We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Courtney Greer a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Courtney, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Was there a moment in your career that meaningfully altered your trajectory? If so, we’d love to hear the backstory.
I had twins! This journey is where my personal and professional worlds collided and as a result, my professional goals changed. During my pregnancy with my twins, I had two older sons and was working on my clinical supervision for my advanced licensing, as well as going to school to complete my doctorate and working for a hospice agency full-time. My twins came early and needless to say, adjusting to four kids while working and going to school full-time as well as pushing through supervision all with a partner overseas was an enormous weight to bear. On the outside, it often appeared seamless, as if I had this superhero ability to be “on” 100% of the time, but my internal feelings did not match my external appearance and I was struggling. As a therapist, I was well aware that I was struggling with postpartum depression, I knew all the signs and felt as if I should have all the tools to cope, but even then, I needed extra help through that process, and like many others; that was not an easy pill for me to swallow. Having experienced postpartum depression and observing societal norms and how mothers try to mirror themselves to meet impossible standards inspired me to dive into perinatal mental health. It’s such a conflicting role to play at times because we see all of these memes and photos that portray women being strong and independent and juggling these households with a smile on their faces, and on the flip side of that we hear quotes reminding us that it takes a village, and we easily find ourselves lost on that spectrum. I learned that there is such a lack of awareness and understanding around perinatal mental health; and what these women endure mentally, emotionally, and physically while trying their hardest to care for their children and their families can be life-altering. This is a stigma that needs to be broken and a topic that has to be discussed.
Courtney, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Believe it or not, being a therapist was not the path that I initially set out on. I joined the Army as a young teenager and had the privilege of serving for several years as a parachute rigger on active duty. I will always say that the military was hands down one of the best jobs I’ve ever had, as that experience has greatly shaped the person and clinician that I am today. The army instilled wonderful things in me, including work ethic, integrity, organization, and problem-solving skills. On the flip side of that, the military also introduced me to the “suck it up and drive on” mentality at a young age.
Like many, the idea of suppressing any issues, concerns, triggers, or struggles to simply keep pushing forward came second nature. Years later, as I began exiting the military, I became increasingly more self-aware of the easily avoided things such as emotions, triggers, and trauma. This awareness sparked an interest that turned into a passion as I observed my battle buddies silently walking with these internal struggles, perceiving strength with each step. The experiences and relationships fostered within my military service greatly influenced my desire to walk with others during their most difficult journeys. With that, a social worker turned therapist was born.
I always say that the army was the best job I’ve ever had because it challenged me to work outside of my comfort zones and achieve new heights that weren’t even on my radar. I think the cool thing is that I have taken many of the concepts that I learned throughout my military career and put them into my therapy practice. My goal with my clients is to acknowledge comfort zones and challenge them to step outside in an effort to gain new skills and perspectives. The army engrained the idea of consistency within me and my clients are well are that’s my go-to word! Consistency in discomfort fosters growth, now that’s a concept!
I am now the owner of CG Counseling Services in Rockwall, which is a private psychotherapy practice geared towards individual therapy. I am a perinatal mental health specialist, which is really just a fancy way to say that I specialize in all things parenting, with a big emphasis on pregnancy and postpartum. I see parents at all stages of their journey and for many different reasons varying from infertility, pregnancy loss, adoption, and postpartum mood disorders. I also specialize in grief and loss, women’s issues, anxiety, depression, and life transitions. As of right now, CG Counseling offers individual sessions in person or via telehealth and accepts most major insurances.
One of my favorite things about being a therapist is just genuinely meeting my clients where they are in all aspects. I have created a very calm, relaxing, come as you are kind of office environment because I want my clients to feel like they are coming to hash out life in a comfortable and judgment-free space. The thing that I love most about the brand and the space that I have created is that when we come into that space, we cozy up with blankets, we kick our shoes off, we meditate, we get down to the nitty-gritty, we find accountability and process through the not so warm in fuzzies with what feels like an old friend instead of within a sterile environment. This kind of environment is what I am most proud to offer because at the end of the day I want my clients to feel this sense of safety with me as I hold space for them.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
I think for me, the biggest obstacles I have faced throughout my journey have been breaking through expectations; expectations that I unknowingly set for myself or expectations that came in the form of social norms. I grew up in a single-parent household, where I experienced poverty and domestic violence all within a community where career advancement wasn’t the norm, but violence was. Growing up, college wasn’t something that I had originally envisioned for myself because it wasn’t something that my family members were doing and not something that I was conditioned to want as a goal. I was fairly self-aware at a young age to recognize the importance of person-in-environment and the effects that one’s environment can potentially have on growth, so I pushed myself early on in life to take opportunities that would enable me to move outside of the norms of the environment in which I was raised.
I have a love/hate relationship with the word resilience because although I do believe that everyone has this built-in resilience that we tap into in very different ways, we often misuse the word and lean on it to describe this grit and toughness that is associated with the ability to suck it up and keep pushing. It’s almost as if we often glamourize how many blows we can take before we find our road to success and it’s so much more than that. When I think of resilience, I think of being very conscious about decision-making that moves us outside of our current circumstance, situation, or moment. I think about our abilities to overcome adversity all the while being able to take lessons learned along the way and with that idea in mind, my resilience on my journey comes from observing, experiencing, and then collecting lessons that ultimately shifted the director of my journey.
Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?
Passion! At the end of the day, in order to really thrive as mental health therapist, there has to be some kind of love for the work itself. There should be some sort of desire to help others and that comes across holistically as a therapist, from the office space that we provide our clients down to the word-to-word interactions that we have. We live in a very fast paced world and energy is contagious; so to be able to not only provide this space and engagement that slows down time and allows others to plant themselves in the present but to really love and find passion in it is where one finds the most success. Aside from passion, recognizing the traits that make us all human, even us as therapists and being able to take care of oneself mentally, emotionally and physically allows a therapist to provide effective and efficient work that inevitably will foster success. Our clients don’t need cookie cutter therapists, they need realistic ones that experience all the human things because that’s what shines out during our time with our clients and what I am learning is that being relatable, makes you marketable.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.cgcounseling.net
- Instagram: cgcounselingservices
Image Credits
The Beauty Portrait Studio by Krystal Dawn 331 N 5th St #1117, Garland, TX 75040 https://krystal-dawn.com