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One Therapist's Journey Into Private Practice With Yunetta Spring Smith LPC-MHSP, NCC · The Trauma Therapist

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapist Podcast. My name is Guy McPherson.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this show.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: So five, four, three, two, and one. Our folks, welcome
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: back to the podcast. Very excited to have a special
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: edition today for kind of highlighting our sponsor, And one
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: of the therapists who use it, Yonetta Smith. Yonetta, welcome.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Glad to be here.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Thank you. Awesome. So Yonetta is a mental health counselor
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: with Spring Forth Counseling in Clarksville, Tennessee. She also runs
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Groundbreakers Coaching. She's a mental health counselor. Her practice specializes
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: in helping leaders navigate the pressures and expectations that can
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: accompany being highly visible, including difficulty saying no and feeling
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: that the problems are magnified by their leadership roles. Springsforth
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Counseling emphasizes providing a warm, peaceful, nonjudgmental therapeutic environment. And again,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: her training offers consulting and training for therapists and groundbreakers coaching.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: All right, Yonetta, so just a little bit about you.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: So we're going to talk a little bit about you,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: how you started, and then why you started, how you
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: started using Jane and how that's working for you. So
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: how did you get into the field in the first place?
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: When did it start? Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: I think like a lot of therapists, the field kind
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: of chooses us through our, um, our childhood experiences. So, um,
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  Speaker 3: just growing up, I was always very helpful, very supportive,
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: that person that you can talk to. And then as
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: I got, uh, learned a little bit more about, uh,
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: counseling and psychology and trauma, I realized, Oh, those were
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: some little trauma responses that I was navigating.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: Um, through childhood.
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  Speaker 3: So that's one of the reasons why I kind of
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  Speaker 3: specialize in that too, with my practice, working with leadership
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: and leaders and, uh, helping them navigate childhood wounds. But
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  Speaker 3: I take a class on my senior year of high school, um,
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: on psychology. And I saw a lot of people that
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: I've had experiences with, and I had names to attach
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  Speaker 3: to some of the things.
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  Speaker 2: That I had experienced personally.
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  Speaker 3: And some of the things I had witnessed, um, So
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  Speaker 3: I just went full steam ahead from there. Undergraduate psychology,
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  Speaker 3: went on to get my master's in mental health counseling
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: and then getting a practice and just have continued to
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: immerse myself in the mental health field.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: So you said when you took that initial class, you
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: saw people who you had experiences with. Say a little
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: more about that.
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  Speaker 3: Learning about psychology. So to you know, I had my
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: dad was military, so we moved around a lot. So
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: we moved my senior year and I was really upset
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: because I wanted to, of course, finish with my friends.
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: So I was like, I don't want to be here frustrated.
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: And I took this class and it was like the
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  Speaker 3: first thing that like got my attention, allowed me to
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  Speaker 3: be present. And I would see like, you know, learning
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: about what anxiety looks like, learning about what trauma is.
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: learning about different mental health diagnosis and depression, I was like,
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  Speaker 3: why did I never have language for this? Like, this
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  Speaker 3: sounds like some people I've experienced. This sounds like someone
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  Speaker 3: in my family. This sounds like me. Is this what
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  Speaker 3: this is called? So it kind of led me to
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  Speaker 3: want to learn more about, you know, mental health and
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: what that looks like. And yeah, that's kind of what
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: sparked my interest.
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  Speaker 1: So you go full bore, you get a master's. And
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  Speaker 1: as you're studying, what are you thinking? Are you thinking
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  Speaker 1: a particular population you want to work with, a particular specialization?
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: What's going on for you?
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. I've always leaned towards trauma.
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  Speaker 3: There was a lot that I learned initially around because
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: I grew up military, like military trauma and combat trauma
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  Speaker 3: and things like that is what originally interested me. And
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  Speaker 3: then I started to see a lot of the parallels.
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  Speaker 3: with military related trauma and like racial trauma. So I
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  Speaker 3: started to like explore what it was like, like that
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  Speaker 3: black experience. What was it like for, you know, black
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  Speaker 3: and brown folks and a lot of the things that
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  Speaker 3: we've experienced just as a whole in the country or
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: whatever the case may be. I started to see a
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  Speaker 3: lot of parallels and I was like, why aren't we
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  Speaker 3: talking about this more? If this classifies as trauma, then
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  Speaker 3: why doesn't this classify as trauma? So that kind of
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  Speaker 3: led me to learn more about the black and brown experience,
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  Speaker 3: getting my minor like in African-American studies. And then I
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  Speaker 3: just wanted to take what I learned about psychology and
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  Speaker 3: help apply it to my community.
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  Speaker 1: All right. So let's kind of move into your professional experience.
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  Speaker 1: What happens? You get your degree. What do you start?
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  Speaker 1: Who do you start to work for? What do you
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  Speaker 1: start to do? Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: So I got my first job, like a lot of
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  Speaker 3: people do in community mental health, where they give you
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  Speaker 3: everybody and all the things and pack your schedule. And
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  Speaker 3: I had my first office and felt really like, oh,
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  Speaker 3: I've arrived. But then feeling like, wait, I don't feel
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  Speaker 3: like I'm equipped to manage this or handle everything that
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  Speaker 3: I'm getting. So it was a great experience because I
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  Speaker 3: learned a lot. And it helped me to see what
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  Speaker 3: folks I connected with the most in the populations I
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: wanted to serve. But Once I got my license and everything,
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  Speaker 3: I quickly moved into looking into private practice and being
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  Speaker 3: able to have more freedom and flexibility. So I've had
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  Speaker 3: my private practice this year. It'll be actually next month.
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  Speaker 3: It'll be 10 years.
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  Speaker 1: Whoa.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that I've been in private practice here.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, girl. So that's a big thing to do. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: tell me what your experience was like. But when I
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  Speaker 1: was practicing, I liked being with other people, having that
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  Speaker 1: camaraderie in a sense and being able to talk to
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  Speaker 1: people about particular cases. And yeah, there was the allure
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: of going out on my own. But what was it
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  Speaker 1: like for you making that transition?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it was a big transition.
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  Speaker 3: It took a while to work, you know, part time
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  Speaker 3: for about three years until I felt like, OK, I
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  Speaker 3: can move this.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: And that community makes a big difference.
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  Speaker 3: So once I got trained in EMDR, that really helped
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  Speaker 3: me to make a big shift because I was able
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  Speaker 3: to recognize, you know, some of those wounds and negative
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  Speaker 3: cognitions that I had carried over and start really working
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  Speaker 3: through them and kind of branching out. Even though I'm solo,
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  Speaker 3: I found ways to have community in other facets where,
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  Speaker 3: you know, I have I call them my TheraFriends that
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  Speaker 3: I connect with through retreats and things of that nature,
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  Speaker 3: which is I co-host and kind of travel and do
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  Speaker 3: retreats now.
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  Speaker 2: So I do a really good job.
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  Speaker 3: I like having my solo practice, but I have a
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  Speaker 3: lot of TheraFriends who have practices and we make space
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  Speaker 3: and time to communicate, to chat. you know, to go
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: on trips and trainings and things like that. So I
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: can stay connected.
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  Speaker 1: So, okay. So let's talk about Jane. How did you
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: get introduced to it? Why did you choose to utilize
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  Speaker 1: it and how's it working for you? How's it helping
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  Speaker 1: your business?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's been great. Jane kind of, I feel like
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  Speaker 3: with everything kind of found me, I'm like, I keep
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: seeing this Jane stuff everywhere. Like who is Jane?
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: Who is this?
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Who is this person?
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  Speaker 1: So just for our listeners, it's a practice management software
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  Speaker 1: and EMR. It's kind of loaded with things for your practice,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: but okay. So you see this and what do you do?
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  Speaker 2: I just kept seeing Jane stuff everywhere.
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  Speaker 3: And I was looking at, Shifting, kind of downsizing in
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  Speaker 3: terms of like how many clients I was seeing because
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: I'm doing a lot of trainings and a lot of
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: coaching and traveling. So I didn't necessarily need as much.
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  Speaker 3: I was kind of paring down on a lot of
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: my systems. And I kept running into Jane folks. And
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  Speaker 3: then I had a conversation with an individual that works
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  Speaker 3: for Jane at a conference, at a conference that I
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: was speaking at. And I said, I keep seeing y'all
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: tell me about your product. Cause I keep seeing it everywhere.
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  Speaker 3: And she was lovely. And we had a great conversation
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  Speaker 3: and the platform sound like exactly what I needed to
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  Speaker 3: switch to.
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  Speaker 2: Or like, what did she say for me?
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  Speaker 3: Um, she just was telling me like how everything was
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  Speaker 3: like super customizable and, you know, the individuals that, you know,
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  Speaker 3: work for Jane are very, um, just very collectivist in
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: their mindset. It's like a community. Like I'm, when you're
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: solo practice community is huge, you know, when you're kind
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: of in private practice by yourself. Um, and they just
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  Speaker 3: were very like responsive and helpful and always like, we
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  Speaker 3: can walk you through this process. Like you're not on
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  Speaker 3: your own. Um, and that's really what drew me to
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  Speaker 3: them because making a switch is something I was thinking
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  Speaker 3: of doing anyway. So I was like, if I'm going
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: to make a switch, I want to make a switch
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  Speaker 3: where I'm going to feel supported.
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  Speaker 1: Okay. Now just for our listeners, um, Yeah. What are
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: we talking about specifically coming on board? What does that mean?
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  Speaker 1: Bringing our going on to their platform and doing what specifically?
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  Speaker 1: What was it for you.
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  Speaker 2: In terms of what drew me to them?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. And how did you utilize Jane? What does it mean? Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: So it really helps me. It helps me book and
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: schedule my appointments. It helps me build out customizable templates
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  Speaker 3: for my clients. It's very seamless. It's very user friendly.
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  Speaker 3: So sometimes, you know, different platforms or different things. It's
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  Speaker 3: like to make one change, you have to. read a
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  Speaker 3: novel and.
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  Speaker 2: Go through all these steps. And I'm like, I'm busy.
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  Speaker 1: I don't have time for that.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm an auditory, like walk me through it. Let
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: me see it.
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  Speaker 3: Let me talk to a human and I can do it.
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  Speaker 3: So that was what kind of drew me to Jane,
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: just the support that I have with them. But their
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: EHR platform, you know, is great. It allows, you know,
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  Speaker 3: everything is customizable. They work with a lot of providers,
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  Speaker 3: so it's not just therapists. So you can kind of
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  Speaker 3: build the framework that you want for your business in
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  Speaker 3: terms of what paperwork you want to use, what systems
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  Speaker 3: you want to have, and how you want it laid out.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: So are you saying it helps you brand paperwork and...
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  Speaker 1: Templates for what templates? When you say templates, what are
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: you talking about?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, like just for for your intake information that you
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: get for your clients. There are certain things that I
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: kind of look for and explore that may be a
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: little different from other folks. Special questions that I ask
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: for intakes. So you can build those out yourself. So
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  Speaker 3: it's in terms of your templates, your notes, like your
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  Speaker 3: therapy notes that you're going to have, all of that.
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: You can kind of build those out the way you
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  Speaker 3: want to as well. And they have a lot of
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: resources on the platform as well. So you can kind
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: of take from the resources they already have and customize
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: them to make them your own.
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  Speaker 1: OK. And in terms of scheduling, what does that mean?
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  Speaker 1: When you like in the morning, when you go to work,
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  Speaker 1: do you log on to their platform and you have
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: your own access to that? How does it work? Yeah.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: So you log onto the platform, you have your schedule
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  Speaker 3: kind of mapped out. I can unblock my days. So
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  Speaker 3: I have days that are available and then my clients
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  Speaker 3: just get a link and then they can find what
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: works for them and book their own, um, you know,
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: book their own appointments.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Okay. And what about, um, uh, telehealth type stuff doing
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: video meetings?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. So they do. Yep.
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  Speaker 3: So they have that full telehealth platform embedded into it.
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: So it, Sends my clients a link. They log in.
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: We have our sessions. I've been playing around with the Scribe,
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: like the AI Scribe that they have for customizing and
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: building out the sessions too.
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  Speaker 2: So that's been good. I'm fairly new to Jane.
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: So it's just been about, I think I'm still under
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: three months, maybe two.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: To three months.
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  Speaker 3: So it's still really fresh. For me, but I'm enjoying
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: it so far. I'm glad I made this switch.
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  Speaker 1: Okay. Okay. All right. Well, as we kind of close
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: out here, I know you do consulting and training for therapists.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: And is that specifically around EMDR?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So I'm EMDR basic and advanced trainer.
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  Speaker 1: Okay.
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  Speaker 3: And that was another thing too, just managing multiple schedules
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: and calendars. Being able to have things centralized where I
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: can kind of see where my therapy sessions are, where
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: my coaching and consulting sessions look like, and being able
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: to block things off was helpful. That was really what
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: I was wanting, to be able to kind of streamline
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: and have everything in one space.
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  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: Viewable and usable in one space.
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  Speaker 1: Awesome, awesome.
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  Speaker 2: That takes up a lot of my time.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: All right. And who do you work with in the
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: capacity of coaching?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, so coaching, I work coaching and consulting is primarily
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: with therapists who are learning EMDR and integrating EMDR into
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: their respective practices. So they kind of come on and say, hey,
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: I have this client. This is something I'm having a
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: challenge with or how do I navigate this? So I
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: help them integrate with EMDR and then I help individuals
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: who want to get certified with EMDR. So once they're trained,
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: basic trained, some people want to continue and move towards certification.
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: I help folks get certified. And if they want to
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: continue further and become consultants and provide services for other people,
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: then I help folks become consultants, too. So that's through
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: my groundbreakers. It really focuses heavily on culture, race, identity
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: and trauma, which is why I started this, you know,
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: why I started working in the field anyway. So it's
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: my way to kind of full circle, give back and
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: help marginalized communities get the help that they need.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: Awesome. Awesome. All right, Yanetta, as we kind of wind
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: down here, how do people learn about you? What's the
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: best way?
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm all on social media. Probably spend too
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: much time there.
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: But you can find me on all social platforms, Yanetta Springs-Smith,
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: Groundbreaking Therapist.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: My website is yanettaspringsmith.com. And that will lead.
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: You to my counseling practice, Spring-Forth Counseling, or my coaching
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: and consulting practices, Groundbreakers Therapy.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Awesome. And for those of you who want to learn
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: more about Jane... That's jane.app. We'll have all those linked
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: up here at the show notes page at the traumatherapistpodcast.com. Awesome.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much for doing this.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: Great chatting with you. Thank you. All right.
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: Take care.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: Bye-bye.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: Bye-bye.