We were lucky to catch up with Teal Flanigan recently and have shared our conversation below.

Teal, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you get your first job in the field that you practice in today?

While I was in graduate school for my Master of Social Work (MSW) I was placed in a Community Mental Health Center as a bilingual clinician to do therapy with children and their families for my second-year internship. (As part of our training we are required to have internships at community agencies throughout both years of school). I really enjoyed the placement, had wonderful supervisors and coworkers, and when I was offered a position at the end of my internship, I accepted. I was given a great foundation for doing therapy by my supervisors and found out I had so much more to learn about the best ways of working with trauma.

Working in Community Mental Health can be challenging. They are often underfunded, and staff can be overworked. I found myself wanting to be able to support my clients better with all they were coming in with (depression, anxiety, PTSD from community violence, abuse, family stressors, and other forms of complex trauma) which propelled me to further my training. I have since been trained in trauma informed therapies, like EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and Somatic Experiencing, which I have found to be hugely beneficial to the clients I work with today.

Teal, 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 own my own therapy private practice as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Licensed Addiction Counselor and I love having my own business! I’ve put a lot of time into continuing my education after graduate school through extra trainings and certifications and I feel very confident that I offer wonderful therapy to my clients (I truly say that from a humble place).  I have experienced burnout twice in my career, but I now know that I understand it better and how to prevent it. I love working with people who are seeking to recover from their trauma.  I specialize in seeing teens and adults who have experienced trauma and I have the privilege to watch how the right kind of therapy for a client can truly change the trajectory of their own lives.

My whole path to getting to where I am now was about following what I knew I liked to do. I was a Spanish major in college and other than speaking Spanish and helping people, I wasn’t sure what type of job I wanted to have. My first year out of undergrad I signed up for AmeriCorps with their HealthCorps program and worked in the Denver Metro area for a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC). I was assigned to work with unhoused people in their Community Outreach department. It was there that I discovered social work seemed like the perfect fit for me.

After my year with AmeriCorps, I was hired at the same FQHC to work with a program to help prevent infant mortality and low birth weight in babies through education and home visitation. While I did this, I also went back to school full time to pursue my Master of Social Work (MSW). I have no idea how I worked full time, went to school full time, and had an internship but somehow, I did it! My second-year internship was where I learned that therapy was something you can do as a MSW and I loved it!

I worked in Community Mental Health and Community Health for about seven years before I started a private practice.  Unfortunately, I burned out twice in those seven years. While I learned so much in these two settings and interacted with great people (clients, supervisors, and coworkers) I soon realized that the high demand for services wasn’t going to change and I risked burning out a third time if I didn’t find a way to be on my own.

I am truly happy with my practice, the clients I see and the balance that owning my own business has brought to my own life.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

One day, a few years ago, I was biking to work and got hit by a car. I ended up breaking several bones and had to have surgery about a week later. Overall, I was okay and things could have been much worse, so I’m grateful for that. Unfortunately, the breaks were in my left shoulder and right hand…as it turns out, when you don’t have use of either arm (and you’re used to having use of both) life gets a lot harder. It also meant I couldn’t work for a few months while I recovered and did physical therapy (PT). I was fortunate to have wonderful medical professionals and was a diligent patient with my PT exercises and have made a full recovery. I also had incredible family, friends and coworkers who did any combination of bringing me food, feeding me, cleaning my house, bathing me, and even cleaning my bum (that was reserved for best friends and family)!

It was an incredibly humbling experience and one that made me reevaluate what felt important in my life. It has helped me have more compassion for those I work with who have gone through unexpected and awful things. And, I am even more in awe and grateful for what the body can withstand and its ability to recover.  Our minds and bodies need love, compassion, and support to be able to heal. I will forever be appreciative of those who loved and supported me, and I hope I can continue to pass that along to others in my personal and professional life.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.calmingseascounseling.com
• Phone: 720-551-9133
• Email: [email protected]