We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Michela Parisi a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Michela, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. 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.

I’m not sure if you want me to tell a story here about taking a risk…I feel that was covered in the subsequent questions but let me know if you need a more specific story here, too.

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

I am the owner of Connected Brain Counseling, a private group practice that specializes in counseling and neurofeedback for adults who have experienced trauma.

I got into this field after starting my own therapy journey back when I was 19. I developed a wonderful relationship with my therapist who is someone I am still seeing over ten years later for maintenance sessions. With this, I became passionate about building self awareness, studying what creates behavioral change and wanting to help other young women find the same peace that my therapist offered me.

Though I am not formally trained in prescribing medication, I have heard both professional and personal stories about the negative impact of mental health medication clients experience. I have always been a fan of holistic treatment options, so when I stumbled upon neurofeedback during graduate school I knew I wanted to spread the word on this safe alternative to medication in addition to therapy.

I am most proud of the fact that our practice operates ethically, efficiently and provides lasting results to clients. We do not push clients into any specific program, however what we focus on is listening to their story, providing connection and genuine empathy for their experience…then educating them on the tools at their disposal to make lasting changes that they desire. Whether they want counseling, neurofeedback, EMDR, or all three…our practice doesn’t really “sell” this to clients. We give clients the resources and allow them to make the decisions that are right for themselves financially and emotionally.

I have found that not only do I sleep better at night matching the right resources to the right clients…but my business has thrived because of this. We have expanded to two locations in under two years, our therapists are well paid and enjoy their work and we have high success rates across the board. There is a high level of ethical practice that is required within mental health work as we are offering paid services to individuals who are often in desperate mental states. Unfortunately, some practices are simply run as businesses and accept everyone. We refer out clients constantly, do an expectational job at treating the clients we do accept and because of this have a great reputation both internally and externally.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

For a plethora of reasons, I determined that I would be “perfect” from a pretty young age. Or at least, I would strive toward perfection. This meant to always be kind, to accept everyone as they are, to maintain the perfect body, to achieve more than everyone around me, and to never feel rejected.

As you can imagine, that didn’t go well. Perfectionism became a quick thief of joy for me, where it stole from the vulnerability that is required to build authentic human connection. It led to unhealthy eating patterns, dating the wrong men, and a lack of understanding of boundaries.

I unlearned perfectionism through first addressing unhealthy body image and food behaviors, which soon bled into letting go of a perfect ideal in favor of feeling more connected to an authentic version of myself. This has led into an authentic version of me working with clients, running a practice and a team of therapists and I feel that all parts of my life have benefited from releasing expectations of being “perfect”.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

As mentioned earlier, our reputation has been built on a genuine desire to help those who are good fits for our practice and to refer out those who are not great fits. Neurofeedback is not the right match for clients who are taking multiple medications, who have more severe disorders, who don’t want to practice healthy lifestyles outside of neurofeedback or who are inconsistent in attending sessions. This takes a lot of potential clients out of our caseload…however, it frees up both space and energy for clients who are excellent fits.

For those who are dedicated to attending sessions, who want to practice a slow and holistic form of behavioral change, who want to take care of their bodies and minds outside of session…these are the clients who thrive with us. With this, they naturally want to tell their friends and families about us! It is not uncommon for multiple family members or friends to sign on with us back to back because of a positive word of mouth referral. We feel this comes from an educated and dedicate team of therapists who are well matched with their ideal clients and know how to help them achieve change.   

Contact Info:

• Website: www.connectedbraincounseling.com
• Instagram: @connectedbraincounseling.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michela-parisi-59544a78

Image Credits
Eedy Photo