What Does It Mean to Us, at My Journey PPLC, to Be a Mental Health Therapist?
What Does It Mean to Us, at My Journey PPLC, to Be a Mental Health Therapist?
If you pull up a search engine or ask an AI tool like Gemini to define the mental health field, you’ll get a very neat, clinical breakdown that looks something like this:
Counselor (LPC/LCSW/LMFT): Historically focused on short-term, solution-focused, and practical approaches to treatment, targeting specific
situational stressors like grief or career transitions.
Therapist: A broad, overarching umbrella term for anyone providing mental health treatment, typically implying a shift toward looking at longer-term patterns and chronic symptoms.
Psychotherapist: A clinician utilizing explicit talk therapy modalities (like CBT, DBT, or EMDR) to treat diagnosed conditions, deep-seated emotional issues, or trauma root causes.
This is a great textbook explanation of our field. But it doesn't connect to real individuals. >
We will use the term ‘mental health therapist’ (therapist) to encompass the terms “therapist, counselor, psychotherapist”. At My Journey PLLC, we describe what being a mental health provider means to us. Being a therapist means looking beyond our own eyes, our own experiences, and our own worldviews to care about people that have struggles that are unique to them.
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We entered this field seeing that there needed to be more hands out there extended to help those that have a hard time accepting those outreached hands. Each of us has made the choice to see people where they are and as they are, which is different from ourselves; and with that choice are hearts that have respect for those differences. Everyone has gone through experiences that have shaped how they see the world, that is what makes struggles unique to the individual, struggles we cannot and do not judge as we understand differences in experiences create different perspectives. The acceptance of differences means we do not take away, minimize, dismiss, or scoff at the struggles an individual has because we have not walked their path in life.
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We see people that reach out as people, not a problem, not a symptom. When a person reaches out, it is seen as an act of self-love and someone that really wants to find their beacon of light to follow. No one is their symptoms, their emotions, their behavior, their experiences; they are individuals that feel the impacts from experiences and, at times, have a hard time understanding or expressing them. Everyone has moments where they struggle to understand why they feel a certain way, and that is normal. But too many times, in life, who we are is associated with how we feel or behave, which has a negative outcome on how we see ourselves if the feelings or behaviors are identified as negatives. Our therapists help people find their identities that are not associated with feelings or behaviors but are how they want to see themselves and want others to see them.
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Taking the first step into therapy is hard enough; facing a financial brick wall when you get there shouldn't be part of the process. We don't believe human care should be treated as a luxury or a corporate 'for-profit' commodity. When people are priced out of therapy, the emotional toll doesn't just vanish—it compounds. Feelings of helplessness, defeat, and isolation simply stack on top of the struggles they were already carrying.
We refuse to let cost or coverage be the reason you don't get support. That’s why we intentionally accept major insurances that many private practices turn away, alongside offering flexible sliding scales and honest fees.
Our goal is simple: to balance taking care of our own families with making sure we are truly taking care of yours, keeping your real-world financial reality at the center of how we do business.
To us, accessibility isn't just a marketing line—it's a clinical necessity. The research backs this up:
Financial Barriers to Mental Healthcare Services and Depressive Symptoms (2021) published in PMC: Researchers studied individuals previously diagnosed with depression. Those who encountered financial barriers to accessing mental health services or counseling had significantly higher depressive symptoms and were 2.38 times more likely to be actively, clinically depressed compared to those who had affordable access. The study highlights how a lack of financial access actively deepens the severity of an existing illness.
The Relationship Between Financial Worries and Psychological Distress Among U.S. Adults (2022) published in the Journal of Family and Economic Issues: Utilizing data from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), this study found that higher financial worries are directly associated with elevated psychological distress (including emotional exhaustion and depression).
Association between financial hardship and psychological burden (2024) in PMC: This study established a severe "vicious cycle." Financial hardship (including cost-related care nonadherence) was associated with a 3.58 times higher odds of Serious Psychological Distress (SPD). Conversely, adults already experiencing serious psychological distress had double the odds of accumulating medical debt, showcasing how the cost of care feeds the very distress a person is trying to treat.
Datapoint: Why people aren't getting the care they need (2020) by the American Psychological Association (APA): Pulling data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the APA highlighted that 39% of Americans with unmet mental health needs cited cost as the primary barrier keeping them from receiving treatment—outranking other major barriers like not knowing where to go (24%) or structural time constraints (20%).
High Out-of-Pocket Cost Burden of Mental Health Care for Adult Outpatients in the United States (2024) published in Psychiatric Services: This study analyzed data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey and defined a "high out-of-pocket (OOP) cost burden" as spending 10% or more of disposable family income strictly on outpatient mental health visits. The researchers noted that these extreme financial burdens heavily impact patients with lower incomes and those navigating severe illnesses (like bipolar disorder), proving that current insurance models frequently fail to alleviate the actual cost burden of ongoing therapy.
We look at these numbers, and we refuse to be part of that problem. True care means being accessible, staying human, and keeping the door open when you're ready to take that first step.
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At the end of the day, every single one of us chose to be a therapist for a very simple reason: we care about people.
When you sit down with us, we talk to you as a person. We aren't here to hide behind big clinical jargon or try to sound overly smart just to prove a point. Our therapists are just people ourselves—none of us are "better" than the person sitting across from us. We are just as human, carrying our own feelings, life experiences, and imperfections.
Our approach is laid back, engaging, and grounded in real conversation. We aren't afraid to laugh, to keep it real, and to meet you exactly where you're at. We are here to see you, elevate you, and remind you of your worth.
If you’re ready to have a real conversation about what you're going through, without the clinical stuffiness or the financial brick walls—we are ready to listen.
