We were lucky to catch up with Ellen Smithey recently and have shared our conversation below.
Ellen , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
It is rare to know from a young age exactly what one wanted to do with their life. Lucky for me, I have vivid memories of sitting down to dinner with my family at the age of seven and being asked by my father, “So, what do you want to do with your life?” It was ingrained in me to think about my future, how I would get to that future, and that no matter what it was I was planning for, that I would be su[ported in it. Even at such a young age, my immediate thought to that question would be to help people. I was a very sensitive, empathic, and emotional kid. I also loved art. Between any extracurriculars and school, you could find me drawing, painting, or crafting. By age 12 I had come to the decision that I could combine the two passions and be an art therapist. To be honest, I am not even sure I knew what that was at the time, but I knew I had my family and community’s support, so therefore that continued to be my answer at the dinner table.
Upon entering high school, I worked at a local ceramics studio and got a lot of experience running summer camps, helping people with art materials, and firing the kilns. Towards my senior year of high school, I was beginning to think about my Girl Scout Gold Award and Eagle Scout award project. I knew I wanted to test the waters a little bit more and confirm for myself that what I had envisioned for my life was indeed what I wanted. For my project, I collaborated with a local non-profit that provided a week-long summer camp opportunity for children who use wheelchairs, are quadriplegic, or who utilize respirators. The issue the camp was having was within the art department. The children would run their wheelchairs through paint and then onto canvas making bright, beautiful wheel tracks. However, there was no way to display the art, and the staff felt it lacked meaning to just send the artwork home as a folded up canvas sheet. I was able to contact a local hardware store and get pre cut plywood donated every year to the camp. That plywood was then made into frames the canvas could be wrapped in, therefore creating hangable artwork for the campers to take home to their families. To this day the camp continues to do this project and the campers collaborate in one large canvas that is wrapped and given to the yearly silent auction to raise money for the project and other art supplies the campers need. Experiencing this project and watching it come to fruition gave me more confidence in my decision to pursue art therapy.
Throughout college I was exposed to a variety of different people and situations and truly broadened my horizon. I attended an all women’s college that was surprisingly feminist based in their ideology. I found the exclusion of one of the genders provided a learning space that was free from binary standards, however was not free from racial and socioeconomic standards. The removal of people identifying as men provided me with this different bubble of relationship dynamics, more opportunities to challenge my whiteness, and learn more from the LGBTQ+ community. At the same time, through my classes and internships, I was honing my ideas of what exactly my identity would be as an art therapist. Those 4 years of my life truly started the path to working towards being an intersectional feminist and incorporating that into whatever work I would do.
Following college I attended graduate school for Counseling and Art Therapy in the heart of Washington DC. While this time in graduate school really validated for me that I did indeed want to be an art therapist, it also supported me in my own art and creativity, as well as my passion for social justice. The program taught me to create art in a way I had never created before. My art did not need to be perfect, I did not need to be perfect, and it taught me how to pass the ability to freely create down to my clients. Being in Washington DC offered a plethora of opportunities for me to get involved, learn, advocate, and protest. That experience created two core identity traits and would eventually become words to inspire my future business mission: creator and activist.
Following graduate school I worked in multiple community mental health spaces around Detroit, Michigan and continued learning from and experiencing people from all walks of life. Following the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, I began to get curious about private practice. After asking around and consulting my mentors, I felt that it was time to transition and begin working with clients in a new way. For about 2 years I worked 8 to 5 Monday through Friday on a 16 bed crisis unit in Detroit, and then would head to my office and see clients in the evenings. Eventually I was able to build up my caseload and pursue private practice full time. I have now been seeing clients in private practice for about five years and have owned my own practice for 3 of those years. On top of art therapy I also offer EMDR, Internal Family Systems, Sand Tray Therapy, and Somatic Experiencing Therapy. Sometimes my work is not always linear. I tend to work with people who I like to call lifers. These are people who are sensitive, empathic, and just need a space to feel seen and heard. We do not always follow traditional treatment plans, I will cry with my clients when they are experiencing turmoil and joy, and there is no expectation to fix anything, because I do not believe there is something wrong. This is where my third and final word to inspire my business model has come to fruition: healer.
It is a weird thing for yourself to also be your business. Through the mission word “creator,” I ensure time and energy to make art and post it on my professional page as I think it is important to create and share art. I always ensure 5 sliding scale fee options are open a week for members of the BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities as well as do my best to continue educating myself in anti-racism work, hence holding myself accountable to my mission of activism. Lastly, I know that if my nervous system is experiencing healing, then I can show up appropriately to help another heal. My healer identity shows up in my own weekly therapy, consultation with mentors I trust, and continuing education for my clients. Creator, Healer, Activist are not just identity markers for me, they are also how I guide and run my business.
Ellen , 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?
On social media I am known as The Feminist Trauma Therapist. Through school, internships and related job opportunities, I was able to get a Masters degree in Counseling and Art Therapy. After years of working in community mental health I decided to attempt something new and start my own private practice. I have now been working with people all over the world whether as clients, colleagues, or mentors to hone my craft. Currently I provide virtual weekly one-on-one therapy sessions to clients in the United States or Italy. If someone is located in my hometown of Austin, Texas then there is the option to have in person sessions from time to time. I also offer licensure supervision for art therapists coming out of their masters program, as well as consultation for any established therapist looking to learn more and implement nonverbal therapy practices, such as art therapy, EMDR, Internal Family Systems work, and Somatic Experiencing. What definitely sets me apart from other therapists is my ability to offer so many different types of therapies, I am truly person centered in that way. What also sets me apart is my ability to work with people across state lines due to certain licensing. This means someone does not have to worry about changing therapists if they move often, go between two or more states, or live a more nomadic lifestyle. I am most proud of my business’s identity and how it shows up in the world. My brand stands for creativity, healing, and activism and I think that clearly shows whether you are looking at my instagram, website, blog, or speaking with me. I am proud of my consistency and transparency across the board.
What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?
Initially, being in private practice was my side hustle. As a recent graduate from a therapy masters program, most people, myself included, go into a community mental health job that gets them the hours they need to gain licensure. I have worked in an adult psychiatric hospital, in a pediatric oncology unit, a homeless youth shelter for LGBTQ+ children and teens, a Children’s psychiatric hospital, and a 16 bed crisis unit for mental illness and substance use. Among all of those jobs as a contract worker, none of them offered health care, any benefits, and were often paying a little above the minimum wage. This is a travesty in the mental health community as mental health clinicians deserve to be paid a livable wage and given basic benefits. So, like most therapists in that position, I began my side hustle of private practice. I would work 8 to 5 on the crisis unit and then see clients in the evening, building up my caseload until I knew financially I could leave the community mental health job and work in private practice full time. It was liberating once I was able to only be in private practice. At the time, I was contracting with a specific practice which meant thirty percent of my income was going to the practice to cover my office space, any training they offered, as well as other amenities. After about 2 years at the practice, I was offered a position as clinical director which offered me a bonus hourly rate ontop of my income from clients. I am grateful for that experience as it really propelled me into a knowledge base I had not experienced before, one of leadership and ideal business models. After about 2 years in that position, I found my own business models had changed within the company I was with and I realized I could be making the same, if not more money, and working less if I just opened my own private practice. I have been working in and owning my own private practice since then. I love that I have my own schedule to dictate and I am making more, enough to cover my own benefits, than I did at the previous practice, all while working less.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
Most people right out of graduate school for therapy only take about 2 years to get fully licensed in the state they are working and residing in. However, most people are not aware of how difficult this process is for art therapists depending on a number of factors. For example, most states do not have art therapy licensure. This means that art therapists, who have the same degree if not more specialized, as counselors and masters social workers, are unable to get the necessary protections, cost benefits, and business benefits as others in their field. This often means that just anyone can call themselves an art therapist and not actually have the correct training, therefore possibly causing harm to their clientele. This also means that art therapists often cannot bill insurance, therefore making the ability for clients to afford an art therapist incredibly difficult. When I moved to Michigan, the Michigan state licensure board basically denied my counseling licensure application because of my art therapy training. This made it incredibly difficult to find work and the work I did find did not seem to value the education and expertise I was bringing to the table. When pushing into the private practice space, this made it ten times more difficult for me as I had to advertise myself as just an art therapist, not a counselor. I also could not get my clients through insurance like most of my colleagues, therefore I had to continuously push organic and digital marketing strategies. I definitely persevered and my ability to network and market myself has grown incredibly because of it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.ellensmithey.com
- Instagram: @thefeministtraumatherapist
