We recently connected with Jamie Ratowski and have shared our conversation below.

Jamie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. 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.

In thinking about the biggest risk(s) I have taken, it can be broken down into two parts that lead to the same wonderful result. In 2014, I decided to move alone from my hometown in Pennsylvania to attend graduate school in South Florida to study and become a marriage and family therapist. Now, this in itself does not necessarily seem like a huge risk, but I was only 22, my whole family and all of my friends lived in PA…and I was traveling alone to a new state for the first time in my life! Navigating living without your support system for the first time at a young age can be scary and I definitely went through a wide range of emotions for the first few years. I was able to eventually find my footing, meeting friends, classmates, and landing a job in the field to learn more about therapy and the business side of mental health. After graduation, I had been presented with the opportunity to work with some amazingly talented therapists in the field and study under supervision with Dr. Kate Campbell, a powerhouse therapist and business woman in the South Florida area. During this time is when my next biggest risk played out. I felt I had learned enough and prepared myself enough through my education, training, and clinical opportunities to start my own business/private practice right out of graduate school. To me, this felt like one of the biggest leaps someone can take, emphasis on the fact I was only 25 and felt a little out of my league considering the thriving practices around me. However, as I stated earlier, it lead to a wonderful result! With guidance and support from some incredible colleagues, finding a clinical support system to help me grow, and family and friends to give me emotional empowerment along the way, my practice, Brightside Therapy Services, is now a successful business nearly 7 years later. I now have the opportunity to help people work on their mental health and relationships to achieve their goals and happiest versions of themselves! The best part is that I get to accomplish these wonderful things on my own terms and as my own boss. Risk can lead to great reward!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Hello! My name is Jamie Ratowski and I am a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. I own my practice, Brightside Therapy Services, where my vision is to inspire adults and couples to embrace their full potential and achieve fulfillment through mental health therapy. I specialize in helping people overcome anxiety, depression, stress, family issues, self-esteem struggles, and relationship issues both individually and in couples therapy. I love the work that I do and I try to work with each and every one of my clients to help them understand and address any of their problems to live a happier and healthier life. I have always believed everyone deserves to feel and be their best, but we all need help sometimes, and thats where I strive to come in. I truly feel my happiest and most fulfilled when I am helping others thrive.

I have always had a passion for helping others and working with mental health. I vividly remember my school age job assessment told me my best fit was going to be in the psychology field. I studied and graduated from Temple University with my Bachelors Degree in Psychology. I went to further my education here in beautiful South Florida where I attended Nova Southeastern University and received my Masters Degree in Family Therapy. I am a fully Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in the state of Florida (MT3603) for In-Person & Online Therapy. I am additionally fully licensed in Pennsylvania ( MF001335) offering Online Therapy across the state of PA!

I have past experience working with teens and adults struggling with many life challenges such as anxiety, peer pressure, self-esteem, stress, depression, and more. My higher education and training was done in relational therapy where I developed my love for couples therapy and treating various relationship issues. My couples work and training aided me to assist couples looking to overcome struggles such as communication, loss of trust, conflict resolution, infidelity, intimacy issues, parenting and co-parenting struggles, and more. I love helping people who want help, I think it is the most admirable thing one can do to seek assistance in their goals and in life in general. Despite always having at least one hand in the mental health field for over a decade, I started my Brightside Therapy practice right out of grad school in 2016 and have been working to help treat mental health and assist in supporting people through life’s everyday stressors ever since.

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

I believe that growing a business is a combination of a few things. First off, be a master of your craft! Each and every time you provide a service, it should be done with your full energy, expertise, and skill. People seek out the best of the best when they are looking to pay for a service that they need. Whether this be nails, yoga, skin care, or mental health therapy, it should be done with the absolute best of your ability each and every time. When I work with a client, that is the only thing and person that matters for that entire hour. The rest of the world is on pause. Not only do your clients deserve the very best service you can offer, but providing top quality services benefits both them and you. When you provide top notch services, there’s a great chance your clients will share this information with their family and friends. A large portion of my business referrals are word of mouth, which I like to believe comes from good quality therapy and positive results.

Also, it is always a good idea to do some self-educating on online marketing options and how these opportunities can benefit online traffic to your business. Your Google Business page is essential to have! Technology is so prominent in today’s society, I cant remember the last time I didn’t Google something before I attended. Online reviews and having a good internet presence and website has also helped my practice immensely as clients can learn about your work and see if you’re a good fit before you even begin your work together.

Next, I believe it is important to connect with the community around you and make connections with professionals, colleagues, and spreading the word of your business. It is essential to have a trusted support group of referral streams close by and vise versa. The more you make yourself known and immerse yourself in the community the more you are going to come to mind first when a client is a good fit for your work. Get to know the area and professionals around you and the more they trust you and your work you’ll see your business begin to thrive as well!

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Narrowing my therapeutic journey down to one specific story is difficult. However, the experience of my journey to where I am today wasn’t always such smooth sailing. In starting or growing any business I think comes a period of having to pay your dues. And the clinical therapy field is no different. You have to go through internships, supervision, and a period of provisional licensure that can be difficult. I worked for a few years at a job that was not easy in the slightest. The money wasn’t great, making it financially tough to live a lifestyle that is by any means flexible. The clientele I worked with was an intense group of individuals with high clinical needs, I was even at times placed in situations that were not the most safe or stable. The paperwork hours often doubled your clinical hours and your self-care takes a plummet.

However, being able to go through these experiences and learn from this type of hard work is what pays off for many reasons. I learned the meaning of hard work, paying my dues, and enhancing my clinical skills with some of the most complex cases I have ever had. I believe I am where I am today because of those few years where I struggled. Great things come from hard work and overcoming major challenges, this is what resilience is. I think if you really want something and have a goal that means something to you, putting in the grunt work and getting through the tough times is a small price to pay when you are finally able to look back at it.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.brightsidetherapyfl.com
• Instagram: @brightsidetherapyfl
• Facebook: Brightside Therapy Services
• Linkedin: Jamie Ratowski, LMFT

Image Credits
Grace Elliot Barbini Photography