About
After spending thirty years in the hotel business, in 2012 I transitioned to become a mental health social worker. One of the reasons for this change was my awareness of the need to make mental healthcare more accessible and approachable. In the business setting I had experienced that individuals were dealing with work and life issues but not seeking outside support. This impacted them both in their work and personal worlds. I became interested in finding a way to help and returned to school for a master's degree in clinical social work.
In 2011 I started a web-based therapy business called Men Talk About It (with the later goal of broadening it to Women Talk About It and Veterans Talk About It). The idea was to utilize WebEx to improve accessibility, make the verbiage in the site focused on the benefits of mental health care rather than pathological, and to integrate the clinical calendar with individual therapists’ calendars. While the initial start of the business bore fruit, web-based video was new and, in many ways, not trusted yet. I was offered a position with the United States Veterans Administration as a therapist and decided to pursue this and closed the business.
My nine years with the VA were incredibly rewarding and enriching. The opportunity to provide support to our veterans was a great honor. I started in a locked acute psychiatric unit working with veterans and active-duty members who were suicidal, violent, or psychotic. I then transitioned to the nation's only combat focused residential PTSD program and provided psychotherapy to veterans who had traumas from WWII to the present. It was a gift seeing how these veterans would interact and heal each other. This was my favorite job. I then moved to a substance abuse program and then general mental health where I then retired in 2021.
In 2022 I received an email from a Spring Health recruiter and became interested in the organization. Spring Health is driven by the values that brought me to mental health and is making significant strides in overcoming the accessibility and approachability issues in organizational settings. I was thrilled to join and am loving this work.
In 2011 I started a web-based therapy business called Men Talk About It (with the later goal of broadening it to Women Talk About It and Veterans Talk About It). The idea was to utilize WebEx to improve accessibility, make the verbiage in the site focused on the benefits of mental health care rather than pathological, and to integrate the clinical calendar with individual therapists’ calendars. While the initial start of the business bore fruit, web-based video was new and, in many ways, not trusted yet. I was offered a position with the United States Veterans Administration as a therapist and decided to pursue this and closed the business.
My nine years with the VA were incredibly rewarding and enriching. The opportunity to provide support to our veterans was a great honor. I started in a locked acute psychiatric unit working with veterans and active-duty members who were suicidal, violent, or psychotic. I then transitioned to the nation's only combat focused residential PTSD program and provided psychotherapy to veterans who had traumas from WWII to the present. It was a gift seeing how these veterans would interact and heal each other. This was my favorite job. I then moved to a substance abuse program and then general mental health where I then retired in 2021.
In 2022 I received an email from a Spring Health recruiter and became interested in the organization. Spring Health is driven by the values that brought me to mental health and is making significant strides in overcoming the accessibility and approachability issues in organizational settings. I was thrilled to join and am loving this work.
