We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kaitlin & Paul Kindman. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kaitlin & Paul below.
Kaitlin & Paul, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?
Kaitlin: From a very young age, my parents frequently said I had “leadership potential.” This was code for “you’re being a big pain in my butt and asking tough questions and you’re only 3!” But in all seriousness, they had a sense from when I was quite little that I had a big vivacious energy, an entrepreneurial spirit, and was very excited to do my own thing and be my own person and were incredibly supportive of helping me hone my authentic interests. I was incredibly curious and had so many diverse interests even when I was very little. Instead of trying to direct me towards anything they thought valuable or to get me to focus on one interest, they put me in a Montessori preschool where I was supported to experiment with many interests like pottery, violin, singing, learning french, etc. I took a fascination to climbing on poles and structures at school and my teachers shared this with my parents and instead of trying to curb my energy and want to do this, they got me gymnastics gloves to support my exploring and climbing without getting blisters! One of the most essential skills that supports me as a business owner is not only an ability to wear many hats and do many different jobs, but also to have a genuine interest and engagement in the wide variety of jobs and tasks I have. While I can definitely feel challenged to stay engaged with the same job day to day, my parents support of my quickly changing interests and providing me the tools to really explore what captivated me rather than try to rein me in have absolutely set me up for success as an entrepreneur. This kind of support also helped me learn that I can be good at many different things and helped me build confidence in my ability to tackle a new task or role that I’ve never tried before. Being a business owner can feel incredibly vulnerable and risky and this kind of confidence is such a comfort to lean on! There is always something new that I’m facing—a new challenge, opportunity, learning moment, etc and I believe that my parents support of my “leadership potential” truly taught me to face new experiences with openness rather than debilitating fear, which feels like a tremendous privilege that I couldn’t be more grateful for.
Kaitlin & Paul, 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?
We co-founded Kindman & Company, a relational, feminist, and social justice informed psychotherapy group practice in Highland Park, Los Angeles. our clients are progressive individuals, couples, partners, and relationships of kinds. Working with many queer. BIPOC, clients in expansive relationship structures and partnerships, those with unique and creative life experiences and many intersections of their identities, we specialize in helping our clients build more authenticity, have increased intimacy and vulnerability in their relationships, and embrace parts of themselves that society and trauma have previously taught them to feel ashamed of and to cut off from. We adopt a strong anti racist and anti oppressive stance that we strive to bring into both our clinical work with clients as well as our team culture and business practices.
What sets us apart from many other therapy practices is that as relational therapists, we firmly believe in being humans first and therapists second and our approach to working with clients primarily focuses on building a safe, supportive, therapeutic relationship where both therapist and client learn from one another. We don’t take an expert stance, instead we believe that all humans innately possess the wisdom and tools they need to grow and adapt to make the changes they’re seeking, and we are here to walk alongside them and support them in this journey. So many of us humans are hungering to feel seen and understood and often have so rarely felt this. One of the things we’re most proud of is that everyone on our team is incredibly passionate about and dedicated to hearing, seeing, understanding, and truly just “being with” our clients which gradually helps people build back safety being in the world and In relationships.
As human beings first, we also model our own humanness, messiness, emotions, & share our vulnerability with our clients. We say that “this is not Freud’s blank slate therapy!” We know that leading with our authentic selves and processing what’s happening in the here and now within the therapeutic relationship dynamic helps strengthen the relationship, cultivates safety for building deep emotional intimacy that supports meaningful growth, and helps clients develop the relational skills to show up this way in their relationships outside of the therapy room! We deeply believe in how we work and it’s always enriching and rewarding for us to get to be allies and hope-holders for our clients.
We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.
That’s an easy one for us since we’re married to one another! We actually met many years back through a training site and community mental health agency, The Relational Center. Paul had trained there a few years prior and Kaitlin was training there at the time and we kept running into each other at specialized community events for therapists and other healthcare practitioners that Kaitlin was co-hosting called Psychobabble. After a year of repeatedly crossing paths we went out for a casual date and on that first date chatted about how if the relationship worked out, we’d love to start a private practice together that was rooted in our relational therapy training from TRC and really upheld social work/community mental health ethics and values.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
Most days were incredibly grateful to be business partners and that there are two of us running the practice together. We can’t even imagine what it would be like to wear all of the different hats that we do alone! As we were just starting out though, we both tried to do all of the bigger picture tasks and decisions together to promote a sense of equitability in how decisions are made and not leave anyone out. After a lot of frustration and inefficiency because it took so long for us to accomplish essential tasks this way, we learned to really divide into buckets whose tasks and decisions are whose to execute independently and set clear expectations and agreements about what things need to happen together. For example, as the Practice Director & CEO, Kaitlin’s oversees all marketing efforts, website design, branding, systems management, onboarding of new employees, etc. Whereas Paul as the Clinical Director & CFO, focuses primarily on clinical supervision and management of the supervisors, managing practice finances and payroll, and addressing clinical concerns. But we know that we both need to weigh in together on any personnel or HR issues, any potential changes to systems or policies, and/or any new challenges or opportunities we’ve never encountered before. We’ve also tried to make it very clear to our team members who to go to for what and when we will need to consult with each other before giving them an answer on something. Clearly delineating each of our responsibilities and empowering each other to execute tasks and make decisions for things that fall into our respective buckets has freed up more time for us to keep moving and stay flexible in our business, while knowing the things we will make sure to tackle together helps us confidently trust each other and the knowledge that we’ll both be involved when we need to be.
This has also helped us better protect our time as partners outside of work—it leaves more space for time at home to be about being at home together and caring for our life partnership, not just the health and success of our business!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.kindman.co
- Instagram: Instagram.com/kindman.co
- Facebook: Facebook.com/kindman.co
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kindman-co-therapy-for-being-human
- Other: Our podcast! https://open.spotify.com/show/3yxlnC1yj0xRUGdGjeXmxB
Image Credits
All images were taken by Wanderlust Creatives except grey couch with gold pillows which was taken by Paul Kindman