We were lucky to catch up with Paul Krauss recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Paul thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

My partner and I moved across the United States in 2017 to start the Trauma-Informed Counseling Center of Grand Rapids, MI. At the time, there were not too many therapists in West Michigan area that were practicing trauma-specific therapies such as EMDR Therapy or Somatic Experiencing Therapy. It was very scary to rent a building and begin to offer trauma-informed Clinical Supervision in a new state, with a different culture then I was used to. Not only that, but I soon found out that a lot of consumers didn’t even know what “Trauma-Therapy” or EMDR therapy was at all. My team and I worked on providing free educational articles and podcasts so that people could learn of the benefits of EMDR therapy and trauma-informed therapies. Now, while is true that talk-therapy is effective (A 10,000 study meta-analysis proved it to be more highly effective and consistent than psychotropic medications), but just image if your therapist is also trained in an advanced modality such as EMDR therapy that has it’s an amazing track-record of getting results by pursuing the root cause of your symptoms and also speeding up the process of healing by working in tandem with talk therapy. I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to find so many other therapists and consumers who were excited about a Trauma-Informed Counseling Center setting up in Grand Rapids, MI. Soon, we had more therapists than we had room for, wanting to join the practice and we were overwhelmed with demand. Now, we are working together on teaching even more therapists about trauma-informed modalities and methods to help those suffering from trauma, depression, anxiety, relationship difficulties, and more.

I am now the Clinical Director of the Trauma-Informed Counseling Center of Grand Rapids, also known as Health for Life Counseling in Grand Rapids, and Ada, MI. I also started a podcast about Counseling, Psychology, and Philosophy called “The Intentional Clinician” and have interacted with listeners from across the globe.

Paul , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Paul Krauss MA LPC has been practicing as a Master’s level counselor for over 15 years and has been involved in the fields of psychology and education for more than 18 years.

Paul is EMDRIA certified and has received advanced training in EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy, and has received training and continues to study many different approaches to psychotherapy, including Depth Psychology / Jungian Approach, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Motivational Interviewing, Humanistic / Existential, Narrative, Person-Centered / Client- Driven, Solution-Focused, Interpersonal Neurobiology, Mindfulness – Based Cognitive Therapy, Ericksonian Hypnosis, Family Systems, Positive Psychology, etc.

His experience includes work in private practice, higher education, assertive community treatment, crisis, substance treatment, integrative health care, community mental health, non-profit, and foster care. Paul Krauss has been a certified A-CRA (Adolescent Community Reinforcement Approach) trainer since 2010 and has trained over 300 clinicians, as well as reviewed multiple counseling session recordings from over 50 clinicians at Jewish Family and Children’s Services in Phoenix, AZ (a large behavioral health agency with over 6 community mental health clinics).

Paul has a blog and podcast called “The Intentional Clinician” which is regularly updated and discusses topics related to psychology and counseling. Paul is the co-founder of Health for Life, an integrative health clinic in Grand Rapids, MI. He previously founded and ran a successful group practice in Arizona called Intentional Counseling Services.

Paul has completed the 40-hour supervisor training course through the Mentoring Institute and meets the requirements to be a supervisor in the state of Michigan. Paul Krauss also previous completed supervisor training in the state of Arizona (in 2012) and has previously provided long-term one-on-one supervision to many LPC candidates in Arizona. In addition, to earning his Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology from the Chicago School of Professional Psychology, Paul has his Education degree from Michigan State University and has taught in the Master’s Level Counseling Program at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, AZ. Paul is also the co-developer of a 5-hour advanced counseling training entitled “The Intentional Clinician”- (which shares a name with his blog and podcast).

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I once faced burnout. I had been to trainings that discussed “burnout” in the healthcare profession. However, I was not scared at all. I thought (naively), “I always have energy.” So, I worked and worked and put my “self-care” and “quality time” with people on the back burner. This state of frenzied work lasted about 8 months. But it came to an abrupt halt. I have to explain that burnout is not just a concept, or a mental state–it is a significant physical health challenge. I had faced 3 months where I could hardly function. Being a therapist, I knew the “right answers” but I was not following my own advice. I had to spend a lot of time myself in therapy, with doctors, and other healers to be able to get into a state of recovery that would help me feel like myself again. To be honest, it took months of recovery after my 3-month burnout.

Burn out from stress is worse than you can imagine (if you haven’t had it). My body would not do what I asked it to do. I had little to no energy, yet I still had trouble sleeping. I was almost shaking at times when I would get stressed, and other times I couldn’t seem to move. My mind would not respond normally to almost anything—I was having trouble doing both complex and simple tasks for several weeks. I had never experienced anything like this in my life before. My creativity had vanished and I began to experience depression-like symptoms. It began to affect my personal relationships. That is when I knew something had to change. I sought help from multiple people in my life and from professionals. Within 4 weeks I was feeling better, but it took about 3 months until I felt normal again.

How many times do we put unnecessary pressure on ourselves through arbitrary goals that we set? How many times do we become fixated and worried about something that is only short-term issue? How often do we find ourselves rushing toward a goal and forgetting about the important journey of learning? How often do we find ourselves not trusting that if we are putting in effort, something will work out—even if it not what we originally tried for? Trust me, it is not worth sacrificing your health to move anywhere, set up anything, or meet any goal faster than the pace you naturally work. If you are going through a large transition, or wanting to work toward a goal, or just living your life and worrying a lot—it is important to get into a rhythm of giving yourself time and space to work to lower your stress level. Getting in a rhythm of “being” instead of always “doing” will help keep your stress level low, and thus you will be less susceptible to burnout, anxiety and depression.

Learn how to manage stress is very important. One way to handle stress is to work on developing a rhythm in your life. Having a rhythm is not having a perfect schedule. Rhythms can be adjusted and goals can be reworked. If we stick to rigidly to a goal, we are missing the point and we are probably missing out on life. In fact, I make it a point to set a lot of goals, yet I am constantly adjusting and moving them to make way for the “flow” of life. Perfection will never be a part of nature. Look at the trees–they are beautiful the way they are, but their roots are not symmetrical, nor their foliage, nor their growth patterns–they are often shaped by their environment and the weather around them. If trees are too rigid and don’t bend from the wind, they may snap in half and die. Trees must bend and become “elastic” in the elements for their survival. If they impose a false sense of perfection on themselves, they will die. We too will always be imperfect (so will our schedules); we are part of nature too, if we accept this, life doesn’t get easier, but our reactions to life are certainly more balanced and helpful to us.

Make sure you insert spaces in your schedule to “just be”, or any spaces will get filled with something that you had not intended –tasks or mindless activity or social media or mindless TV—something will end up there, invited or not. People, media, tasks, are all vying for your time. The trick is that we want to be with the people that we have decided make up our family or close group of friends, we want to consume the “right media” (not just any media), we want to invest ourselves in meaningful tasks and work, just to name a few aspects of our focus. If we don’t put spaces in our schedules to reflect or “just be”, we will hardly grasp what the “right thing” is for us.

Find activities that reduce stress, things you get “lost in” and make sure you have 1 or 2 activities in your life per week, if possible.
These activities could be almost anything, but some ideas I will suggest are exercise, walking in nature, mindfulness based stress reduction, reading, cooking, cleaning, meeting with certain friends, darts or bowling league, dancing, arts and crafts, social groups, discussion groups, having a favorite TV show or podcast that is engaging and not mindless, sports, getting involved in causes that you believe in, spiritual or religious activities, volunteering, helping others, spending time with animals, mentoring a child, etc.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Always focus on quality over saving money. It is better for our business to make less money, then to provide low quality therapy.
We always focus on the best therapy by having working with the clinicians on their own work/life balance and doing their own self-care. We are always working on helping every person at our clinic experience further continuing education.

My partner and I are passionate about providing powerful, safe, and effective tools to the Grand Rapids community utilizing counseling, psychotherapy, and online health courses. Further, we are working on providing courses to the general public.

The next strategy, is that we do not underestimate the intelligence of our clients. We public blogs and podcasts that take on tough subjects–and we have received a great deal of positive feedback because of this.

So overall, clients have told us that by focusing on the quality of therapy in our office they are happy with our services and will recommend family and friends.

Thus, quality always wins in the long run.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://healthforlifegr.com/paul-krauss-ma-lpc
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/healthforlifegr/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HealthForLifeGR/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulkraussmalpc49546/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/healthforlifegr
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1zAXgNeIvukhinCJISiARg/videos?app=desktop
• Other: https://healthforlifegr.com/the-intentional-clinician/