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

Hi Marcelle, thanks for joining us today. What’s the best advice you ever gave to a client? How did they benefit / what was the result? (Please note this response is for education/entertainment purposes only and shouldn’t be construed as advice for the reader)

The best advice I ever gave to a client was that you never know what’s around the corner. I typically talk to clients about this using examples from their experiences as well as occasionally self-disclosing how this reminder has shown up in my own life. I’ve had a number of situations in my life where anxious feelings were tough to manage, mostly focused on things that I wanted to happen in my life and worried they wouldn’t. This was present for me when I was hoping to start a long lasting relationship with someone, on my fertility journey, in my career, and other relationships I’ve been part of. I share with people how challenging it was in the moment worrying about the what-ifs of these things not happening. For myself, I found it helpful during that process to explore other opportunities of how to continue to enjoy life if these things never became true. But in times that my hopes did come to fruition, I recognized that once this moment did happen, I never saw it coming. I was so busy talking myself into preparing for the worst and pretending that I could tell the future that I forgot to consider all of the other unknown and wonderful possibilities. When I talk about these times with clients, I explain that there’s no way that I can say that this will be their experience. Maybe things won’t shape up the way they hoped. Maybe that “different” future will have highlights they never considered. Or maybe things will turn out how they planned but they just can’t see what’s next. Whichever way, they most likely have memories of this happening in their life that they can draw from as reminders to sit tight and try to enjoy the ride.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m a California Marriage and Family Therapist who originally wanted to become a high school math teacher. I applied for a number of programs to make this happen but when I was accepted into one of them, it just didn’t feel right. I continued to explore this possibility through jobs that I held in college and was working as a tutor for middle school kids. These youth were part of a program where they could apply to attend private schools and receive additional support financially and academically to promote their success. Their families were trying to give them opportunities that they wouldn’t otherwise have based on their communities and I appreciated how the program was attempting to assist. While working with one of these youth on his homework, he started talking about the stressors he experienced on a regular basis at home and in his neighborhood. His neighborhood wasn’t the safest and it was challenging for him to maneuver through without getting caught up in some negative situations. We put down the books and just talked for a little bit. After our talk, we got back to his work and I recognized how difficult it was for many young people to push through their studies while managing so many other things in their lives. I knew it was a better fit for me to help with those challenges. I started my career working with youth for that reason. I loved their energy and I felt that I was able to connect with them in a way that they felt heard and cared for. I did this work in schools, community centers, as well as family and group homes. And after a period of time and exploring tele-therapy, I started working with families, couples, and individually with adults. Currently, I provide tele-therapy for individuals and couples.

The focus of my practice is on connection- connection to oneself, future, and others. I consider connecting to oneself as exploring their identity, learning to accept themselves, identifying patterns in their life, and recognizing helpful techniques to manage things that they are currently experiencing. Connection to future is based on where someone wants to be. We explore their goals as well as motivations for these goals. We identify what obstacles have made it difficult to achieve these goals and problem solve possible solutions whether they are behaviors or mindset shift. And a connection to others may consist of exploring challenges that they have connecting with others and identifying who are currently supportive people in their life. This may be us talking about communication patterns, appropriate boundaries for their life, or their history in relationships. My main goal in therapy is to have someone feeling more empowered than when they started and I hope that the relationship they build with me and the plan I assist them with developing brings them closer to the person they hope to be.

My style is pretty laid back and have been told that it feels like talking to a friend- a friend with a lot of experience and skills they can teach others. We laugh. Sometimes there are tears. And there’s always respect, accountability, and compassion. I use a mix of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR), Motivational Interviewing (MI), and Structural Family Therapy (SFT).

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

The process of starting and maintaining my own business has been a challenging one. In 2019, I left my job as a Program Manager of a Youth Employment Program in hopes of returning to providing therapy full time. I had already been working part time with an online company and was excited to completely dive back into the profession of therapy. Unfortunately, I quickly learned that this was not a financially sustainable idea. I was making less money doing this job for the about 50 hours a week than I had at my non-profit position at 40 hours a week. My husband was having some health challenges and I was the only financial provider in my house. I had to make changes and I had to do it quickly.

As luck (or fate) would have it, my sorority sister started to talk about opening her own private practice. I was intrigued at the idea and contacted her almost immediately. After she talked me through what she had done, I jumped on it! I designed a website, got myself on directories, and took courses to try to address the logistic and business aspects of running a mental health private practice. About a month later, while still working the 50 hours, I was ready to go and opened my practice.

There’s been a number of hiccups along the way. I got pregnant and became a mother during COVID. My family moved from New York to Texas. And I learned a lot from my business mistakes like not setting realistic rates in the beginning. But almost 3 years later, while raising my son, sometimes being the sole provider in my family, adjusting to numerous transitions, and even processing past and present traumas, my business is still thriving. I had to make sure to remind myself that it wasn’t a pass/fail situation but something that was constantly evolving. I had to make sure that I was connected with supports including other clinicians, my own therapist, and a loving husband who would cheer me on and hug me during the tough times. And I remind myself of my accomplishments along the way.

If you could go back in time, do you think you would have chosen a different profession or specialty?

If I were to wave a magic wand and go back in time, I believe that I would still become a mental health therapist. The change I would make is that I would probably do it sooner. Following college, I had trouble wrapping my mind around the idea of going to graduate school. I was tired of school and wanted a break as well as wanted to feel very confident with my career path if I was going to invest more time and money into advancing my education. I also explored some employment opportunities that ended up not being the best fit for me and it would be nice to skip some of those. Nonetheless, I don’t know if I would appreciate where I am today and having my own practice as much as I do if I hadn’t hit all those bumps along the way. This is the happiest professionally that I’ve ever been and I can’t see myself doing anything else. Although, keep a look out because I have some additional things in the works.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.amplifyconnectiontherapy.com
• Instagram: @act_with_marcelle
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcellejcraig53944/