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

Hi Trisha, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear the backstory of how you established your own practice.

I entered the field of sex and relationship therapy a bit later than most. After staying home to raise my three kids full-time for 8 years, I decided to go back to graduate school for marriage and family therapy at 40 years old. Raising three kids put a big strain on my marriage and I knew we couldn’t be alone. I wanted to help others in our situation. By the time I completed my graduate work, I knew I wanted to open up my own practice. I reached out to a group practice owner in Chicago and basically told her I wanted to be her “when I grew up” and would she be open to hiring me and showing me the ropes of how to run a group practice. She generously obliged. I completed graduate school the last week of June and began working full-time for the private practice the next day.

I had two years to work towards full licensure, but my dream of opening up my own practice was brewing inside of me. All of my spare time was spent researching how to create a sex and relationship therapy private practice. At the time, we were contemplating a move away from city life as our kids were getting older and needed more space to be kids. After doing some research on potential cities I could move our family of five and open up my practice, Denver became our number one choice. We planned our exit from Chicago in early June and sight unseen found a home to rent in Parker, CO. With a website launched and some initial networking meetings, I had an office in a Humanly office in downtown Parker and Adnrews Relationship Counseling was launched in July of 2022. I was fortunate that my practice owner in Chicago allowed me to work with her practice simultaneously while growing my own practice in Parker. I had a mission of meeting as many sex and relationship colleagues in the South Denver area as possible to create a name for myself. By January of 2023, I had enough clients to comfortably leave my practice in Chicago and in March, Andrews Relationship Counseling hired our first clinical intern. I have also enrolled in a psychedelic-assisted therapy training program that will be completed in Oct of 2023 and I will have completed my Certified Sex Therapist designation in June. I have hopes of expanding my practice to include more clinicians in the coming years to provide more relationship and sexual wellness support for the South Denver community.

Trisha, 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 decided to become a sex and relationship therapist for a variety of reasons. Growing up, my mom was a nurse practitioner for OB-GYN, and sexuality and sexual wellness were pretty open topics in my house. I thought that was pretty normal. As I got into high school and then went to college in Texas, I realized my sex-positive upbringing was very much not the norm and that there was a lot of shame, misinformation, and repression among my friends. Then, getting married and having three kids in four years really took a toll on the emotional and physical intimacy my husband and I once shared. I naively thought going to school to be a relationship and sex therapist, I could both find a fulfilling and rewarding career and help my marriage at the same time. A rewarding and fulfilling career was a success. I also learned that I can’t be the therapist for my marriage but I did learn some worthwhile tools that have helped us weather raising three amazing kids as a team, the pandemic, a move across the country, and the loss of two parents. I am proud to say, we are celebrating 16 years this October and we both work really hard at our relationship.

Many of my clients come to me for “communication” issues. When we start to dive into their relational dynamics, a lot of the issues they are facing are rooted in self-protective behaviors they learned growing up that are no longer serving them as adults and especially adults in long-term relationships with a life partner. I work with my clients from a systemic lens, so we talk a lot about what conflict looked like growing up in their families, what role they played in their family system, what needs weren’t met that they consciously or unconsciously longed for, etc. Then we work through how they can show up with more relational self-awareness with their partners meaning, how can they be mindful of their own “stuff” while also being mindful of their partner’s “stuff”. I help my clients get comfortable with uncomfortable conversations because in order to create a healthy, open, and honest partnership, you have to be able to give and receive constructive feedback and talk about the hard stuff. This is especially important with the intimate aspect of a couple’s relationship. Oftentimes, couples come to me thinking that because sex is a natural part of being human, it should just happen effortlessly. The reality is, intimacy allows couples to deepen their connection by being vulnerable, sharing needs, wants, and desires, and taking the emotional love they feel for one another and physically sharing that through the experience of sexual pleasure. That kind of connection takes a lot of self-reflection and vulnerability to share with a partner.

I am really proud of the work I am trusted to do with my clients. I am incredibly passionate about helping individuals and couples cultivate deep, meaningful, and mutually fulfilling relationships.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

I show up as my authentic self in sessions with my clients whether that means sharing my own humility or normalizing that I am also human and also struggle with similar self-protective behaviors in my relationships as my clients might be making in theirs. I also model and create a safe container for open honest feedback without defensiveness by creating an environment of radical transparency in my work with clients. I believe in order for us to find growth, change, and fulfillment, we need to be honest with ourselves and our loved ones and sometimes that doesn’t feel easy or look pretty.

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

I lost my father in March somewhat suddenly. The timing for my business wasn’t ideal and it was one of those moments where I wanted the world to stop so I could just be sad and grieve. I quickly realized that the world doesn’t actually stop. Owning my own business and having the ability to see clients remotely allowed me to be with my father for the last several weeks of his life which I am incredibly grateful for. However, once he passed, I knew I had to get back to supporting my family and my clients. In those first few days back to work, I had to dig deep to get out of my grief and show up present in sessions with clients. I made the difficult decision to be transparent with my clients about my loss which some may say was not the right decision, but I knew it was right for me. Losing a parent is not a journey that one ever truly understands until living it, but it has given me an opportunity to test my resilience, show up for myself in the ways my father used to, and grow as both a wife, mother and therapist in ways I never imagined.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.andrewsrelationshipcounseling.com
• Instagram: arc.lmft
• Facebook: Andrews Relationship Counseling
• Linkedin: Trisha Andrews
• Yelp: Andrews Relationship Counseling

Image Credits
Michelle Wagner Photography (headshot) BlackOut Design, Beth Roman (logo)