Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do?
I am a registered psychologist, and I am the owner and founder of Therapy Alberta, an online therapy practice serving folks all over Alberta, growing to include psychologists, social workers, certified Canadian counselors, looking to improve individual and community mental health in Alberta.
Are you primarily online so you can reach people all over the province?
Yes, that’s been a huge part of our mission. I used to do in-person work and switched during COVID. At first, I wasn’t a big fan. I do somatic body therapy. Working with the body and emotions and thought, I had to be in the room with people.
At the beginning of COVID, I was not happy about the transition to online, but then it ended up being amazing, building relationships with people all across Alberta, serving people who would have never reached out for therapy if it hadn’t been virtual. And then, realizing that – yeah! – I could still do the work online.
In reality, for a lot of people, it’s better being in their own spaces, not having to commute, not having to be in a waiting room, not having to drive home afterwards. There’s just a lot of convenience and privacy to it. And I ended up loving it so much that I’m going to stay virtual forever.
What’s one achievement that you’re very proud of?
I think launching Therapy Alberta – making it a business, expanding beyond that solopreneurship where it was just me for a while.
I started out with the intention of growing, but I wasn’t trained as a business person, I was trained as a therapist. And so being able to expand into this realm and have success, growth, and being able to bring people onto the team and see that working. That was a huge accomplishment.
What is a piece of advice that you could offer others who would like to follow in your path?
I would say it’s kind of its two-part: it’s finding balance, and also not doing it alone…finding balance both between your business and your personal life.
There are a lot of entrepreneurs working way more hours on their business than is healthy for them. I’ve been there too! I was finding myself on my laptop on evenings and weekends, when I could have been with my family instead.
Part of it is finding that balance for yourself, and part is finding balance with other people: people who encourage you when you’re struggling, people who balance out your weaknesses, and people who balance out your strengths.
For me it’s really about finding a balance that’s good for you individually, and then finding that community that helps to balance you as well.
What kept you driven or motivated during those hard times of your entrepreneurship?
What keeps me motivated is helping people and it’s all about the people that I’ve worked with, the people that I hear benefiting from therapy. There’s so much need in our world right now for support, for care, for attention, and especially for high quality care.
It’s really about being able to provide that affirming care to people who otherwise couldn’t access it – folks who are living in a rural community, and there’s only one therapist available in their community, or somebody who can’t find affirming care if they’re a person of color, if they’re part of the LGBTQ community. Motivation for me is really about just being able to provide support and care for people.
How else would you like to see the business grow? What does that look like for you?
Hmm, I would love to not just add more therapists, but also partnerships. One of the downsides of virtual therapy is that there are people who don’t have access to it, people who don’t have stable Internet and computers at home, or who don’t have a safe place where they can access it.
I’d like to see that change. I’d like to see a room in a library where anybody could go have virtual therapy with somebody who fits for them, not just what’s been offered at a shelter, or what’s been offered in their programs or services.
But really, again, that high quality care with a person who really fits you, because therapy is all about the relationship. If it isn’t a safe, trusting relationship, it’s not helpful. I’d like to see that even in seniors homes, to be able to have a virtual platform where either the seniors could go to a room where they could talk to a therapist, or where a cart with a laptop could be brought into their room.
So really, it’s about that accessibility, providing an accessibility for Albertans who otherwise wouldn’t have access to that high quality therapy. And I think that that’s another thing that drives me is just growing enough that I can begin to offer some of those partnerships and services.
Is there a message you’d like to share with other women entrepreneurs just to help them keep going to inspire them?
Again, about that community peice, knowing that there are barriers, there are systemic barriers, there are social barriers, there are financial barriers, even kind of personal, right? We’re often the child caretakers until our children are 18, or grown and gone.
My message to women entrepreneurs is to know that you can overcome challenges and you don’t have to do it alone. You have a community, whether it is your own personal and social community, or regional, or online, like through the Canadian Women’s Chamber of Commerce. Know that you can do it, and you don’t have to do it alone, that there are supports and resources.
Is that why you joined the Canadian Women’s Chamber of Commerce?
Absolutely. A friend was inspired to tell me about you. And when I went to the website, the very first line that I read was affirming, stating it was open to both women and non binary people, and I was like, wow, that’s new.
I work in a field where there is so much binary; there’s things for women, and there’s things for men. And then reading through the website, it was so affirming, it was empowering; it was offering that community.
Can you recap for us your areas of expertise, what can people reach out to you for help with?
My personal area of expertise working with clients with trauma and dissociation. This is for folks who have experienced trauma throughout their lives, oftentimes in childhood, whose coping mechanism is dissociation, which is simply a division or severing.
Therapy Alberta is not focused specifically on trauma and dissociation, but it is focused on relational healing. It’s about providing that care, and that change through a healthier relationship, where people are safe to be vulnerable and try new things, and to work through some of those things that are holding them back and to be able to move forward with more freedom.
Who can reach out to you, is it the people with trauma, or do their family members reach out to you?
Oftentimes, it’s the people reaching out themselves. Occasionally, parents will reach out for care with minors, sometimes partners will reach out at this therapy. When it is more in-depth, individualized, maybe longer term work, it really needs to come from the person themselves. If they’re there because their partner told them to go to therapy, or their mother told them to go to therapy, they’re not going to have that same kind of change.
There’s a lot of folks who reached out themselves, especially during the pandemic. I think it really just showed people what they were struggling with when we have new challenges in the world. And it brings out these struggles that sometimes we used to be able to work around or suppress or ignore.
We talked about your goals and what you’d like to see in terms of your business growing and making it more accessible for people….what would your greatest hope be?
My greatest hope would be that people would be able to have the care that they need, whether it is with a therapist, or whether it is with education.
The heart of our mission is providing education for people, and not just connecting them to our services, but other services, crisis services, distress services, free therapy services. Our hope is to help them find that care, through education and through information, and be able to learn more about what they’re struggling with, or find ways to build healthier relationships in their own lives. But at its core it’s really all about helping people find the care that they need.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length
Connect with Carol at https://www.therapyalberta.com/