We recently connected with Katherine O’Leary and have shared our conversation below.

Katherine, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Was there a moment in your career that meaningfully altered your trajectory? If so, we’d love to hear the backstory.

I travelled to and worked in Christchurch New Zealand in 2012 to support the youth after the devastating 2011 earthquake. I came with a base understanding of psychology and human behaviors from studying psychology in Undergrad…. Christchurch flipped the switch of what I thought I knew. Listening to community members’ stories about the devastating event, seeing the community come together, and learning about additional healing modalities was powerful. I remember talking to a specific individual who integrated the body into trauma healing. She told stories of how many individuals were holding so much grief, fear, sadness, and anger in the bodies and were mostly likely not going to discuss these emotions. When she started working with them, there was such a release, shaking, processing, and CLARITY. This was a mind shift for me in that emotional healing MUST involve the MIND AND BODY. When I returned to the States, I realized my passion for studying the mind-body connection in the realm of Mental Health. I found a Holistic Graduate program where I knew working with individuals who experienced Trauma and Chronic Stress was my calling.

Katherine, 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?

I’ve always seemed to be an outlier… outside of the norm. I NOW see this as a strength as it made me see and question systems that I would not have seen or questioned otherwise. Mental Health was a topic that made its way into my vocabulary early on in life…. but not really because even in the 90s there was still a MASSIVE stigma. My mother was severely mentally ill and left when I was a teenager. I never saw her again and found out she passed in a car crash in 2018. OF COURSE I have been in therapy AND had difficulty with therapy. I was called, “annoying”, “non-compliant”, and “not trying hard enough.” Yes, I did eventually find a mental health provider that I connected with AND I still see Mental Health care can be SO MUCH BETTER. My mantra, “be the Mental Health Provider YOU needed when you were younger.” To me, this means connection is key, empowerment is a must, mind-body connection is a non-negotiable, AND reducing shame and guilt with a reclaimed sense of agency and voice is the endgame.

Being a Therapist for over ten years, I also realized the system is a bit broken with it being built off of the insurance model. The more I learned about Trauma Healing and Mind-Body Connection Healing, I realized I couldn’t deliver the BEST care with the most effective outcome under insurance guidelines. Insurance does not allow support outside of sessions, wants a limited amount of time of clients and providers working together, limited modalities that can be delivered, and takes the healing agency away from clients.

Because of this I now solely focus on Trauma and Chronic Stress Coaching. This is where I can be the mental Health provider I needed when I was younger and actually help individuals who experienced trauma make sense of and shift survival patterns. Where individuals actually receive an understanding of how their mind and body learned to survive, thank their mind and body, and then through mind-body techniques practice releasing those survival patterns.

Even in my profession I am a bit of an odd duckling…. It works!

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Just because a system is in place and may work for some, doesn’t mean it works for everyone or is “right” for a majority of the population.

When I first started in the Mental Health Field… I was told “no” a lot on how I can practice and what I can integrate into sessions. I was told I had to “be in line” with insurance guidelines, agency reasoning, and delivery based on only a few theories.

If I followed through with “being in line” I would NOT have my own practice today and have the opportunity to work with and change so many lives.

I had to unlearn that questioning a system is not ok and to stay with the status quo.

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

Humanness, Empowerment, Organization.

Contact Info:

• Website: oakmountaintherapy@gmail.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katieostresscoaching/

Image Credits

Caitlin Lambstrom
https://caitlinlambstrom.com/