Meet Alice Stricklin

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Alice Stricklin a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alice, so great to have you with us and we want to jump right into a really important question. In recent years, it’s become so clear that we’re living through a time where so many folks are lacking self-confidence and self-esteem. So, we’d love to hear about your journey and how you developed your self-confidence and self-esteem.
I am so grateful for parents who repeatedly sowed seeds of confidence in me. From an early age I received messages from my mom and dad that they believed in me. They conveyed a belief that I could do whatever it was I was trying to do. Whenever I was wrestling with a decision, my mom would encourage me to trust my instincts. “Trust your gut” she would say, “that is the Holy Spirit leading and guiding you”. In a way, she was teaching me skills of getting still, connecting to myself and God, and trusting what came out of those moments. My dad has always been my biggest cheerleader. He would challenge me to do things that were hard for me to do, but encourage me and praise me all along the way. I didn’t always appreciate it at the time, but I know now looking back, that it was their consistent messages that they believed in me, that helped it take root. I struggle with self doubt, despite the sown seeds. However, what grounds me in those moments or even days I am swimming in self doubt, is connecting back to the roots that are inside of me; the roots of ‘you can do this’, ‘trust your instincts’, ‘listen and discern the Lord’s guidance in this’.  I am also so lucky to have  a husband who is an encourager.  He picked up right where my parents left off by constantly affirming me.  He will say things like, “you are really good at that”, or “you make that look so easy, when I know it’s not”.  I have come to realize through these beautiful souls in my life, the power we have to influence and build up those around us.

 

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
When I got into the field of mental health I had a heart for working with kids and families from hard places. Specifically, I felt led to work with individuals and families who had experienced trauma, relational abuse, and attachment wounding. Most of my career has been devoted to this type of work. It has always felt important to me to provide accessible and affordable counseling services.  In addition to this it is also essential to me to provide an environment that when a person walks in, they immediately begin to feel safe, nurtured, and cared for. I have had so many great mentors in my career that have given me live examples of how to apply these values in real and practical ways. I am forever grateful to Amy Alexander at The Refuge Center for Counseling, Deborah Kennard of Personal Transformation Institute, Carol Webb, LMFT, Angie Davenport, LMFT, and Susan Lahey, LMFT. It is through my own experiences of safe communities with these amazing women that I have been able to develop and grow Alice Stricklin Counseling in a way that lives out the values that are so important to me. We at Alice Stricklin Counseling strive to provide trauma informed care in our community, and strive to make services accessible and affordable. We are able to do this through many different avenues. We have worked to develop an internship program where we partner with graduate students who are applying what they have learned in the classroom to their next level of learning.  This next level is providing counseling services to individuals, couples and families. I work hard to provide a safe learning environment full of training and support for our interns so that in turn our clients receive excellent support and care. We also have opportunities for counselors who have completed their degrees and are working towards their license in the state of TN.  Again, my value is to provide a work environment that provides support, additional training and supervision while they continue to perfect their craft. These pre-licensed clinicians offer sliding scale counseling services to those in need. We at Alice Stricklin Counseling work to build connections in our community that create scholarship funds for individuals, children and families who need services but cannot afford them. A new and exciting project we are currently in the process of preparing to launch is online training materials for people in the helping professions. This training material is specifically focusing on compassion fatigue and burnout. We will be providing resources, tools, and education around the signs and symptoms of compassion fatigue and burnout as well as practical tools that can be utilized to help heal from the burdens experienced in helping professions. Our first launch will be for Christians who are in helping professions and will be appropriate for ministers, aid workers, humanitarian workers, counselors, social workers, teachers, medical professionals etc. Our second launch will be the same course for individuals in the helping profession but who do not identify as Christian. The exciting thing about this course is that all proceeds will be applied to a scholarship fund to specifically help support individuals, families, and couples who are looking for counseling services but need financial support to access them. It is my goal to both offer support in our community and also compensate the staff at Alice Stricklin Counseling well for the incredible work they are doing.

We are also excited to launch membership options for counselors seeking additional training support. I have devoted more than a decade to training, supervising, and developing other counselors across the United States and even abroad. I am working on consolidating the tools and resources I have created over the years into a more easily accessible forum for counselors to access and continue to develop and learn trauma focused care for themselves and their clients. Along with this will be healing support for the healer retreats, which are coming in spring of 2024.

 

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
One of the greatest skills I have acquired that has benefited me professionally and personally is the skill of present moment mindfulness. It allows me to slow down, connect with myself, others, and God in a way that I was unable to historically. This skill allows me to connect with my own values and principles that carry over into thoughtful conversations. Present moment mindfulness also helps me make decisions from a more grounded and connected place. And finally, several skills I actually picked up early in life through my participation in sports are determination, persistence, endurance, and recognizing it takes a team to accomplish the truly important goals. I am so proud of my team here. Each person on our team is really good at what they do, and together we are exceptional. We work so well together and focus on what we uniquely bring to the team. Then we focus on bringing our best to our respective roles. We also hold on to the value that we are all always learning and growing. Not only are we inviting our clients into mentally and emotionally healthier spaces in their lives, we also recognize where we have growth areas in our own mental and emotional health and are invited to grow into healthier versions of ourselves as well.

All the wisdom you’ve shared today is sincerely appreciated. Before we go, can you tell us about the main challenge you are currently facing?
The number one challenge we have faced this year is trying to continue to offer affordable services and make sure that our staff is adequately compensated. The rising cost of everything has also shown a general rise in cost for mental health services. We have many people who call us and do not have mental health coverage on their insurance plans and the out of pocket cost for mental health services in our particular area can be hard to afford. It is because of this challenge that we have worked hard to develop out of the box ideas to find ways to support both our clients and our clinicians who have their own rise in living costs. Some ways we have faced this challenge is by partnering with local community agencies and churches to negotiate scholarships for clients. Our most recent idea to face this challenge is by offering trainings and membership based support and resources where proceeds go into a fund to provide scholarships for services. It is our hope that we can create opportunities for the entire community and beyond to partner with us in providing mental and emotional support to individuals, kids and families who reach out to us.

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