We recently connected with Courtney Grimes and have shared our conversation below.

Courtney, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Was there a defining moment in your professional career? A moment that changed the trajectory of your career?

The first 10 years of my career were spent in the Music Industry in various capacities. I lived in both Nashville and Los Angeles, and during that time I went through my own recovery process from an eating disorder. That exposure to therapy – to the miraculous work we can do within our own brains and lives – led me to the field of psychology. I knew I was meant to help others the way I had been helped – to teach everyone what I had been taught! So, after those 10 years in the Music Industry, I decided to go back to school and get a Master’s Degree in Social Work in order to become a clinical psychotherapist.

As I began my private practice, I truly felt I was exactly where I needed to be. Being a therapist, although difficult, felt more effortless than anything else had ever felt to me. I continued to look forward to seeing my patients and clients every week, and felt more and more alive and connected than I’d ever felt before. Along the way, I noticed that our behavioral and mental healthcare systems had some pretty big gaps. There were large voids in care that left way to many people falling through the cracks. A defining moment in my career is when I decided to do something about that.

In 2019 I created my treatment program, The Collective, and I designed it to fill the need for Social Health, connection and community to be integrated into SUSTAINABLE mental and behavioral health. What I saw for many years in my practice, was beautiful, amazing, intelligent, kind people who could not maintain a healthy mind, due to a lack of connection to other people. Maybe they didn’t know how to connect, or where to find people who understood them, or maybe it was more comfortable to stay home alone and scroll through social media instead of taking the risk to truly connect? I founded The Collective based on the fact that humans are designed to be social animals – to survive in tribes, packs, families and communities. When we exist alone, we suffer – big time. And The Collective understand that it’s the relationship that heals – and we are watching hundreds of people come through the program and do just that – HEAL. REALLY heal, because they now know how to change the systems around them, and truly find connection in order to sustain recovery, healing and ultimately peace within themselves. The changes we see within people (in such a SHORT amount of time) is absolutely humbling. They are recovering, they are connecting, they are actually HAPPY.

I don’t know if it was one defining moment for me, actually. Maybe it was several. Maybe it was a lifetime! What I do know, is that I will spend the rest of my career investing in others through The Collective – loving people the best that we can, and teaching them how to love themselves and others.

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

Courtney has an extreme passion for helping others, which is evident upon meeting her. Her goal is to facilitate lasting change among individuals, families and systems by promoting hope throughout all circumstance. Throughout her work as a psychotherapist at Symmetry Counseling, and Clinical Director for the non-profit Renewed, she realized there was a large gap in services for anxiety and depression in Nashville.

Her crowning achievement, The Collective, is committed to shifting social undercurrent, and to model compassion and understanding towards self and others in order to heal, protect, educate and advocate for a life well lived. She strongly believe in, and reminds others that sustainable change is possible – from the inside out.

The Collective offers a different, friendly and non-intimidating approach to the treatment of depression and anxiety. They believe that connection is crucial for sustained healing, and offer the opportunity to move forward together as part of the Collective community. We do not believe in simply managing symptoms. We believe in healing at the core, and the power of relationship, connection and belonging.

Mental and emotional decline does not happen in a vacuum – and neither does healing.

The Collective maintains a strong perspective on social health. Its one-of-a-kind program orbits around the need for connection, and relies strongly on the principle that the relationship is what heals, and is what provides sustainability for a recovered, happy life.

The Collective offers a lifetime, growing community of well-minded people to support you in your recovery, your journey, your life. As you move through our program you will be in a closed group of people – meaning no one will leave and no one new will arrive. After you and your group graduate the program, you will be introduced to all the people who have graduated before you, as well as be introduced to all the people who graduate after you!

Courtney has a strong music background as well. She is a classically trained pianist and opera singer, with a Bachelor’s Degree in Opera Performance. Prior to her career in mental health, Courtney worked for a decade in the Music Industry. Additionally, she maintained regular radio spots as a Sports Psychotherapist commentator for the Tennessee Titans and other athletes around the country, been featured in numerous local magazines and publications including Nashville Lifestyles, N’Focus and the Nashville Scene, and starred in an HGTV television series called “Interiors, Inc.”

Courtney has chaired large fundraisers over the past 15 years in efforts to raise awareness for various causes in and around Nashville including domestic violence, breast cancer, eating disorder awareness and addiction. She is a trained interventionist (BRI-II), maintaining a passion for being on the “front lines” of change, and currently serves as the Clinical Director for Renewed, a statewide non-profit providing help, hope and support for all those suffering from disordered eating. Additionally, she serves as the Chief Clinical Officer for Recovery Club America, a nationwide, online community to heal mental health through connection, coaching and therapy.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

When I opened the doors to The Collective, it was in January 0f 2020. Less than 2 months later, the entire world would shut down. I was devastated, I was terrified, and I had no idea if we would make it or not. Almost immediately, I was forced to entirely shift my business plan and model, move to online/virtual platforms, relegate all staff (and our very few patients) to their homes, and hope for the best.

I was absolutely convinced I had lost everything. I was horrified that I had let down my staff who had all believed in me and this mission, and I wanted to shut it all down and run away! But I didn’t. I’m not sure why, but there was just something inside of me that would not let me stop. I HAD to keep going, I HAD to see this through.

What happened was nothing short of miraculous. Throughout 2020 (and since then, too), the idea that we decline when we are isolated became more prevalent than ever. The exact principle that I had founded the agency on, became the global slogan: “WE ARE BETTER TOGETHER.”

And while 2020 was definitely THE defining year for most of us, I was forced into a position of resiliency. I believed in what we were doing. I knew that we would help many, many, many people. I did not want to let down my team. And mostly I did not want to let down the mission. And now, 2 years later, we are absolutely thriving and even looking to begin our second location!

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

Sometimes managing a team can be really difficult. There are always different personalities, different people want different things, and sometimes it seems you can’t ever make anyone – much less everyone – happy. But the very best advice I have for team managing and morale is this: Focus on your team first.

As a leader, my job is to define our goals, and serve my staff – not myself, and not our clients. I want to make sure that my TEAM is taken care of to the absolute best of my ability, so they in turn, can take care of our clients. I hire people who are the very best at what they do. I hire people who are dedicated and kind. I hire people who crave making a difference in the world. And I hire people who not only elevate our mission at The Collective, but make me a better person, as well. I can teach someone certain clinical skills, or how to operate various computer programs, etc. but I cannot teach someone how to be good at people – how to be compassionate, loving and kind.

It is extremely important to me that my team function as a unit, and not as several, independently moving parts. I know this sounds cheesy, but we really do feel like a family. And when we love each other well, we are also modeling that to our clients!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.mycollectivecare.com
• Instagram: @mycollectivecare
• Facebook: The Collective Nashville

Image Credits
Rachael Black