We recently connected with Christine Hards and have shared our conversation below.
Christine, appreciate you joining us today. Is there a heartwarming story from your career that you look back on?
I worked with a female, teen client struggling with eating-disordered thoughts and behaviors for about a year. During our time in counseling, she reported a decrease in symptoms and, with the help of a dietitian and myself, entered recovery. She shared her experience with counseling as a part of her personal statement for her college application and ended up getting accepted into her dream school. She currently plans to become a dietitian herself. I am so grateful that I got to be a part of her story and that she is using her difficult experiences, and resilience gained from overcoming them, to help others.
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?
Hi Voyage Houston Readers! My name is Christine Hards. I am a Licensed Professional Counselor and the owner of All Things Counseling, PLLC – a private counseling practice in Cypress, Texas. I provide individual, group, and family counseling to children (10 years and older), teens, and adults.
I am able to accept most BCBS, Aetna, and Cigna insurance plans to help subsidize the cost of counseling. I offer in person and virtual counseling sessions for convenient scheduling. I am also happy to incorporate my Christian faith into counseling sessions when requested by my clients.
I am a good fit for clients who are struggling with academic success, problem behaviors, communication, self esteem, depression, anxiety, grief, and divorce.
My life experiences – raised with divorced parents and deaths of multiple family members (including a parent) during my child/ adolescent years – have uniquely equipped me to approach my clients with compassion and empathy. These challenges have given me an opportunity to understand those who are hurting.
Do you think you’d choose a different profession or specialty if you were starting now?
I approach my job as a counselor as more of a calling, then a career. So from that perspective – YES! I think I would choose to serve people as a counselor, or in some other mental health related career.
Through my experiences as a parent, I have learned more about speech, occupational, and physical therapy. I am also interested in those fields and could see myself working with children as a Speech Language Pathologist, Occupational Therapist or Physical Therapist.
Have you ever had to pivot?
My career has hit two major forks in the road, so far:
1.) I initially joined the work force as a teacher. I taught language arts/ reading and social studies to middle schoolers. During my first year of teaching, I had a student disclose sexual abuse to me and I was legally required to report her outcry to Child Protective Services. Through this process, I realized that I cared more about her well-being and healing, then teaching her about World Cultures. This situation prompted me to enroll in a Counseling Master’s Program at Sam Houston State University.
2.) From 2015-2017, I was working full-time as a school counselor and meeting with clients in my private practice during my evenings and weekends. It was during this hectic season of my career that I became pregnant with my first child. As my energy naturally slowed during pregnancy, I realized that the demands of two jobs, combined with my perfectionistic tendencies, was creating an unhealthy work-life balance. I recognized that I needed to make a change in order to prioritize my wellness and the needs of my growing family, so I resigned with the school district. Working in private practice afforded me the flexibility to create my own schedule and spend time with my children during their infant, toddler, and preschool years.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.AllThingsCounseling.net
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AllThingsCounseling/
Image Credits
Photographs taken by Ashley Ebert and Rachel Fontenot