that worked for me.
Christa: And then yeah what what brought to your interest of then specializing in Play Therapy and Sex Therapy?
Leah: Before I was through with the master’s program and counseling, I worked at two children’s places. So I worked at the Detention Center here in Alabama, and they had a counselor there, and the kids would talk to us because it wasn’t like I wasn’t in a therapeutic role there; I was basically just making sure that they were following the rules but got to see how good therapy was helpful to them. And then in my internship, once I was in, I met Ashley Garrett, who was like the play person of Alabama, and luckily got in with her, and she taught me a lot, and I was like, “I’m not going to work with kids, like this isn’t going to be a thing,” and I was like “oh my gosh this is amazing” and kind of found a new passion for that and that play therapy is also very very effective with teenagers and adults too. So, like when I say play, it’s like I think we immediately go to kids and think of playgrounds, but it is way more than that, and it really just kind of helped us integrate learning in a way that’s not “so tell me how you feel” and gives us more ways to express ourselves and in ways that don’t feel quite as vulnerable. My second job was working with adolescent boys in a hospital setting, and again, this was before I had any like actual therapeutic knowledge. and it was amazing because I learned a lot there that was applied in the program, but they had sex questions. They wanted to know about like “how long can sperm live outside of the body?” I’m like, I have no idea. “How do you get somebody pregnant?” It’s like, “oh, you know, here’s this thing,” but “How do you have safe sex?”, “how do you go ask somebody for an STI screening?” or like there would be a lot of questions that would come up and be like, “man, that’s a great question, I don’t know,” and kind of learning how to one, talk about it, but two, like there’s a lot of questions that aren’t being answered in either education or there’s not somebody safe to ask that question. And so that really opened my interest into like, sex education. Whether or not you were like into sex education or wanting to be a sex therapist that it’s I think very important that we all educate ourselves on sex education. I was able to look up South Carolina, and y’all, I think are a little bit above Alabama on the sex education requirements in grade school. So congratulations on that. Yours gets to be medically accurate. Alabama’s does not have to be medically accurate, which is a weird thing to me. Anyway, but most of America’s is abstinence-based, and that is not helpful when we get into a counseling setting, and we’re dealing with people that are trying to engage in consensual relationships, or having any issues or trouble with pleasure, or coming up and talking about anything that’s even pelvic pain related. Like it doesn’t even have to be romantic sexually, but “man, sometimes this hurts”. For us, as therapists, to know who to like, “I think you need to see your doctor about that,” or if we get a referral. So one of the things with my job, I get referrals from physical therapists, from um OBGYNs, that says, “hey, this isn’t a medical issue. Medical’s been ruled out. They might need some therapeutic work.” Here to discuss what’s going on in their body. But sex education. Any advice that I can give anybody is educate yourself on just some basic sex education that is relationship-based.
Christa: What does it look like after you’re licensed and you want to specialize in something like Play Therapy or Sex Therapy? How do you go about getting that kind of education?
Leah: It’s finding the place that you want to do that with. So there are a couple of different programs for Sex Therapy that like currently, I don’t hold a certification in because I have not completed my dissertation for one of the pieces that helps, but I have all of the credentials except for this one that I’m looking for. But it was finding the place. It’s okay; what feels most like it? What is it? It’s not research. What is the word I’m looking for? Is it reputable? Because there are a couple of different people out there that have like, “Hey, you can be sex certified through us,” or “You can be sex certified through us,” and so I went and looked and kind of was like, “okay who is the one that’s referenced the most” and for me when I was looking, it was the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists, which is abbreviated to ASECT. But they had standards that some of these others also had, and I was like, “Okay, this looks like the place that is going to hold the highest education,” and so through that and through play therapy, I both had to find a supervisor and be supervised with cases, do a certain amount of education and continuing education, and then apply for the certification when those things are complete.
Christa: And now you’re a supervisor yourself. So, what was your thought process with that? Why did you decide that you also wanted then to supervise others?
Leah: I was very blessed in being able to find somebody immediately that had the knowledge for play therapy and then to be able to be in person and teach me. So that was something that I very much appreciated, and so I was like, “Well, this is a way I can contribute back,” and I think making sure, especially with play therapy, that other people are able to learn this skill, whether they want to get certified and it or not. So, as a licensed professional supervisor, when I have the associate licensed people under me, they’re learning both of these things whether that’s their track or not. They’re going to learn some of those techniques and skills just because I think they’re very important, whether they’re a certification or not.
Christa: So you mentioned that you work with a group practice. Is there a reason that you chose the group practice versus maybe opening your own practice versus working in a hospital?
Leah: So I actually have opened my own practice and then returned to group practice. So that is a fun story. I did my internship and then started working with Garrett Counseling, which is the practice that I work with, and I did that for five or six years. And then I was like, “Okay, I’m ready to see if I can do this on my own.” I went out and had my own practice for about a year, and then I was like, “Oh okay, I do not like being my own boss”. Sure, paychecks might be coming in. I don’t want to manage anybody else; I don’t want to do the taxes, and I said, “Ashley, can I come back?” she said, “Yep,” so I said, “Okay”. I like it when my boss sends me an email, and I can go, “oh, I have to do the thing,” and then it’s not me that’s the boss. Yeah, so that part was great, but to the people that are very organized, I think that there’s a lot to be said about independent practice, but always make sure you have a consultation group because it gets very lonely out there and ethically it can be a real big challenge when you don’t have other people to run ideas across or sometimes it can feel very stuck. I have not had the same experience in a hospital. Some of my supervises do work in hospitals or in treatment centers, and I think one of the benefits there is there gets to be like you’re talking with the doctor that’s prescribing medicine, and there’s a treatment team aspect that can be really neat in a hospital setting, but I think the challenge for me if I were to try to segue to a hospital setting is that you don’t get to see people for the same amount of time. So if somebody is very much in the solution-focused or cognitive behavioral therapy, like we are just trying to get three steps done, send you with a skill that I think would be a fantastic place to work. A lot of my clients that I have I see for almost like, Ashley would be the one that has my average um or Dr Garrett would be, but I want to say like six months is usually like the minimum amount that I see people because we’re working on a lot of deep things and it takes time to build trust and I have a lot of people that I’ve seen for years not all weekly but that we’re continuing to work on deeper and deeper things as life progresses.
Christa: If someone wants to be a therapist, what do you think is important for them in terms of skill building? What do you think makes maybe for a great therapist that they should then work on with themselves?
Leah: Their own therapy. I think that is one of the things that I cannot make any of my supervisees do, but I strongly encourage because you are going to hit things in your being in the therapist chair process that hit your personal life or that you might need a place to process, and doing that with the person in front of you is not appropriate when you’re the therapist. And so making sure that you have a place, whether it’s that consultation group, but your own therapist, I think is the best place to work through some of those things, and you’re kind of contributing to the field too where it’s like “hey I practice what I preach” and I think that that is a very big deal because I think a lot of us that do go into counseling usually have something that has impacted us in our life that makes us want to help other people.
Christa: And in terms of maybe particular courses or particular learning experiences, is there anything that you think that someone who’s interested in this path should really consider getting exposed to prior to then actually pursuing that career?
Leah: I think things that they can get exposed to, and I think because there’s so much out there is if they’re interested in counseling, they don’t have to know immediately what type of counseling that they would want to do but a big part of that I think would be attending counseling because then you’re getting some experience there, but exploring some of the theories like what kind of what types of counseling are out there because there’s some that are very specific to like different theories but you know is there age groups or demographic that you’d love to work with or a place that you would really like to put your effort and help. That is, I think, a lot of different experiences that can be awesome but that could look like volunteering at a hospital or maybe a lot of times we’ll have people come in and try to do some intern work in their undergrad, but they’re getting to see some of the paperwork sides, or they have the ability to talk to different counselors about what that’s like. So if job shadowing is an option, and that’s I think, harder when we’re therapists, and there’s HIPPA involved. You can’t just come sit in the room if you’re not an intern, but being able to talk to somebody about what that process is like, kind of like what we’re doing today.
Christa: What are the things that you really love about doing this job that makes you get up in the morning and say I’m glad that I still do this? As opposed to then what are the things that you also find really challenging about the job?
Leah: So the things that I love about the job are the people that are willing to show up. So one of, I wouldn’t call it my signature statement, but one of the statements that we make, especially when somebody comes in for the first time they’ve called and made the appointment, they’re ready to tackle something. That’s hard work. Getting them in here on the couch. Their ability to take time out of their day and show up for themselves is awesome, and that moves me daily. That people are willing to put effort into their own life. And so that, I think is a part that keeps me going. I’ve been doing this like I did the math right before I got with you like I’ve been doing this for 12 years. I’m not that old, but I’ve been doing this for 12 years, and that is the thing, regardless of the age of the person, that is amazing. That people continue to show up for themselves and for them their families. Especially when they’re adults like parents bringing kids, they want help and moving forward in life, and I think that that is a passion that continues to make me, I don’t know, very happy and get to see positive things in the human part of things. That people are willing to do the work. I think the other part of that is it’s really awesome one-on-one to get to hear people, and it is such a privilege to hear and have people share with you things that have happened in their lives. Whether they’re happy things that were high-fiving or very hard things to say out loud, they trust you with a lot of things, their progress, and their vulnerabilities, and that is also, I think, a very, very strong statement. The thing that I hate is documentation. It is the worst, and it’s the worst because, this is my here’s my theory, it’s not the work, so it’s us kind of almost bragging that we did something, and it is not the work. The work is sitting here with the person. So the paperwork part of it just feels tedious sometimes, and it’s sometimes very repetitive and sometimes makes you feel like you’re not a very good counselor when it’s like, “Man, I’ve been working with this person with anxiety for a year, and they’ve had a really bad week, and their like anxiety scale is up this week, and it doesn’t feel like we made any progress” like those are the hard days, the days that are not as rewarding. But usually, that’s not the case. It’s they have done a lot of work but it’s a hard week. But documenting it is hard, and then the documentation is boring. DHR calls probably are that other thing that’s just like, if you have to report abuse or neglect, that is never fun, but it is also, I think, the other side of that coin, many times it’s rewarding because they’ve trusted you to tell you a thing and you’ve helped them, and a lot of times they continue to come and you get to see their growth as a person and sometimes as a family.
Are you a therapist looking for a change? Learn more about being part of the Garrett Counseling team here.
Curious about Leah’s specialties? Follow these links to learn more: Sex Therapy & Play Therapy