Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Lesley Tate-Gould. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Lesley , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about how you went about setting up your own practice and if you have any advice for professionals who might be considering starting their own?
The inception of my private practice in 2014 was not the typical story that I hear from unlicensed therapists embarking on their career, usually to the tune of, “I’ve been dreaming of having a practice of my own since I started school and I’ve done all the research to get me started.” Nope, my thrust into this decision came after many months of contemplating whether to leave the safety net of working within the treatment environment, not entirely having worked out what it would even look like or require of me to open my own practice. What I did have clarity on was that I was no longer able or willing to meet the ever present demands of being a lead clinician in an environment that when asked to jump my typical response would not end at “how high?” but would often include some version of, “what else needs to be done because I can surely get it done”.
I was confident to take on more with a zest for learning and exposing myself to complex presentations, honing my skills in working with multiple members of a system, including families and groups of unrelated individuals. However, this highly attractive work-ethic came with a serious cost, often requiring me to be hastily running between sessions, with hardly a breath in between to actually ponder or critically analyze what I had just witnessed. remove in the clinical room Despite my efforts to transition smoothly, looking back I am certain my patients could feel that harried, tense nature that came with me everywhere. Given my specialization in addressing mood disturbances, I can only imagine the barriers this may have presented for patients to drop into their bodies and practice coping strategies targeting their mood symptoms when their provider was compromised by her own distractions.
While a part of me wishes that the conclusion of this story was something like, “then she discovered how to say no, take care of herself, started her own practice and rode off into the sunset peacefully” real life doesn’t often work out that way. I dove into workshops and courses on how to start a practice, beginning with a tax workshop in which I walked away thoroughly overwhelmed with how to navigate whether to pursue a sole proprietorship, versus a corporation and all of the associated liabilities that came with each. That workshop was like enrolling in a foreign language course with all lessons pointing to the incredible costs associated with starting a practice. To say fear and panic set in is an understatement- I was freaked out, pummeling myself with internal dialogue questioning my sanity for ever leaving my job. During this touch and go period I would tell myself often, “you can either sink or swim, and I’m a damn swimmer”.
One important lesson that I take from all of this, is that starting a practice or any business of your own by its very nature is full of uncertainty and risks. My effort to mitigate these risks resulted in many years of running my private practice more like a side hobby while I had the safety and security of a steady income from different clinical and treatment settings. I told myself during this time that I did this because I wanted to ensure I had contact with a team, having heard from many solo practitioners that the work could be isolating. While I told this to justify my decision-making, the truth was I was terrified to take the leap and place my bets fully on myself. What I know now but didn’t then is that when we make any decisions based in fear, we will grasp onto the very behaviors, often adaptively, that will help us navigate through a fearful state. This for me resulted in doing more of what I knew, taking on more and more work, steering me further away from the work that I loved with clients.
I began challenging this pattern and the ever-present fear in 2021 and am now fully on my own as a private practitioner and business owner since February, 2023. I have an investigative mind, so I continued to devour books and lectures on business ownership within the mental healthcare industry. I was fortunate to have made incredible connections through my years of working in treatment agencies, which afforded me a built-in network of professionals who supported my decision to go out on my own have been lovingly enthusiastic in supporting my vision of doing work that is inspiring and connected authentically to who I am. I am privileged in this profession to witness the incredible spirit and courage of humans striving to liberate themselves from the confinement of fear and self-limiting beliefs. Given my own history, I’d argue I have a lot of lessons to share from my own winding path of self-discovery.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I launched the expansion of my private practice, Summon Courage, which drew inspiration heavily from the courage required from me to walk away from security and into an uncertain realm. I wanted my work to reach more people, some of which may not be quite ready or interested to embark in traditional therapy. Presently, this includes workshops, a weekly women’s group, facilitation of the Safe & Sound Protocol, and therapy services that integrate my training and passions, which include Somatic Experiencing, Attachment Theory and spirituality.
One thing that sets my practice apart from others is that I place a strong, fundamental emphasis on exploring attachment, both presently and in the remote past. How this translates into an office visit is while some providers are approaching care from a top-down, medicalized approach with careful consideration of diagnoses, and “problematic symptoms” my role is being lovingly curious about how these “symptoms” may have served an important function at an earlier developmental stage. Drawing inspiration from Neuroaffective Relational Model (NARM), I believe that most of what haunts people in their adult lives are patterns of behavior that were at one point essential for survival, but in a different environment or season in life may no longer be essential or even effective any longer. This can often be a frustrating discovery, particularly for those that I treat who may have very fuzzy memories of entire decades from their past. As humans, we are programmed instinctively for survival, which for some, may result in their entire brains and bodies turning the volume down on stimuli or environments that are stressful, overwhelming or terrifying. I tend to attract clients that, like me, had ruptures, whether they have conscious recall initially or not between the ages of 0-6 years old. Attachment wounding does not necessarily mean every person is living with some gruesome, repressed trauma history, as this is often the exception not the rule. Clients in my practice arrive with a range of experiences, and while some have survived horrendous pasts, what is more common are those who endorse feeling chronically misunderstood, lacking agency or autonomy in their lives, or not being able to identify one or two people who they feel deeply connected with.
I recently was consulting with a colleague and at one point she exclaimed, “Lesley you really do the most beautiful work with attachment injuries.” Until that point, I had not consciously held this belief, but when she said it, my whole body relaxed, not only from the lovely feelings associated with receiving such a compliment, but rather, because this was so deeply true. I often tell clients I would never ask of them something that I would be unwilling to do. The vulnerability required in this work fosters a working model for clients to mirror, practice in session and eventually implement in their own interpersonal relationships.
Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?
Clinical work exposes you to the most raw, vulnerable and courageous facets of the human spirit. I have had the incredible honor of working alongside people admitting softly, “You are the first person I’ve ever said this aloud to.” That is quite a statement given these days I no longer work with children. This means that held deep within are stories, trauma histories, impacts, and secrets that unquestionably have played a powerful role in shaping a person’s self-assessment, their engagement in healthy versus unhealthy behaviors and the quality of their interpersonal relationships. In order to be the honorable witness to this, it is imperative that I do my own inner work.
Whenever possible, I love presenting at professional workshops catered to up and coming therapists and mental health specialists. These are the lightworkers at their most energetic phase in their career. I look out into the audience and can spot versions of me out there- enthusiastic about creating change in the world, committed to dismantling unhelpful patterns that are long outgrown. I emphasize with a tone that takes a serious turn the importance of each helper and healer doing their own therapeutic and spiritual work. Clients will only go as far as they believe a therapist can withstand. A mentor of mine used to say the equivalent of, “If you want to see how deeply your clients can go energetically and emotionally, look inward and see what work you’ve done to provide safety for them to do so.” It is our right and responsibility to heal what we have been through to ensure that we maintain our professional and ethical oath to first and foremost, to do no harm.
This segues nicely into another helpful tool: do not try to be everything for everybody. Do what inspires you, is most deeply connected to parts of yourself and do it over and over until you become masterful. For me, as a clinical psychologist, this translated to choosing an area of study and professional interest and getting additional training, advancing your understanding while also being dedicated to ongoing learning and discovery.
If you could go back, would you choose the same profession, specialty, etc.?
This career path chose me, not the other way around. I was built to do this work, long before I ever embarked on an academic journey to help legitimize my career. However, I do envision in an upcoming season of life finding some creative way to blend the love I have of this work with my other love, cooking for others. I used to joke to friends and say, “In another life I would have a bed and breakfast and welcome guests into my home to rest, connect and eat really great food.” Today, I am exploring ways to make that happen in this lifetime.
Contact Info:
- Website: summoncourage.com
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/summoncourage
- Substack: http://courageouspath.substack.com/
Image Credits
Jon Leon