We were lucky to catch up with Danielle Beardsley recently and have shared our conversation below.
Danielle, appreciate you joining us today. Can you share an important lesson you learned in a prior job that’s helped you in your career afterwards?
Hello,
My clinical training background started in grad school, however, it was really shaped and informed by the first couple years of my experience working with clients in residential programming, inpatient hospital programming, intensive outpatient programming and partial hospital programming. I learned a great deal about becoming a wizard at providing psychoeducation about DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy), ACT (Acceptance & Commitment Therapy), CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) and REBT (Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy). These skill heavy therapeutic frameworks were chalk full of applicable tools to bring to client’s lives as they aided in providing a map to advance one’s mindfulness skills, emotional regulation skills, distress tolerance skills and interpersonal effectiveness skills. These are all still cornerstone pieces of psychoeducation I bring to inform my practice with clients as they are practical and effective.
However, I lean into the sentiment that “the older I get the less I know”. What I mean by this is that no matter what therapeutic trends emerge via new research and empirical findings- I can and will continue to learn to figure out and aim to understand so I can deliver the most relevant and current therapeutic tools and most advanced mental/sport performance tools. The more time a helping professional spends in this vocational landscape, the more we realize the less we knew. Admitting this is important and humbling and healthy. It is critical to change our approach in response to learning better in order to do right by others.
I aim to do right by others. However, I can cling to all the new journal articles and newest book releases and still do a disservice to my clients. Because, the most important lesson I learned that has informed my practice in the most profound way is this: we must learn to let people be free. This is what my very first practice at Danny Gordon & Associates Counseling Services taught me via direct guidance, practice and modeling. My first boss within the private practice arena, Danny Gordon, left one of the most critical thumbprints on my clinical heart and mind. And with his guidance and the way he lived out this virtue, really, is what has allowed me to quiet the constant amygdala fire alarm system in my brain that I trained to stay “on” throughout my inpatient/outpatient/residential behavioral health hospital experience.
Danny’s words of wisdom, really, was the remedy that softened my fight or flight to be able to provide my clients the most in the moment version of me humanly possible. Danny’s MI (Motivational Interviewing) training provided to me married with his consistent stance that “we are letting people be free” all informed my addiction counseling work as well as work with clients struggling with self harm and suicide ideation.
Danny’s clinical wisdom and life experience helped introduce a slow down within my initially programmed clinical brain to have a direct protocol for every crisis and execute as soon as possible. This impacted my ability to slow down enough with each individual client to best monitor and assess what we both believed was in the best interest of the client. The slow down also improved my work satisfaction to serve clients day in and day out. Danny is the mentor and boss that helped me see the true idea that “people need people.”
I no longer set off the fire alarm system in my mind and body at the first site of potential risk or safety concern and instead I come closer to a client’s metaphorical fire and smoke and kneel beside them to allow the client to feel and know we were in this together and we, together, have them covered because there is indeed a solution to the problem. And we find a way to safely make it out of the fire and smoke. I quickly and instinctually adopted a way to be with clients in the spirit of reminding them they are fully in control of their own lives and that we will support them through trial and error (aka: learning) in problem solving. And that, that could be okay. People need people who allow and encourage them to be free to explore their lives. I show up as that “people” for other people and empower my clients to realize they too are “people” for other people.
Danielle, 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?
My name is Danielle Beardsley and I found myself drawn to art and psychology all throughout my life as far back as I could recall. I had a natural draw to wondering why we tick the way we tick and how it is we all tick in so many different ways. I instinctively used art making throughout my childhood, teenhood and twenty something hood and didn’t realize it at the time but the art making acted as a third hand in my upbringing to help me make sense of my own inner and outer changing landscape as I navigated life transitions. Art making supported me as I made sense of things outside of my control. It provided me a sense of mastery, grounding and containment. Art making helped me shape and understand my sense of self.
I was always like a moth to flame when it came to art classes and psych classes. When starting college I began pursuing the route of pediatrics or pharmacology. I quickly learned that the love for high school chemistry class was not the same kind of love at the college level. I quickly deducted that I would not want a pediatrician or pharmacist who struggled so much just to pass Chem 101 and 102. In my 3rd year at Loyola University Chicago I was glancing through our LUC magazine/brochure and stumbled upon an advertisement for a school called (at the time) Adler School of Professional Psychology. In this small ad, they quickly labeled the different masters degrees they offered. One degree listed was named “art therapy.” I recall freezing. With delight and deep perplexity. I had never heard of that idea before. Art therapy. Art therapy? Art AND therapy!? I figured this was too good to be true and believed that whatever I initially thought it could be really couldn’t be the truth, that art and therapy could be mixed. So I immediately right then and there took a very deep 3 hour dive into google to find out what I didn’t know. After three hours of researching all I could on what the heck this “art therapy” thing really was and if it really existed- I called my dad. I told him I had just read all about myself. I told him this “art therapy” thing was a real profession and that it was as if I made it up to tailor it to me and my loves, art and psychology. My dad was skeptical and urged me to pause from changing my major, AGAIN, for perhaps the third time at that time as I was already in the middle of my 3rd year in undergrad. Now I wanted to change my mind!?
I told him I wanted to find a way to figure out more about this profession and see if I could tailor my major to ensure I hit the requirements needed to possibly be accepted into a graduate school program that would have me graduate with a masters of arts in counseling psychology: art therapy degree. My dad surmised I would likely not make much money in this area of work and that I would have to understand what I was signing up for. I was adamant that I could make this work. Right then, I was determined to find a summer internship going into senior year of college that would aid in discovering more about what art therapy was and what it perhaps was not.
I sent out a handful of emails inquiring about internship opportunities within the chicagoland area. Over the next 10 plus weeks that went by I heard nothing but crickets. It was not until 3 months later I received an email back from an organization that said they were ready to have me begin in the next week or two. So much time passed that I did not even recall the name of the organization that responded back and had to re-google that organization all over again. I told them I was still in my spring programming in undergrad and engaged in my spring track season but that I was looking to begin an internship at the start of Summer. At that point, I went in for an interview and performed necessary paperwork. Then my experience took off.
The start of summer involved me interning under a board certified art therapist (ATR-BC) at a place called Glenkirk, serving individuals with developmental disabilities. First week in, I absolutely LOVED it. Two, three weeks in, still adored it. Over a month in, I was pretty sold on the fact that this whole art therapy thing was something I was made to do with others. I asked my supervisor if she knew of any other internship opportunities with different populations that I could shadow or intern at and she connected me with her good friend who was also a registered art therapist (ATR) who worked with battered women in hiding at the YWCA. This second shadowing experience sealed the deal for me. I knew with my whole heart and mind that I was ready to commit to enrolling in graduate school to pursue my masters in counseling psychology: art therapy degree.
The beginning of that senior year fall semester I began researching different graduate programs offering this masters in counseling psychology: art therapy degree I was on the hunt for. Applied to a few different graduate schools and interviewed at a couple and in the end I landed at that exact same school listed in the initial art therapy advertisement I happened to stumble upon. I graduated from undergrad at LUC in spring of 2011 and began my first semester fall 2011 at Adler School of Professional Psychology (now named, Adler University).
I got hired right out of grad school at an inpatient behavioral health hospital that I interned at. Spent years there gathering experience and began working with a private practice with a boss who I also interned for. Internships have served me well. Connections are everything. July 2017 I decided it was time to go out on my own and establish a practice called Center for Creative Growth. This July makes for 7 successful years of serving clients via art therapy & verbal therapy aiming to remain sober from substances or process addictions, clients healing from traumas, clients navigating anxiety, depression, performance/social anxiety, grief and loss. Over this past year Center for Creative Growth expanded to include an amazing teammate who offers mental performance coaching and academic success coaching specializing in sports performance, college transitions, executive functioning training and tutoring services.
What sets Center for Creative Growth apart from other therapy and life coaching practices is that we not only offer both art and verbal therapy but also offer non-clinical services via mental/sports performance coaching, tutoring and academic success coaching. Why this is special is that myself and my teammate can provide tailored services for a client while offering options to receive clinical services as well as coaching services.
Center for Creative Growth’s art therapy option elevates clients’ therapy experience by expanding the limits of verbal processing and encourages clients to explore different parts of their inner and outer landscape through the art making experience as a vehicle. Art making is seen as the third hand in the therapy process and can be used in regular consistent frequency, sporadic or not at all. We center our practice around empowering clients to slow down to get in touch with what they value and what are the needs around goal setting to move toward those values. We encourage and support clients to trust themselves in identifying what is most important to them in their lives and jointly creatively problem solve ways to satisfy those needs.
Center for Creative Growth offers telehealth/video sessions, in-person library tutoring sessions, sports team group sessions, on-site sporting event observation/mental performance coaching, “walk and talk” sessions and “run and talk” sessions. We are most excited about offering and providing “walk or run and talk” sessions. These sessions take place in mostly any sort of time of the day and any sort of weather as long as it’s not raining (to avoid damaging headphones and phones). These sessions are offered in the spirit of trust, agreement and commitment that both service provider as well as client will be actively involved walking or running while on a phone call (or in person) during the session. This kind of session arrangement is offered in the spirit of physical movement acting as a third hand in the healing process, as a catalyst to insight and change and as a way to bring increased wellness to our lives.
At Center for Creative Growth we do not work harder than our clients however we are firm in the truth that we will go as hard, as fast and as long as our clients. We have the stamina, force, drive and determination to run with our clients. We do not run in front or behind our clients- we run right next to them. The way we work closely with clients without a doubt has clients feeling a sense of togetherness. We are all in.
Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?
Relationships. Maintaining healthy relationships with supervisors, professors, site managers, coworkers, clients and other like-minded business professionals in the same field and in different lines of work. I have not been successful in my field from existing on an island all by myself. I did not find this level of success and growth from isolating and thinking I can and should develop within a vacuum. I am a firm believer that relationships make this world go around. I have what I have and I am where I am because of connections and energy beyond me, myself and I. We all have energy and to have more people backing your endeavors just means you have that much more vibrational energy propelling you, encouraging and motivating you to keep going, be imaginative and take risks. I am a darn good therapist but mainly I am just really good at relationships. If you can strengthen your bonds, connections and alignment with others who bring value, joy and light energy to your life- then you are the richest person out there. Our ability to create, maintain and deepen relationships is what true networking is all about. Networking is not a sales term learned in business class- it’s a shift in thinking what air you are breathing in and what air are you breathing out to contribute to a room. For the last 7 years I have had nearly zero social media and internet presence to promote Center for Creative Growth. I found out very quickly that I did not need much of those online presence platforms since I still consistently had a waitlist. This waitlist wasn’t from fishing or selling or marketing whatsoever. It was just from investing in my work- my clients’ lives, their families and wellbeing.
Word of mouth is pure gold. No higher professional compliment. I found that being dependable and doing right by clients leads to a gold rush, as word of mouth spread like wildfire. Even as I type this- my website is just now being created and in the works. It is time for Center for Creative Growth to do its own growing and expanding this year which now calls for us to have an online presence to match our larger bandwidth in order to serve a larger number of clients and their needs. However, strong advice I might give any new therapist or helping professional out there aiming to start up their own private practice- focus on the craft first and the flashy marketing features last.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
There were three major times I had to pivot within my private practice lifespan. First time was upon finding out I was pregnant with my first child. I initially felt perplexed in what I was to do. Stop working throughout the maternity leave and come back or stop working throughout the maternity leave and not return. I decided to figure out a way to do both. I made the decision to transition as many of my clients to therapists who I vetted and trusted to oversee the care of my clients. I was still on maternity leave and I was also still connected to my client’s status with obtaining a monthly continuity of care handoff from the appointed therapists. Therefore, I softened the sharp jarring experience of feeling like one has to jump completely back into ice cold water- to return back to work after (4 months off). The transition back to serving clients after a 4 month maternity leave felt right and effective.
The second time I was forced to pivot was when I was pregnant the second time, this time more unexpectedly. This go around I dug deep and found this inner fight in me I never knew I had. I always envisioned myself working less when I had kids and oddly enough when I knew I was pregnant with my second child- a wave of professional motivation hit me and has never left. It was at this point I decided not to transition my clients over to appointed covering therapists but instead I decided to take the plunge and aim to hire my first 1099 contractor to oversee my clients in whatever way she desired. This maternity time around I was even more invested and involved in overseeing my client’s care as I understood a weekly update with their status. This experience had me realizing I was made for much more than I assumed I was made of in motherhood. A new entrepreneurial fire lit in me and has only picked up in heat and size of flame.
The last time I was forced to pivot is a low hanging fruit example. Covid. I could end the sentence there and you might understand a great deal about what I had to pivot around to make continuing to see clients work. I will keep it short.
Basically, I refused to give in to accept the fact that I was forced to see clients virtually from the inside of my own home. I disliked much of those first 6 months of serving clients virtually because I felt my therapeutic capabilities were siphoned. However, the crucial pivot moment came when one day (about 6 ish months in) I decided to finally drop the rope of playing tug of war with wishing it wasn’t so and instead I radically accepted the gravity of the situation that we were in a telehealth shift.
The moment I surrendered to the idea and made room for it to exist without judgment or criticism- I was able to give myself fully to the new craft of telehealth services. That week I decided to get away from the white wall background and move myself to a tiny nook in my basement and actually create an office environment that lended itself to not only creating a comforting visual experience for clients but creating a comforting sensory experience for me too. As soon as that new “office” was set up, furnished and decorated and I finally decided to breathe life into it- it was as if I was no longer a screen away from clients. I was able to experience clients as if they were in the same room with me. Everything changed because my mind changed. The more I let go, the less I felt controlled. And as I write this, here I am over 4 years later STILL mainly providing telehealth/video sessions. Amazing how even the tiniest pivoting changes the trajectory of our lives.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://creativegrowthcenter.com
- Other: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/danielle-beardsley-barrington-il/269019
Image Credits
Christa Lavelle- Christa Ann Photography