We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Allie Kidd a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Allie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you share an important lesson you learned in a prior job that’s helped you in your career afterwards?
When I was an undergraduate student at UC Santa Cruz, I was working toward my BA in Community Studies. The hallmark of this major/course of study was the 6 month long field study program in an area related to your concentration. I decided to complete my internship at the Santa Cruz AIDS Project specifically at their Drop In Center. My focus of study was on harm reduction and how to reduce negative outcomes for folks who used drugs. I was hitting the streets, armed with toothbrushes, safer injection gear, socks and snacks. I also helped facilitate the syringe exchange program and open drop in hours. During this time, there was a participant who was particularly challenging for me to engage with. Now, this wasn’t for a lack of trying. I would try lots of different talking points, I would have her favorite foods ready when I knew she’d be popping in. I’d even pull aside clothing in her size that I envisioned would be a good fit. None of these tactics got me the result I was looking for which was, in retrospect, for this person to feel safe with me.
Over time, as the months continued, and as I kept showing up, and kept being myself, I felt more at ease. I felt less of a need to pull aside specific items or grab a favorite food for someone unless they asked. I had learned that by being authentic, and just being there with an open heart and open ears, I was doing the work I desperately wanted to do. I was meeting people where they were at. I was consistent. I was a person who could be relied on. This translated to the folks I was working with, including the client I was referencing above. She began to trust that I would be there when I said I would, I was someone who was nonjudgmental, someone she could sit next to on the couch and not have to worry about being criticized by. The lesson I learned in this job that has stayed with me as I now run my own private practice is that authenticity and consistency matter. It’s not the books I’ve read, the schools I attended or the letters behind my name. Those have helped, but they are not the most important thing to my clients nor to me.
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?
Starting Allie Kidd Counseling has been the wake up call I needed as a millennial mom. I found myself wondering how to keep up and often felt I was drowning in a sea of responsibilities. Through EMDR therapy and being validated by other moms who called bullshit on the idea of “having it all,” I have found my stride in parenting, work, and most importantly my sense of self. I often work with moms who feel burned out, overwhelmed by the amount of daily tasks that pile up which leaves them wondering if they were made for motherhood. Parenting is hard, period. No matter what you see on Instagram or Tik Tok, real life parenting isn’t *only* pumpkin patches and beach vacays. It’s wiping butts and runny noses, it’s time management, it’s planning ahead, it’s going with the flow, it’s chauffeuring, it’s feeling guilty for not doing a holiday craft like your neighbor did, it’s wondering how much sleep you’ll get tonight if you fall asleep right now. If the idea of “having it all” seems impossible to you, it’s because it is. I love being able to explore this idea with clients, especially digging into what experiences in their lives gave them the message that they had to be perfect and had to make sure every detail was taken care of. It is my honor to walk with moms on their journey to finding out that they can be themselves and be a mom at the same time.
My love for therapy started in graduate school. I attended Columbia University School of Social Work and graduated in 2012 with an MSW (Master of Social Work) degree. I loved being able to validate folks’ feelings and help them feel seen and heard. I knew I was on the right path. After years of using more cognitive-based therapies (CBT and DBT), I felt transformed upon completion of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) training and knew this was the model that spoke to me the most. It’s gentle and honest and gets to the core of people’s distress without having to retell their story multiple times. I’m privileged to share this process with clients.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
A major lesson I’ve had to unlearn is the idea of having to “pay my dues”. I can remember being in graduate school and having an advisor ask me “so what are your career plans?” and I answered “I want to be a psychotherapist”. I was, despite literally being in a top program in the country, told that I need to think more about the near future and what kind of agency I’d like to work at because becoming a “real” therapist takes a long time. Whew, this one did a number on me, folks.
I had internalized that I couldn’t succeed, I would have to work for other people and just work my way up over time, barely scraping by, because that’s what this advisor told me. I went right out of school into a non profit and worked at many low paying, high demand jobs working with some of the most exploited and vulnerable populations I’ve ever encountered. I did learn a lot, but that’s not an excuse for that advisor to have responded to me in that manner, nor my program to neglects to teach my cohort about the business of therapy. I work with women and moms who have been conditioned for so long to put their own needs last, to sacrifice their wants because that’s what they’re “supposed” to do. I will continue to do the work I love, and to empower womxn to put themselves, their wants, their ideas, and dreams first. It’s what I’m doing now and I haven’t looked back.
What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?
I think being consistent and authentic in my social media marketing has been an effective tool for me. I do get clients referred from social media as well as connect with clinicians from across the country! I find using social media to be satisfying, fun and effective because clients can get snippets of who you really are before committing to an appointment with you.
Contact Info:
- Website: alliekidd.com
- Instagram: @alliekiddcounseling
Image Credits
Robert A. Kidd