We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jennifer Yaeger. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jennifer below.

Jennifer, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear the backstory of how you established your own practice.

I had been a Licensed Professional Counselor for 16 years before I started my own business. I decided to go out on my own because I had a vision for having a practice that not only offered counseling, but also offered Yoga for Mental Health, Expressive Art Therapy Groups, and Massage Therapy in order to help people take care of their mind, body, and spirit. I started small with one practitioner from each field in order to see if the business model would even take off. I allowed my business to grow bigger than our space even allowed in order to make sure that when we moved into a bigger space, that I could maintain it. We soon tripled our business space as well as the number of practitioners. We are constantly trying out new programs to attempt to meet the mental health needs of our community. Some have flopped and some have done well, so we just keep generating new ideas and seeing what is successful. I would advise anyone who was attempting to start their own practice to start small but dream big, keep trying different ideas, and look to the needs of your community to see what direction to take your practice.

Jennifer, 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?

I decided to go into the field of psychotherapy when my roommate in college told me that it would be a good idea because all of our friends came to me with their problems. I went straight from college to graduate school and then straight into my career. I have been a therapist for a long time and years ago, you hardly ever heard the term “trauma,” which is used almost constantly now. Back then, I was running an intensive group for women and recognized their stories of trauma as well as the fact that traditional talk therapy seemed insufficient in attempting to heal it. I started researching other modalities to use with them and discovered expressive art therapy as well as trauma-informed yoga. I was trained in both and began to see dramatic increases in healing in my clients. I have even created a workbook, “21 Day Expressive Art Therapy Journal for Emotional Expression” (that is available on Amazon) and have plans for more expressive art therapy workbooks to come.
I am proud of the business model that I have created that includes: Counseling, Trauma-Informed Yoga, Expressive Art Therapy, Massage Therapy, Acupuncture, Reiki, Himalayan Salt Sauna, Meditation Room Experience, and Self-Care Retail.
I am also very proud of our newest venture in establishing a non-profit, the Frayed Edges Foundation, that raises money to offset the cost of therapy for those who cannot afford it.

We’d love to hear about you met your business partner.

My business partner is actually my sister! I know that a lot of people could not manage a dual relationship like ours, but we are extremely fortunate in our relationship that we compliment each other beautifully. She is a detail oriented person who is extremely observant , notices everything, and feels most comfortable behind the scenes managing. I am a big picture person who is constantly coming up with ideas and is extremely comfortable dealing with people. Together we form the whole package and I could not maintain this business without her.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

I manage my team with a fairly hands off approach, as they are all professionals with a high level of training. I trust that they are capable of managing what they can and then asking us for assistance in the areas that they need it. I meet with them regularly and make myself available to them, but I do not micro manage them at all. We also have a perks at work package for our team members that includes some free services that our business provides (like massages, use of the Himalayan Salt Sauna, Yoga Classes, etc.). We also provide a yearly retreat in order to attempt to pamper our team and show them how much we appreciate the hard work they do for our clients.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.SeaGlassTherapy.com, www.FrayedEdgesFoundation.org
• Instagram: @sea_glass_therapy, @frayededgesfoundation
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/seaglasstherapynewnan, www.facebook.com/frayededgesfoundation