We were lucky to catch up with PAIGE HELMS recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi PAIGE, thanks for joining us today. What was the most important lesson/experience you had in a job that has helped you in your professional career?
It is a challenge for me to look retrospectively and identify a singular important lesson from previous jobs and experiences as there are multiple that had equal weight in developing who I am as a person and a mental health provider and served as catalyst to propel me forward. With that in mind, I would like to talk about three experiences I had at different stages in my career that have stuck with me and that I often share with others. My very first clinical experience was at a long term adolescent treatment facility near Denver, Colorado. I started my practicum in January that year, it was cold and snowy and I was intimidated and very anxious about how on earth I was going to put on my “professional” mask to hide my deep imposter syndrome. My supervisor was an older therapist with a mullet and socks with sandals, he was cool and seasoned and listened to Led Zeppelin in his office. He immediately made me feel more comfortable and encouraged me to ask about the things I didn’t know. About an hour before I was scheduled to meet with my new client for the very first time, I admitted to him that I felt terrified that I was going to mess something up and “make him worse”. In response, my supervisor turned to me and told me that as long as I acted ethically and with sincerity, mistakes were okay and I should expect to make them. He then told me, “As long as you don’t tell him to go kill himself chances are you are being kinder than many of the adults he has encountered before.” I thought to myself- dang, if the bar is that low I can totally manage that! I have held this comment throughout my time as a therapist as a reminder that genuine care and sincerity are the basis of building rapport and I am unlikely to cause harm as long as I prioritize asking questions to learn what I don’t know. My anxiety melted away over the semester and so did the January snow.
After I moved home to Houston I started to work in community mental health including home visits and working inside of The Harris County jail. As uncomfortable as these locations could be at times, I wouldn’t go back and change them. One experience in particular was a life-altering catalyst in learning how to trust my gut, advocate for myself, and let go of my tendency to dim my own needs to fall in line with expectations. That day, I was doing my usual driving around the city and meeting with my clients in their homes to provide mental health services. One client, an older male who I had met with multiple times with a history of psychosis, had a regularly scheduled appointment. When I arrived at his home I was met with an immediate sense of unease in my gut and almost instantaneously after I sat down, he jumped up, ran to the door, locked it and stood in front of it.
He then began to yell at me and express delusional ideas; and then…he threatened me. I was scared- my body went into fight or flight. Miraculously (given the overall inexperience as a provider) I DID have experience in working with psychosis and instinctively (with a ton of help from adrenaline), I calmly looked at him, took a risk, and leaned into his delusion, agreeing with him and asking him to tell me more. In that moment he looked at me, paused, and moved away from the door to sit on the couch. I took my opportunity and I bolted out the door and drove away as fast as I could. I returned to my clinic, alerted management, and settled in a location behind multiple locked doors to breathe. I then learned that this man had followed me on foot to my office and had an altercation with security in which he continued to threaten me and eventually fled on foot. I went home that evening an altered person. Upon returning to work, I discovered that my usually supportive management team viewed my experience as more of a “risk of the job” situation vs. a traumatic event and handled the situation accordingly which ultimately prompted me engage in radical self care by seeking employment elsewhere. In a twist of fate, my next job landed me at the same company as my very first practicum in the same setting of residential adolescent care. It felt like home.
Working with teens in the setting I came from was a dream come true for me, I was ready to get started and dive in the deep end immediately! I came in and filled my office with books and games and all the art supplies in the world. I read my clients files diligently and carefully and spent hours developing each individualized treatment plan. I finally had the opportunity and skills to be far more effective than just not telling them to kill themselves. I was gonna raise the bar higher! To my dismay and confusion- that didn’t go quite as planned. I found myself sitting in my colorful and fun office with teens who had no interest in talking to me, no interest in doing my worksheets, and less than no interest in working towards the treatment goals I had identified for them. WHAT?! I was stuck and didn’t know what to try next. To this day, I am not sure if it was luck or just the universe- but my supervisor at this facility just to happened to be the most clinically skilled and competent supervisor on earth, Dr. Belgin Tunali. She had (and still has) such a knack for delivering all feedback in a package wrapped in a bow like a present you cannot wait to open. That particular day in supervision, she said something that fundamentally changed the way I view therapy and has become the foundation that I build all of my work on to this very day. She recognized one of my core qualities that has been both my strongest suit and my downfall over and over in this world and she gave it a path to serve me in a new and wonderful way. The truth here is, I wasn’t called “Paige Elizabeth never take no for an answer Stafford” growing up for nothing. I am nothing if not persistent, especially when I am passionate about something and I can be blind to the downsides. That day, she said to me something along the lines of “Paige, you cant use a sword to carve into the problem if it isn’t sharp first. Go back and start from the beginning. They wont talk to you if they don’t trust you. Sometimes just existing as a safe person is an intervention.” That moment of being given permission and freedom to exist in the therapy space without the pressure to constantly be “intervening” was career altering for me. As a result, I have truly build my theoretical perspective around the value of the therapeutic relationship and rapport as an intervention in and of itself and a vessel for recovery.
Apologies for the extremely long winded answer to this question, however I could not wrap my head around the idea of choosing only one of these experiences as an important lesson from a prior job as all three had such monumental impacts on my development and growth and paved the way for me to succeed in the here and now. First there was competence, then advocacy, and finally there was nuance.
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?
Hi there, I am Paige. I am the founder and owner of Novel Changes, a therapy practice located in Friendswood, TX. I am one of those passionate and very lucky humans that gets to spend my days doing what I love. It rarely feels like I work and I hope it stays that way forever. Growing up I knew I wasn’t quite like other kids. I had bigger feelings, stranger ideas, more intense imagination, and a personality like a bull in a China shop with an airhorn tied to my head. My unofficial motto was some version of “nope, cant tell ME nothing”. If there was a box, not only did I not fit, I didn’t even know where it was! After years at a private school geared towards alternative learners I ended up spending my public school time trying to avoid classroom instruction, which is how I ended up graduating with a cosmetology license. I used that license to work in college and into my early twenties. They say hairdressers are like therapists because we see them on our best and worst days and they know alllll the tea. Over time, that became the part of the job I liked more and I realized I started to feel unfulfilled in that work so I impulsively applied to a graduate program and within six months I was packed and moving from Denton, TX to Denver, CO to attend a counseling psychology masters program. Fast forward nine years, moving home to Houston, many jobs, a whole family, and finally healing my own trauma- the universe conspired to help me take a risk I hadn’t dreamed I would be capable of. I The risk paid off and now I get to be a bull in my own china shop. I truly don’t think anyone was surprised when I ultimately opened my practice and became my own boss, there is no way I could ever go back.
Since moving into the private practice world I have learned that every past job served me in ways I can only see in hindsight. My experience with multidisciplinary teams led to a value for collaborative care and communication with clients other providers. A little bit of case management goes a long way- I don’t do very much at all anymore but I sure am glad I know how when its needed. While it was scary back then, working at the Harris County Jail made me brave and hard to scare. Residential care taught me risk assessment and patience. The sum of these parts built me into the therapist I am today with the skillset I use to connect with deeply with clients and create a space that is safe to be vulnerable in.
As a therapist, what sets me apart is my authenticity and genuine presence. I make a point to show up to my office the exact same way I want others to, as an imperfect (and a bit messy) human who doesn’t expect anyone else to fit the box either. This commitment to authenticity is the backbone of my practice and is ultimately the most effective tool I have. I believe in the therapeutic rapport as the most vital piece of any therapeutic relationship- if you don’t have trust and connection than progress is blocked. With this foundation in mind, I utilize a variety of different therapy modalities to assist clients in reaching their goals which tend to be very integrative. I rely most heavily on person centered interventions that are guided by an acceptance of neurodivergence and understanding of complex developmental trauma. For me, it isn’t enough to simply say I am eclectic and integrative which is why I invest frequently in trainings to fill my toolbox and fit each clients needs. I have extensive training in EMDR (Eye movement desensitization reprocessing), DBT (dialectical behavior therapy), ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy), and EFFT (Emotion Focused Family therapy), as well as post graduate education in understanding and approaching neurodivergence including Autism Spectrum and ADHD. I am a strong advocate for including justice and factoring in the reality of systemic oppression. My focus is always on understanding how we came to be how we are, accepting ourselves in the present, and making changes in line with values and goals.
I have found that this approach has set me apart as a practitioner who is dynamic, engaging, collaborative. I make it safe to be you because I am unapologetically me. When I think of what I am most proud of in this work, it isn’t me that comes to mind- it is my clients. I am incredibly proud of the brave humans that are willing to let me get in the trenches with them and work relentlessly to write their stories. They are truly the authors of their own healing.
As an independent practitioner, I am currently limited by my own time constraints. I know I have the same amount of hours in each day as Beyonce and I try to delegate my time mindfully however most of the time my ambitions don’t fit into the hours I have and since I am not Beyonce I am currently unable to provide all of the services I would love to…yet. I have a vision of creating a neurodivergent friendly group practice with services available to aid in the integration of the mind and body with a focus on trauma healing. Stay tuned, those big dreams aren’t far off in the horizon.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
There is a sticker on the back of my phone that says “no one will ever know the violence it took to be this gentle”, it’s a brief saying but I placed it visibly because it resonates with me. Getting here was not easy and required bravery to move through my own pain and self-doubt. I spent decades struggling with my own mental health and trauma responses. I worked with plenty of professionals doing what I thought was the hard work which I now know were mostly efforts to remain a functioning human. It truly was not until I found my own unicorn therapist in late 2018 that I understood what true emotional safety in a therapy space was and had a place to re-write my own story. I have long struggled with struggled with my own mental health. As a child they manifested in stomach aches and meltdowns and as I got older they took on a mind of their own. That kid with the big feelings? She was hurting and she grew into an adult that still hurt. It’s not like no one ever tried to help me- the water was muddy because I was labeled with about half of the DSM-V before I was 18. The first diagnosis I ever received was Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder- then, a long list of other mood related disorders. In efforts to feel better, I spent years looking for solutions and designed to treat that diagnosis had resigned myself to the idea that my baseline functioning was just a highly anxious, emotion avoidant, overwhelmed human who was convinced that she exhausted others. Everywhere I went, my trauma came with me. She followed me so close I became convinced that she WAS me. That lie weighed me down and threatened me with the risk of drowning. I spent so much time just trying not to go under with it.
Enter my therapist to the story. It must have been another one of those universe things. I found her through my work EAP program shortly after my experience being trapped and threatened with the assumption that we would work through that and I would be on my way. Silly me. With her help, I have spent the last five years draining the water and sifting through the mud. I worked to unlearn the beliefs that don’t serve me, let go of the things I could have never controlled, and begin to accept the idea that not only are my clients deserving of compassion and healing, I am too. It was hard. Really hard. And so worth it. As I healed I learned that my diagnosis seemed to no longer fit me. Finally able to swim around, I gathered the courage to try to go in for a new psychiatric evaluation and meticulously chose a provider who had a reputation for listening. She saw the bottom and informed me that while anxiety is still a large part of the picture, they actually got it right the first time and I met criteria for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Almost year later I am sitting here writing this I am no longer in a muddy pond; I am a scuba diver and it is clear and beautiful and I am so proud of myself for never giving up. More than that, the clarity led me to another realization- I am a beacon for the weird because I AM the weird. Sure, I may be a little exhausting at times but that is minimal in comparison to the traits that others love.
This understanding of myself has made me a stronger wife, mother, stepmother, friend, and therapist with the ability to believe people when they tell me kind things. When people come to me for help because they don’t fit in the box, I raise them one and say “what box?”. I prefer exploring.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
If there are two things I am not it is a business woman and a marketing genius (that title belongs to my mother) so I cannot sit here and say that I go much out of my way to advertise, write blogs, or curate social media posts. My reputation is built fully on my conscious actions: to provide the best care I can with the resources I have, to connect with like-minded others, to further my education, and to treat all who approach me for services in the way I would want to be treated by a provider. I take my ethical responsibility to do no harm as sacred. When I opened my door in January of this year I essentially hit the reset button on my career. I had just left a group practice and had no idea what was going to happen. But my phone starting ringing, my email started dinging, and new clients were contacting me left and right. I was and am beyond grateful.
Rewind to late 2022, I felt alone in the group practice I was in. As a therapist who came from agency work I was used to having a slew of other therapists to bounce off of and consult with. I wanted that back so I reached out to the internet and my now-friend Heather Murphy responded and shared that she would love to host a consult group at her practice, The Feelings Healers. Another one of those universe things I guess. She saw something in me I was still finding for myself and when she learned that I was struggling in my current role, with no hesitation she dared me to take a risk and provided me with the parachute to land. She offered me an opportunity to sublease her office space, had a team of other misfit therapists I fit right into, and taught me about some of the basic principles of operating a private practice. We didn’t really understand it then, but our intentional effort to function as equals was the start of a wonderfully symbiotic relationship.
At almost a year in, I have a completely full practice at capacity. I attribute my reputation to a few thins. First, my willingness to offer a free consultation to anyone looking for services even if I know that I will not be able to take them on myself. I have no problem devoting fifteen minutes to anyone who reaches out to understand what is bringing them to therapy and what their logistical needs are (insurance, location, and schedule). If I cannot help them I send a follow up email with referrals to guide them as they look. Finding a therapist is hard, if I can make it easier for anyone that is a win. Second, my fundamental belief in collaborative care has benefits beyond coordination for the client. Through this, I have had conversations with other therapists, psychiatrists, school counselors, physicians, dietitians, and other professionals. These interactions not only fulfill my commitment to care for my clients, they also serve as an avenue for professional relationship building. Third, I consistently make efforts to connect with other local businesses as a way to broaden my knowledge of my community and encourage the humans doing the hard therapy work with me to engage in other healing practices.
I am certain that my efforts to market and build my brand will evolve over time and as I grow they will have to grow as well. As long as it is always rooted in my commitment to my values and represents me authentically I am happy to let it grow wildly with trust that it will bloom beautifully.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.novelchangestherapy.com
- Instagram: @novelchangestherapy