We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Candace Purifoy a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Candace thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear the backstory of how you established your own practice.

Even while I was in graduate school I knew I wanted to go into private practice. From the time that I began envisioning my future as a therapist I always saw it as an entrepreneurial effort. Which was actually somewhat confusing to me, because previously, I had never planned on owning a business. In fact, I had planned a very comfortable and cushy life for myself as a senior executive in an entirely different field. But, accepting God’s call on my life meant accepting his call to counsel and to entrepreneurship. In fact my faith is actually the reason I wanted to enter private practice. I knew that I wanted to create a space that was able to address Mental Health from a Christian perspective. A place where those who were looking, could find psychological care that wasn’t in conflict with the faith they hold so dear, but actually working in tandem with it. And so, I began building my practice from the ground up. I was so nervous. So many times I doubted myself. I thought, Is this going to work, how are you going to grow this business? Are you making a mistake by connecting your faith to this work? But much to my surprise and excitement the phone started ringing. Almost every person that found me stated that they had been googling Black Christian Therapist and my name came up. My gamble paid off and people were looking for a practice with faith based principles. Thankfully, Refreshed Counseling Services has been growing ever since. And now, with our recently added consulting services we help other practitioners build faith-incorporating practices as well.

Candace , 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?

I am an Ordained Pastor, Licensed Professional Counselor and Motivational Speaker. I help people heal from past wounds, navigate relationships, and adjust to life transitions. After leaving a successful but unfulfilling career in corporate America, I knew that I needed a change. I went to grad school and received my Master’s of Arts in Counseling from Ashland Theological Seminary. After working in the Community Mental Health and nonprofit sector, I founded Refreshed Counseling Services, a private therapy practice in Farmington Hills, MI.
Refreshed was a longtime dream of mine that came to fruition in 2017. It is a full-service psychotherapy practice. At Refreshed, I blend my clinical knowledge of psychology and biblically sound teaching, to create a unique atmosphere where people are encouraged to discover confidence, find healing from difficult or traumatic events, and gain clarity in their identity and purpose. We provide individual, group, and couples counseling services for anxiety, depression, trauma, spiritual confusion, and building self-esteem.
We also offer consulting services, workshops, classes, and trainings to the community. We conduct trainings on mental health matters for churches, schools and businesses, as well as, running support groups for nonprofit organizations. As a professional speaker, I also provide services as a keynote speaker, panelist, and retreat facilitator. In addition, we sell products and tools to assist clients outside of the therapy room and advocate for faith and mental wellness. This includes T-shirts, pens, and journals, and most recently “A Moment for Myself” A Self-Care Affirmation Card deck I created for Christian women.
What makes Refreshed unique is that the practice is rooted in Christian beliefs, and specializes in helping those that may want to integrate their faith into their journey toward mental health and wellness. We are uniquely trained and positioned to offer spiritually informed and psychologically sound, high-quality therapeutic services. We use a holistic approach to partner with clients to help them proactively strengthen their relationships and personal well-being.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

Absolutely! One of the biggest obstacles that I have had to overcome was not having any entrepreneurship experience. I was the first business owner in my family. I had to teach myself how to actually run a business. Webinars, trainings, videos and books were how I learned to develop business acumen. Some of the videos that were the most inspiring and transformative for me were TD Jakes’ Sermon “Just Do It” and Simon Sineck’s Ted Talk on “How Great Leaders Inspire Action”. Entrepreneurship can be a very emotionally taxing journey. There were so many times that I found myself not knowing or understanding how to navigate certain seasons. I would often get deeply discouraged based on how revenue was flowing or if new clients were coming in. But these two videos helped me to refocus. They taught me how to put my emphasis on my “Why”. Recentering around my why gives me the push to weather the inevitable storms that come from owning a business.
There were a number of books that were also very impactful for me as well. The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan completely changed how I managed my time and increased my productivity. Profit First by Mike Michalowicz revolutionized my entire financial structure. I had so much about money that I needed to unlearn and this book truly helped. It pointed out so many errors I was making and gave me an accounting system that helped to fix them.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Being a faith centered entrepreneur there are a lot of unique challenges that come up. When your faith is connected to the work you do it brings your ingrained ideas about money to the surface. One of the biggest lessons that I had to unlearn was regarding money. I really struggled with believing that because I was called to helping in this capacity that I shouldn’t be compensated effectively. There was a place of guilt in my mind between operating in my passion and being paid to do so. I still remember the very first client I ever had in private practice. After their first session, when I collected the payment, I remember not being able to believe I had just gotten paid to do something that felt fun and fulfilling. It was almost as though I felt that in order to actually be working hard, or doing kingdom building work, that it must be difficult, painful or involve suffering. I had to completely unlearn this. Operating in this way initially almost derailed my business. I was drastically undercharging, I was scheduling and servicing too many clients, and I wasn’t honoring the policies and procedures of my practice. All of this because ultimately I had the incorrect message that helping others required me to suffer. If I could offer any guidance to any other entrepreneur, especially those in helping professions it would be this. Please understand that you do not have to set yourself on fire to make other people warm. You have every right to do the work that fulfills you, excites you and inspires you, AND to get compensated well. I am so grateful to have unlearned my unhealthy money mindset and developed a more balanced and productive belief.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.RefreshedCounseling.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CandacePurifoyLPC
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@candacee.purifoylpc2579