Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Brian Gong. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Brian , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What was your school or training experience like? Share an anecdote or two that you feel illustrate important aspects or the overall nature of your schooling/training experience.

I decided to become a therapist after a career in the hospitality industry and my undergraduate studies in business management. Let’s just say that attending graduate school for counseling was a difficult transition at first. There were basic theories and concepts that my classmates already seemed to be familiar with (having gotten their bachelors degrees in psychology or some related field) but which were totally foreign to me, so I had to spend a ton of extra time studying, filling the gaps, and catching up. Eventually, I got up to speed and was at the top of my class which really reinforced the idea that we can reach our goals with some hard work, discipline, and determination.

One thing I’ll never forget from my graduate training was during the site internships. We were all tasked with recording sessions with actual clients, then transcribing them word for word into a document while identifying specific phrases and interventions that were used. There’s a surprisingly large amount of talking that happens in one session so, needless to say, my hands and wrists were exhausted from all the typing! And for those who cringe at hearing their own voice, listening to these sessions in excruciating detail was truly painful at times. Nevertheless, I now realize the value in doing that exercise as it helped me to develop my skills as a clinician.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a psychotherapist and co-owner of Mangrove Therapy Group which is a private therapy practice in Delray Beach, FL specializing in the treatment of trauma and addiction. We chose the Mangrove Tree, which is known for it’s iconic roots, to represent our practice due to our recognition of the need to address the core roots of a client’s issue. As the poet, Rumi, once said, “maybe you are searching among the branches for what only appears in the roots”. Often, a client will show up to therapy with problems related to anger, shame, low self-esteem, substance use, perfectionism, or patterns of unhealthy relationships and in the course of therapy will realize that these issues stem from unresolved hardship from the past.

We believe in a broad definition of “trauma” that encompasses all of the various Big “T” traumatic events in a person’s life as well as the little “t” events that are often just as wounding and detrimental to an individual’s development. It is often these experiences – a critical parent, bullying in school, feeling isolated and a sense of not belonging, peer rejection, neglect, a family member with a mental illness – that deserve clinical attention and need to be addressed in therapy for comprehensive recovery to occur.

We treat individuals and families and work with a wide range of clinical presentations, simple to complex. All of our clinicians practice from a trauma-informed perspective and are trained in evidence-based, therapeutic approaches. We treat substance use disorders as well as process addictions such as eating disorders, compulsive gambling, and technology addiction.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I attribute our reputation as a leader in the field of trauma and addiction therapy mostly to our primary focus being on delivering high quality service to our clients. You could hire the best marketing team in the world, but if you aren’t helping people in a truly meaningful and effective way, none of that really matters. We are constantly investing time and resources into professional development, training, supervision and consultation, being very deliberate in our focus on moving clients forward in their recoveries. We take the time to collaborate with family members, case managers, psychiatrists, and other stakeholders in the client’s life to work as a team. I’ve learned that if you just focus on honing your craft and doing good work, then the reputation will follow.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

When the school shooting occurred on February 14th, 2018 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, I responded like so many others in the therapy community to offer support and assistance toward the community’s healing. I put together a team of local trauma therapists who agreed to offer pro bono trauma therapy to victims of the shooting, and for over a year borrowed an office near Parkland every Saturday and just spent the day treating students, teachers, and other survivors of the horrific event for their PTSD symptoms. I treated dozens of individuals who were traumatized by the event and, in the end, really burned myself out. Reluctantly, ,I took a step back and devoted a ton of energy into self-care and healing myself, and eventually arrived at a place even stronger than before. I think this really illustrates the concept of “post-traumatic growth” after working through adversity and hardship and arriving on the other side.

Contact Info:

• Website: mangrovetherapy.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/mangrove_therapy_group
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mangrovetherapygroup
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mangrove-therapy-group/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/MangroveTherapy