We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Dr. Stevi Gould a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Dr. Stevi, thanks for joining us today. Was there a defining moment in your professional career? A moment that changed the trajectory of your career?

On Valentine’s Day of 2020, a lot changed… and a lot more was to come. During February 2020, I was a practicing therapist working at a very successful private practice located throughout the Chicagoland area, Skylight Counseling Center. I was still in grad school, half way through writing my dissertation.

Not unlike every other day, I took my chocolate lab, Kaia, to the dog park. We went to a different park than we typically do, although we had been there before once or twice. It was a small, but decent sized dog park. I was enjoying watching Kaia play with the other dogs, running and jumping, and chasing each other– you know, dog things. Thirty minutes into dog-parking, I had no idea I would wind up in the emergency room an hour later.

A group of dogs swiftly sprinted by me, and one had knocked right into the back of me. I immediately wiped out. I fell down to the ground and began to moan in pain and fear. I knew something was wrong. In my childhood and throughout grade school, I had broken 6 bones. I knew what it felt like to have a broken bone. I looked down and saw I couldn’t move my wrists and I couldn’t move from laying down. My spine hurt. I learned I not only broke my two wrists and needed intense surgery, but I had also fractured my tailbone.

Me, being the passionate student and clinician I am, I thought of my clinical work and my dissertation. Forget my health, how am I going to finish my dissertation? What about the clients I see each day? How am I going to walk Kaia? It was then I decided I needed to recruit some help. Although, one problem: I have difficulty asking for help.

Turns out, when you allow yourself to be vulnerable and to be supported by those who truly want to help and be there for you, it’s a win-win. The most salient moment of this whole unpredictable and chaotic scene was when I took the risk and asked for help. It is the most courageous thing to be done. This value of mine has allowed me to receive help from my family, my friends, my professors, and my network of therapists. I succeeded in defending my dissertation and have continued to my clinical journey because I had a village cheering me on and supporting me. Always ask for help.

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

Hi, everyone! My name is Dr. Stevi Gould. I am a 31 year old woman living her dream in Chicago, IL. I moved up to Chicago from Charlotte, North Carolina to go to graduate school. My plan was to sail through my Master’s program and right into my PhD. I had it all worked out in my head. Ever since I was a little girl, I had always known I wanted to get a PhD. Perhaps the idea stemmed from my family, my dad being a very successful psychologist and my mom *literally* winning teach of the year. I came from a family that loved education. I felt the path was always something I wanted to do. So, as soon as I got accepted into my Master’s. program, I booked a flight with my dad and off we went to scope out The Windy City. Seven years and many walks down Dearborn Street later, I have just successfully defended my dissertation. I officially have my doctorate. That’s pretty cool, huh? Along from being a recent PhD grad, I am also a licensed Couple and Family Therapist (what I studied in school). I work with clients all over the Chicagoland area. Ever since the pandemic, like a lot of things, my clinical work became remote. So now, I get to have my co-therapist, Kaia, my chocolate lab, join me each hour of session throughout the day. She is helpful by giving me the side eye from the couch- really great moral support.

I work at a successful private practice, Skylight Counseling Center. Funny enough, it was my first doctoral internship. I wound up loving it so much, I stayed and decided to make it a job. My area of expertise is in grief and loss, specifically ambiguous loss. Ambiguous loss is a fancy term for any emotional or physical loss an individual experiences, that does not have a clear ending. For example, when a loved one passes away, there is a clear emotional and physical loss that is recognized by surviving family members and on a more macro level, the world; there is information about how or why the person died and there are unique rituals performed to commemorate the loved one. Ambiguous loss, as the title suggests, involves experiencing a loss that goes nearly unrecognized by society.

I bring this knowledge and awareness to clients who often feel the emotions of grief but who have never been “allowed” to mourn their loss. My theory of therapist is called Narrative Therapy. This means that I view my clients as the experts of their own life. Who better than the person talking about their experiences to know best? My role as a therapist is to rely on my clients’ stories and recounts of their experiences and to help make sense of them. Rather than coming from a standpoint of directing my clients on where to go with their feelings, I take a backseat, and allow them to show me their world through their eyes. I listen to the language my clients use and use it back to them as a way to develop a mutual understanding. Through this way, trust is built within the relationship, and trust is everything when it comes to therapy.

The most salient trait of my work is curiosity. In a world where it is second nature to judge, I lean into my genuine feelings of curiosity about someone’s lived experience. I feel I am merely a learner as I am listening to them teach me of things I do not know about their life.

Do you think you’d choose a different profession or specialty if you were starting now?

If I could go back, I would choose the same profession. I think I was born to be a healer. The ways in which accountants understand numbers, I understand emotions. I cannot deny a nature calling to help other people. I see the human in people (and even some dogs, too). I am of the opinion that if I feel I have the capacity to listen to, understand, empathize so easily, I should put it to use. So now, I never work a day in my life.

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 lesson I had to unlearn was to make my rigid boundaries more flexible. The older and older I get, the more I realize that we do not live in a binary world. It is never this or that. It is never as simple as black or white. The human living experience happens within a spectrum. My success in grad school and clinical work grew exponentially when I figured out that I am allowed to shift my way of thinking into a way of thinking that is actually more realistic.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: slg92.___
• Facebook: Stephanie Leigh
• Linkedin: Dr. Stevi Gould
• Other: email: gouldstevi@gmail.com and stevi@skylightcounselingcenter.com