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

Marisa, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

In the Fall of 2015, I was working as the Director of Educational and Counseling Services at an elite independent school in Philadelphia, PA. I had been at that school for 12 years, and my 2 daughters were enrolled there in 12th and 9th grades. My husband loved his job at a healthcare data company in Center City Philadelphia, and we lived in a wonderful neighborhood called Mount Airy. Life was good! In early October, I received a call from my former Head of School who had recently taken over as the Head of a prestigious girl’s school in Los Angeles. She was wondering: would I be interested in moving to Los Angeles to found and lead a new department of educational and counseling services at this well-known school?

In the “Yes, Move” column: my husband and I had lived in Portland Or in the early 1990s and had always intended to move back to the West Coast, and my sister had been living in Los Angeles for over 20 years, so we had visited the city many times and loved it. However, we had never considered living in Los Angeles, and we were not really looking to upend our lives. Then again, while my life in Philadelphia was rich and full, there had been many changes at the school where I worked, and I was feeling somewhat stagnant professionally, and I really admired my former school Head and loved working with her. She was offering me an incredible opportunity to be a leader in creating and maintaining a culture that supports mental health at this new school. My older daughter was getting ready to graduate High School and was planning to attend college in Southern California. Upon being asked how she felt about moving to LA, my younger daughter said “I don’t really want to move, but if you think it’s a good idea, I’ll try my best to be happy about it.” My husband was ready for a new adventure and was excited to live on the West Coast again, so I agreed to take the leap and move my entire family 3000 miles for my new job.

We sold our home in Mount Airy, and moved to Los Angeles, where we rented a small home nearby to the school where I would work. My husband arranged to keep his job and work from home while he looked for an in-person job in LA. We enrolled our younger daughter in 10th grade at my new school. I began my new position on July 1st and it felt invigorating to be at a well-resourced school, as a member of the senior leadership team, and to be working with highly intelligent and motivated students.
I was also surprised to find that many faculty at the school did not understand what a school psychologist was or did, and did not necessarily understand why I was there. In fact, in my first 1:1 meeting with one teacher, he asked me directly “Why are you here?” I spent that first year observing and listening so that I could understand my new environment, and very quickly my office was full of students who wanted to talk. My work with individual students has always been my favorite part of any job I’ve held in a school. The next year I was able to hire an additional school psychologist, and we continued to grow the department and develop the curriculum. I stayed in that position for 7 years, and in June 2023, I took another big risk, leaving the world of schools to start my own practice.

I took the risk of moving my whole family and life across the country in my middle age because with the gratitude I felt in the other areas of my life, I felt that this adventure and challenge would be good for me and good for my family. And now, 8.5 years later, I can confidently say that I am glad that I did take that risk.

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?

I sometimes joke that I am “recovering psychologist,” and by that I mean that I have been a psychologist (my PhD is in Clinical Developmental Psychology from Bryn Mawr College and I was a certified school psychologist for years) but I now practice in a way that builds upon my doctorate and my years of experience but goes beyond what I was allowed to do as a psychologist or therapist. I call myself a clinical mental health coach because the root of what I do is help people function more effectively, suffer less, set and achieve goals, and thrive in all of the relationships in their lives.
My mother was a family therapist, and somehow growing up I was the friend who everyone came to with their problems, even though I was no happier than anyone else. I studied psychology in college mainly because those classes were some of the only ones that interested me and my parents wouldn’t let me go to art school. After college, I worked in 2 different residential schools, one for adolescents, then one for younger kids, and this work was incredibly hard emotionally but also very rewarding. I decided that I wanted to become a child therapist, and luckily I was admitted to the Clinical Developmental Psychology program at Bryn Mawr College, which was pretty unique for its dual foci.
After completing my Master’s degree, I became certified as a school psychologist in Pennsylvania, and had 2 children, so I continued to work on my dissertation project at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School while I also worked part-time as a school psychologist. It took me 10 years from the time I started, but I eventually did complete my PhD as well as my school psychology and clinical psychology internships. By then, I was working at a local independent school, sending my kids there, and living a fulfilling and meaningful life. I was also learning to cope with an anxiety disorder and previously undiagnosed ADHD.
After moving to Los Angeles to create and lead the Department of Educational and Counseling Services at an elite girls’ school, and getting my own children through High School, I decided it was time to revisit my old career goal: a private practice. However, in the 25 years or so since I first had that dream, my educational and life experiences compelled me to consider a different approach to helping families and individuals than I had originally imagined. Instead of a therapy practice focused on children, I found a clinical coach of my own and began to ideate on the kind of work I wanted and felt called to do.
For me, coaching is different from therapy in the following ways. As a therapist, I am restricted to objectivity and to presenting myself as a blank canvas. As a coach, I can offer direct advice and can intentionally include insight gleaned from my own lived experience when appropriate. My ability to integrate my lived experience and my humanity with my education and training allows me to build trust to get to the heart of the presenting issues and start to move my clients forward very quickly. One client described me as a “unicorn” because of the depth and breadth of my knowledge and experience.
I am available to my clients outside of weekly sessions because one bad fight can cause damage to a relationship that takes months or even years to repair, and if I can intervene and help my clients act intentionally instead of react destructively, we are able to effect positive changes more rapidly than in traditional weekly therapy.
One of my frustrations with the field of psychology stems from its focus on determining a standard of “normal” and pathologizing anything that exists outside of those narrow parameters. This approach is problematic for many reasons, including that this deficit model often causes people additional suffering when they experience shame or self-disgust for being “broken.” Instead, I help clients understand their unique constellation of strengths and challenges, and the patterns of responding or coping that they have developed over their lives. When we understand that those patterns emerged because they were necessary and useful at a time, but may no longer be serving my client’s current goals, we are able to tackle making changes without the self-judgement that can often accompany help-seeking. I often tell clients that I don’t have a magic wand or easy solution, but I can offer you a path forward and will walk on it with you.
Navigating people through sustainable change is what I do best. People often have insight and skills that have allowed them to achieve in their personal and/or professional lives, but no life is free from feelings of doubt, failure, confusion, and suffering. I help people create and maintain the conditions in which they and their relationships grow and thrive.
I meet with clients virtually or in their homes and we often have frequent texts or phone calls in between formal sessions. Coaching allows me to work with clients all over the world. When appropriate, I offer bespoke intensive sessions, where I go to the client’s home and work with them on specific topics or goals for several hours or days at a time in order to gain momentum or work towards resolution of a particular breach. In addition to weekly sessions, when appropriate, I offer clients a monthly concierge coaching service where I may be available to them every day if necessary.
When I started my practice, the majority of my clients were adolescents and their parents; now I work with a wide array of individuals, couples, and families. Several adults have stayed with me for coaching in their professional lives after their children became more stable. Sometimes a client may need additional care such as trauma therapy, psychoeducational evaluation, psychiatric consultation, or work with a nutritionist or other professional. For these clients, I search for and vet these resources, make recommendations, and then serve as the “quarterback” to be sure that everyone is informed and working on the same team towards the same goals.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

After almost 30 years of working in educational institutions, I decided to bet on myself and start a private practice as a clinical mental health coach. I was not forced to make this pivot by any external factors, but I did feel called to make this change from within myself. As I moved into middle age, I felt that I was at the apex of my professional skill. I also felt incredibly burnt-out from the front-row seat that I have had to the decline of the wellbeing of the American adolescent. I no longer wanted to be a part of the college-industrial complex which contributes so much harm to young people. I wanted to be able to care for myself and members of my community, which my school jobs left me too depleted to do consistently. I wanted to be able to share my expertise with clients who were as invested in their growth as I was. I was terribly scared to leave the “security” of my prestigious job, and I had a real scarcity mentality around money that has been an ongoing challenge as I navigate self employment. I recognize the enormous privilege that I have to even be able to consider pivoting in this way. Now, 1.5 years after leaving my last full-time school job, I could not be more happy and proud of myself for taking the leap. I am finally recovering from burnout, and with the ability to set my own schedule and do only the work that resonates with me, I can honestly say that I feel like my best, most authentic self. The feedback that I receive from my clients tells me that they appreciate my authenticity and my humanity and find it to be unique in the field of mental health care.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Everybody knows, has, or is a therapist. I myself have had many therapists in my life; some were pretty bad, and a few were life-changingly amazing. When I pivoted to coaching, one of the reasons I made that choice was because I wanted to be able to show up completely as my authentic self with my clients and not have to be passive and objective. As a coach, I am able to co-create a vision for my clients, and hold that vision for them. My clients appreciate my unique combination of deep expertise and lived experience and a sense of humor. One client wrote to me: “Your professional and personal knowledge and experience and overall wisdom is a true gift. You slice thru to the core truth and guide us to places that take other people years and countless mistakes to get there.”

Contact Info:

• Website: https://marisacrandallphd.com
• Instagram: @marisacrandallphd
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drmarisaladucacrandall/

Image Credits

Justin follis
Josh Fingerhut
Jeremy bishop
Kevin Laminto