We were lucky to catch up with Ashley Radtke recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Ashley, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about the best advice you’ve ever given to a client? (Please note this response is for education/entertainment purposes only and shouldn’t be construed as advice for the reader)

I am not so audacious to present this as the best advice I have given, but I come back to this same idea with different context often- The need for change means nothing about you except that you are alive. I work with introspective and thoughtful people who are skilled and finding more skills at understanding their inner and outer world. But sometimes that habit over extends and the wellness industry has given us language to be suspicious of our ebbs and flows. I work under the education of psychology stolen from wisdom that I will never be able to fully retrace that was contorted into diagnostic manuals for standardized use. I understand the necessity and the limitations of defining our struggles. Consider the audience here when I say- sometimes we have a habit of living in our heads. I make my living understanding and interpreting the complex behaviors and needs of multidimensional people. And still, I urge people to remember that it is ok to change course and not have it represent some deep need. It is certainly possible it does represent a need for fuller intervention. I am not flippant about being responsive to our cues and the inner trust that builds. I am suggesting that the assumption that we cannot find the source of that need to adapt in rest or play is over simplified. The belief that something embodied and organic to our daily lives cannot bring wisdom and that it only exists in the over intellectualized journals marketed to us under capitalism that thrives in our assumption of brokenness and therapy offices, mine included, is fear based. I want all of my clients that give me the honor of access to their inner world to also feel the freedom of non-judgmental awareness and a multidimensional awareness of self. Our world is adaptive or it is harmful. *gestures broadly to the world we see playing out daily in the news* Learning when to dig deeper and when to ride the wave is a life long and inexact art but I am honored to do it every day with the people who welcome me into their world.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I am a mental health therapist located in Kansas City Missouri. I am trained as a Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT/LCMFT). Wherever there is space for me to rant about how language is important, I need to clarify that this title does not accurately represent what I do. In fact, a majority of my work is now and always has been individuals. I am most accurately a systems focused therapist. I look outside the person in my space to understand the ways that systems they interact with uphold their patterns and the ways they push for something different. I have been working as a therapist for over a decade and that aspect of my practice has been a cornerstone. While the systems I consider and are aware of have changed drastically and my presence in the space has changed, looking for the larger system has always had it hold on my work. I am equal parts grounded and practical in my constant citing of research or in pushing for skills such as emotional vocabulary expansion and also open to intangible wisdom of the people who’s lived experiences have taught them in ways I will never fully know. I am passionate about carving out space in my practice to address the intentional system of burnout I see happening especially in people who are engaged in creating change. I think the resiliency and integration tools I have learned are a part of the force that support people as they pursue the varied ways of making change in a world that desperately needs it. To be clear here- I am actively anti-oppression in all of my approaches to therapy. I am consistently learning more about how to support environmental activists, social justice activists, and the intersection of those parts.

Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?

There are a lot of things about my professional decisions I barely recognize much less agree with. But I had one thing extremely right early on. As I decided how to choose a career- after graduating from undergrad with degrees I had no idea what to do with, I don’t want to paint myself as someone who had any certainty to rely on. I remember looking at my book shelf that was filled with books about relationships and observations of those interactions. I remember thinking that no matter what I chose I would need to continue to learn more and be curious about it to continue to be good at it. Finding a field that finds its way into your personhood, that is connected to my unshakable sense of curiosity is part of how I have continued to find my way in a field that is notorious for burning people out. That is not to say that this connection needs to exist overtly but I think it is possible to uncover it and find it to connect yourself back to yourself as you toil away at work in the unglamorous tasks that are always there.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Questions about pivoting in the unyielding uncertainty of the last few years are hard to really pin down enough to respond to but I will try. I know with full certainty that my practice looks different with every shift I have taken. From the multiple adjustments of telehealth, masks, air filtration and back to my home office with a cat on my lap and a sink full of dishes waiting for me, I have changed. I have been confronted with lessons that were intended to protect me as a human behind being a therapist- such as the idea of being a blank slate in therapy- meaning not expressing any ideas from your own perception that are not introduced and endorsed by the client. This blank slate approach showed up in how I dressed and spoke unconsciously. The last few years I see that walls were broken down by my own doing and without my choice. Having clients see my curtains and my cats because telehealth was the only way to continue care was unnerving for a very long time. Going through a collective trauma in parallel to my clients without the wall of therapeutic blank slate to protect me was not my choice. But I have continued to deconstruct that barrier in a way that fits for me. I have taken that nudge and extended it to be unapologetic about my observations of harmful systems as they come up. I have worked to integrate that with my belief that I need to guard against being the expert in any room and cannot make suggestions from my life because that isn’t relevant in the therapy space. Pivoting has allowed me a freedom to lean into the heart of my approach which is challenging systems that are not built for us and finding ways to build better systems moving forward in big and small ways.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.radtkecounseling.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/radtkecounseling/