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

Hi Veronica, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

I appreciate this question because a lot of my work with clients focuses on exploring the impact of parents’ humanness in order to process attachment wounds. But it is just as important to acknowledge how parents got it right. My parents are very generous and kind people. They were each raised with people-centered values and operate on a “leave it better than you found it” mentality. So, throughout my life they have invested so much time, energy, and resources to assist my brother and I in achieving our goals. They’ve always been a huge supporter of our sports, academic, and career goals, which I believe to be a huge reason why I’m standing where I am today. My dad to this day is always available to edit resumes or website copy. My mom is also a phone call away to problem solve anything stressful going on in my life. One of the many things I’m grateful for them for is their modeling and teaching of selflessness/giving without strings attached. From these early value system experiences, I’ve become a very others-oriented person. This obviously has a negative side to it when I go too extreme, but at the core of the value is a belief system that prioritizes the collective health in order to positively impact each individual inside of the group. This is one of the primary reasons I’m a therapist – I want to be a positive resource in my community and be there to help others remain open to healthy connections in their lives.

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! I’m Veronica Walton, Licensed Marriage and Family therapist (LMFT) and Supervisor. I work with individuals and couples on relationship well-being, attachment, identity exploration, trauma, self-esteem, LGBTQ+ topics, and life transitions. I also work as a clinical supervisor to pre-licensed therapists pursing licensure. I became interested in therapy as a career starting in high school, but my pursuit in the field really developed in college. I was going through a lot (as most of us do) in undergrad and that was the first time I sought out therapy. I needed some unconditional support at that time, and a person to help me see and access myself through the hardship. Moving through this difficult time with someone walking beside me gave deeper meaning to the career I was already pursuing. There are so many amazing therapists in Denver and I’m really proud to be part of such a rich community of practitioners. Every therapist will be a little bit different based on our training, style, and personalities. With me, you’ll experience evidence-based techniques woven with my authentic self- sarcasm and all – in order to support my clients in a real way. I encourage clients to push the edges of their comfort zone with a gentle and supportive hand, where I challenge harmful patterns, perceived norms and ingrained beliefs to assist clients in feeling empowered to choose what feels most fulfilling to them.

Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?

Community. Being a therapist is a really demanding job. There are a lot of systemic issues we are supporting our clients in and often there isn’t much we can individually do. It is hard to know that based on the structure of our world, our clients symptoms they present with are often very expected and adaptive. Staying grounded in the individual impact you are having on each client is important, but hard. Therefore, it is important that you have people around you as a therapist (including other therapists for clinical and emotional support, and people outside of the therapy world) to reduce burn out and recharge your battery. Taking care of yourself in a variety of ways is the most important part to being a good and ethical therapist.

If you could go back in time, do you think you would have chosen a different profession or specialty?

I believe so! Looking back on my life and all the highs and lows, learning lessons, and moments of resiliency, I believe all roads pointed me here. I don’t see how I could have picked a different career path without changing some crucial parts of my personality and core experiences in my life. Because I don’t really desire to be an entirely different person, I feel really confident in knowing that this was the right profession and specialty for me.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.veronicawalton.com
• Instagram: @veronicawaltontherapy
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/veronicawaltontherapy
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/veronica-walton-309557a3/

Image Credits

Madeleine Schaffner: www.mado-photo.com