We were lucky to catch up with Sydney McQuade recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Sydney thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Looking back at internships and apprenticeships can be interesting, because there is so much variety in people’s experiences – and often those experiences inform our own leadership style. Do you have an interesting story from that stage of your career that you can share with us?

When working towards a graduate degree affording you the opportunity to be a psychotherapist you must complete a variety of training experiences. I received advice early on to learn and practice in objectively challenging training environments because those environments would mold me into the best counselor, psychotherapist, mental health therapist I could be. I took this advice to heart and threw myself into very tough training programs and specifically remember a practicum rotation at the Houston, TX Michael E. Debakey VA Hospital. I was assigned to work with a phenomenal supervisor who oversaw a section of the Vietnam Veteran treatment program. Specifically, I worked closely with her to administer assessments and also co-facilitate group psychotherapy for these veterans at the hospital. I felt uncomfortable and out of my league on a daily basis and specifically remember thinking, “What do these men stand to learn from me?!” One day in the elevator I was headed down with a group of these veterans outside to co-facilitate a psychodrama group (imagine asking Vietnam Veterans to do drama and acting games in a trauma process group!) and one looks at me and says, “I have underwear older than you.” Once my sheer panic and shock wore off I was able to fire back with tons of humility and attempted care, “It sounds like you need some new underwear!” It was likely one of the only times in my life I was able to say exactly what I should have said in the exact moment, rather than it coming to me later on in the shower. This was an incredibly training moment where I learned the value of learning through discomfort, learning from our clients, and also the appropriateness of humor in psychotherapy relationships.

Sydney, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I started a group psychotherapy practice in 2019 and have been in private solo practice since 2016. We now have a variety of providers who work with clients on an individual, group and family basis, both in person and virtually. We offer psychiatric medication management and psychotherapy services. While we work hard to treat any and all mental health ailments, we primarily shine while working with clients healing from trauma and/or in a trauma space, most often times specifically working with clients on healing PTSD.

In the outpatient mental health psychotherapy world there is such a wide range of services and quality of services you can receive. I think that everyone attempts to provide great care and this is the standard in the industry. We care very much about providing evidence-based interventions for presenting problems (e.g., EMDR for trauma) and make sure we align the treatment with the client’s needs. We are passionate about delivering ethically sound care and strive to administer the best customer service possible, because after all, psychotherapy is not just a relationship but also a service.

We value our clients and attempt to meet them where they’re at while attending to multiple factors affecting the mental health space (insurance companies, state regulations, changing policy climate, PANDEMICS!). We genuinely care a lot.

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

In this field it is so much more than the nuts and bolts of a business and growth. You can have a well-designed website with an engaging message and brand, but if you don’t have a quality service to back it up you will not be successful. If and when corners are cut it shows up in the service delivery piece of a business. Clients don’t want to return and/or don’t necessarily feel safe. Psychotherapy as a service in general proves to be a more nuanced business than general services, as it bridges the gap between medical practices and traditional service. To succeed and build a great reputation you have to do an exceptional job taking care of your clients, which in this industry means connecting with them on a genuine level, providing actual tools to facilitate healing, and also help them achieve their goals.

Can you open up about how you managed the initial funding?

Counterbalance Counseling has always been self-funded. We started off very small and slowly, through re-investing in the business and ourselves, have grown it to what it is today. At times I have skipped paying myself to fund a growth initiative or goal. Similarly, there have been moments where we would have liked to grow quicker and/or have missed opportunities because we fund our own growth in this way, and those moments are tough to accept. The business itself has growth without debt, which in theory should help support the creation and maintenance of a healthy entity. We have had success by identifying our growth plans, small identifiable and achievable goals such as a new hire or entering into a new market, and funding that goal from there. At times we have utilized a line of credit to get ourselves over a really tough hump, but all-in-all, budgeting, planning and reinvesting has been our go to method.

Contact Info:

• Website: CounterbalanceCounseling.com
• Instagram: @counterbalancecounselingTX
• Facebook: CounterbalanceCounseling