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

JoAnne, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard.

At Caught Dreamin’ Therapy, we are different than other practices. We are a team, functioning much like a family supporting one another. I believe in our industry, therapists/clinicians are overworked and underpaid – often leading to burnout. At CDT I have been striving to focus on the care of my clinicians first so that they can care for our clients. It is a win win. They are employees vs. contracted workers and we function as a team. They are paid on a commission, which allows them flexibility to their schedule. They get paid for what they work. Each clinician has been allowed to create their own space where they work (decorating). It is a much different feel than working in an agency and even other group practices where clinicians are required to work 5 days/week 8 hours/day.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My business was born out of tragedy. My late brother Mark S. Weber was murdered in 2008. This was shocking to my system and eventually put me on a different life course. It started with me wanting to honor his words, his art and his life in general. I opened a quirky online t-shirt and art store to honor Mark. It was called Caught Dreamin’. The store was meant to increase social awareness to issues our world was struggling with and to share stories about my brother along with some of his beautiful paintings that I had made into prints. But I always felt it needed a service component. I was also working with a therapist to manage my grief and she said one day…. “you would make a great therapist.” That was all that I needed to hear. And it wasn’t the first time I had heard it. I went back to school and earned my Masters of Social Work. Ironically, the MSW credentials are the same as my late brother’s initials. WOW!!! That blew my mind when I realized it part way through my program. I ended up giving the commencement speech for our Michigan State University’s graduating class telling a life lesson about my late brother Mark. So, I have always considered him a silent partner in the creation and development of our business Caught Dreamin’ Therapy (which is the service component). Once I graduated I began to work at an agency Great Lakes Recovery Centers and then I served as the first school-based therapist that was funded under a grant from the state at Marquette Senior High School. Covid was settling and I realized it was the time to break free and pursue my dream of opening a private practice. I started the practice in Jan/February of 2023 as one person. It is January 1, 2024 today and we are now a team of 11, and growing. We are also in the middle of a move to a new facility with 8 offices, and a conference room for groups! It’s amazing what has happened. Basically the Universe (and my silent partner of course) has listened to my needs/requests and helped guide me each step of the way by providing all the right people at the right time. Things have fallen into place – I am very grateful. A lot of people ask me how I came up with the name, Caught Dreamin’. It’s a great story. Like I said, originally it was for my artsy online shop. I was coming back online and to life after many years of grieving my brother. He used to read me Edgar Allan Poe, the Raven and he loved Ravens and their intelligence and personalities. So the Raven had become symbolic to me – always reminding me of him whenever I would see one. One day, I was driving a long distance down state to visit my oldest daughter Kate who was in college at the time at MSU. It was about a 7 hour drive. I am a person who often gets swept away in a daydream while listening to music. My goal during the drive was to come up with a business name for the store. Nothing sounded right. I thought about using my late brother’s aol name hobo scholar, but that was fitting. And so as I drove, I dreamed. It was one of those moments where 3 hours of driving goes by and you don’t even remember the last 3 hours of driving (do you know what I mean?). and when that happened, I saw this big black Raven perched in a barren tree on the highway looking down at me – and I snapped out of my day dream and made little comment to myself stating “oh hey Mark, you caught me dreamin’ I will pay attention to the road. I kept driving and 2-3 hours later the same exact thing happened to me. I was off in a day dream and there was that big black raven – just outside of East Lansing bringing me back to the road and my car. I said it again with a laugh – you caught me dreamin again. I then visited my daughter, took her out to eat and shopped a bit. It wasn’t until late in the evening when I was crawling into be and opening up my computer to work on the business. It dawned on me….Caught Dreamin’ that is the name of the business! It was a total gift from my brother – I am sure of it. Anyway, Mark was a beautiful soul who taught me how to listen, how to ask questions and be curious and always growing, how to love and be kind to all people and release judgments. He taught me how to express myself through music (I played Suzuki violin and he showed me how to play by ear and through feelings) and try to be myself. We would dance to Prince together when I was a little girl (he was 10 years older than me). He was artistic, creative and also often misunderstood. This is what I bring to therapy, these things he taught me – I listened and continue to listen to others and work to help them see their special strengths and beautiful qualities that they have within – I help people reconnect to their truest selves – their original blueprints and allow that to come forth.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

This is the heart of Caught Dreamin’ Therapy – because the strategy has always been to serve others and be myself in doing so. I feel that in being myself (which is quirky and different) has allowed others to relax and feel as though they can be their authentic selves in my presence. I think people feel this energy, which has brought to me both the team of therapists, coaches and administrative colleagues as well as the clientele.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

This story reflects a building of my own resiliency through losing my brother and then experiencing divorce after 20 years of marriage. I found myself in a situation where I was dependent upon others and there was a lot of learning I had to do. I remember my late brother Mark and some of his last words of advice to me were “Aunie, don’t lose your independence.”

That resonated with me. After the divorce, I was scared and concerned about where I would live. I didn’t think I had any credit and believed I couldn’t buy a house. My dad encouraged me to talk to the bank. I did – and to my surprise, I had great credit and was able to purchase my first house in my late 40’s. I cried when I heard this. I purchased a condo and lived there for a couple of years. It wasn’t my forever home and I knew I was planning to sell it, once I felt ready. The real estate market was booming and I decided it was time to sell and take any profit to start my Private Practice (the service piece of Caught Dreamin). That is how Caught Dreamin’ Therapy was funded.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.caughtdreamintherapy.com
• Instagram: caught.dreamin
• Facebook: Caught Dreamin’ Therapy, LLC
• Linkedin: JoAnne Garrow
• Twitter: Caught Dreamin

Image Credits
Aspen Leigh Photo (professional photos) Anna Garrow (beach shots) Robert Plotezka (group team shot)