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

Alright, Rachael thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. When you’ve been a professional in an industry for long enough, you’ll experience moments when the entire field takes a U-Turn, an instance where the consensus completely flips upside down or where the “best practices” completely change. If you’ve experienced such a U-Turn over the course of your professional career, we’d love to hear about it.

“As a therapist who has been practicing for over a decade, there are many changes I have seen in the field of therapy. A few that come to mind are the shift of therapists taking insurance to now doing a lot more private pay. There are a number of reasons for this including privacy, wanting more flexibility over treatment, and a lack of compensation. Another change is the wide burn out we are witnessing as a result of the covid-19 mental health crisis. It is becoming harder and harder to get into see a therapist and therapists are in all the more need of taking care of themselves while they help others. We have experienced the same trauma as the rest of the world and need to prioritize our own boundaries and mental health. I know this has become more clear to me personally. Similarly but on a more positive note, the stigma of therapy is decreasing and more people are talking out loud about it’s helpfulness. I could spend a whole segment on each of these but the shift that I have seen most beneficial to clients has been a theoretical one. In other words, the past decade has brought a change in how we see problems, clients, and solutions. Many therapists, including myself are building much more authentic relationships with clients and keeping clients in the drivers seat. We no longer see ourselves as the expert on the problem but simply on the process of therapy. This has shown to build stronger therapist-client relationships as well as given the clients more autonomy and confidence in their lives. Another theoretical shift is how we are viewing internal experiences. In the past (and society still fuels this thinking), we were taught that we should be able to control our internal experiences like thoughts and feelings. Many therapists now know that this is not only unrealistic but can perpetuate problems. Trying to control our thoughts and feelings is like trying to push a beach ball under water. It just wastes a lot of energy and keeps us from seeing what really matters and what we actually have control over. So myself and my team of therapists use much newer theories like Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) that focus on acceptance of the internal experiences and changing where we are actually putting our energy. It has been truly life changing for me personally and our clients as paradoxical as it feels and sounds.

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 background and context?

Because of personal struggles growing up, I knew for a while that I wanted to help others. I wanted to create positive meaning out of my story and help others do the same. I firmly believe we are capable of overcoming and creating beauty from our own hardships if we just know how. Doors of Hope is a representation of this inspired in part by one of my favorite quotes “when one door closes, another one opens, but the hallway is hell.” Doors of Hope (DOH) symbolizes that sliver of light at the end of a very dark and long hallway. Sometimes the light is so hard to see you just have to keep walking and trust it’s there. But you don’t have to do it alone. That’s our promise to clients.

A few other relevant points to those interested in DOH is that my business partner and I each have (about a decade) of experience in private practice. But private practice can be lonely and we are wired to connect. We also, through experience in private practice, realized the importance of a solid leadership structure and growth mindset. We knew when creating this group that connection, collaboration, leadership, and growth were all things that had to be prioritized. So with this vision in mind, we picked a large space and created a beautiful new waiting room and nice big group room to hold support groups since we wholeheartedly believe in the healing power of groups. We hired seven other diversely trained therapists that immediately inspired us and who also have our same values. We were determined to never hire anyone that we wouldn’t want to have coffee with on a regular basis. We also knew that we wanted to change the tone of faith in society. We wanted to create a faith foundation to our practice based on love and acceptance not oppression and judgment. We are proud to meet clients where they are at in their faith journeys when relevant to them and bridge the gap in the community between spirituality and science.
We believe health is the marriage of physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and relational wellbeing and we try to address all of those things. All our therapists bring a little something different to the table so we should always be able to find you a good fit. We have couples therapists, trauma therapists, family therapists, addiction counselors, play therapists, the list goes on. Both my partner and I have also run groups for years so we wholeheartedly believe in creating groups to bring people together in their healing. Right now, we have an anxiety group, a mind body group, and a parenting group but I have hopes for many more to address gaps in the community. Lastly, we are in the midst of a mental health tsunami. Unfortunately, what this is leading to is a lot of unanswered phone calls to therapists and a lack of priority on the therapeutic relationship. Because we value authenticity and connection, we really take the time to match clients with a therapist we think will be the best fit. You will always get a call back from us.

How’d you meet your business partner?

Adam Clement and I met and worked in private practice in the same office for almost ten years. Adam and I shared a supervisor and bonded over our love of helping others but also not taking life too seriously. We were both very growth minded and learned a lot in our private practices about business success as well as leadership and the importance of connection. We valued so much of the same things in a group yet complimented each other very well also. I tend to be very fast paced and want to move things along quickly whereas Adam takes the time to slow us down and think through things. The combination of his diligence and my go-getter attitude has made us really brilliant partners and I am so thankful for him.

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

The reason I got into wanting to help people is because of my own struggles. I think most therapists relate to this. I’ve overcome so much in my life such as addiction, loss of a parent, chronic illness, and more. I believe I have come out the other side a better person but not without periods of serious difficulty and hard work. I want to help my clients and even my employees do the same and understand that their own struggles in no way negatively define their life or character. We are ever changing, always progressing humans. Self growth and resiliency is never ending and that’s part of what makes life beautiful.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.doorsofhopekc.com
• Instagram: Www.Instagram.com/doors_of_hope_kc