In her early teen years, Susan battled with depression and anxiety, and dreamed of creating a space where people felt safe to open up; a place where people could find their way to wholeness and wellness. In 2016, Susan founded Agape Therapy Institute, a nonprofit outpatient mental health counseling group practice that serves individuals, couples and families. Agape is a space where everyone can gain access to affordable, quality and professional mental health care. Susan’s also the Licensed Supervision Consultant at Beachside Recovery Interventions + Consulting, which provides clinical case management for addiction recovery. We’re not sure how she does it all, but we know the world is better for it.

The Basics:

Hometown: Miami, FL
Current city: Orlando, FL
Alma mater:  Florida International University; Barry University
Degree: B.A., Women’s Studies; M.S. Counseling, Dual Specialization in Mental Health Counseling and Marital, Couples & Family Therapy
Very first job: Customer service for a small, woman-owned children’s craft shop
Hustle: Founder, CEO & Therapist, Agape Therapy Institute; Licensed Supervision Consultant, Beachside Recovery Interventions + Consulting (BRIC)

The Interests:

Babe you admire and why?
Tara Brach. She’s a woman who leads with heart and purpose, who is vulnerable and genuine, and who is remarkably successful as a prominent American Psychologist, proponent of Buddhist meditation, bestselling author, and renowned speaker. I am particularly drawn to her deep understanding and wisdom surrounding radical self-acceptance and radical self-compassion.

What’s your favorite day on the calendar?
The first day of the year that it gets cold outside in Florida! For Northerners, it probably feels like the first day of Spring after a long and brutal winter.

One book every woman should read?
I have so many inspirational books for women, but I’ll throw it back to my early days of exploring women’s rights and empowerment and go with ‘A Room of One’s Own’ by Virginia Woolf. Woolf was a brilliant woman, who spoke to the value of women in society beyond traditional roles of daughter, mother, and wife. The book is an essay on women’s capability and freedom to engage in vocational activity, how women literally and figuratively needed space, and the barriers women faced in a male dominated workforce at the time.

What’s your favorite self-care ritual?

I have many, but when push comes to shove I always come back to deepening and slowing my breathing, and grounding myself in my five senses. Even better if I get to do that out in nature somewhere, or while incorporating mindful movement such as yoga.

The Hustle:

Tell us about your hustle.
I’m the Founder and CEO of Agape Therapy Institute, a nonprofit outpatient mental health counseling group practice in Downtown Orlando that serves individuals, couples and families. Our mission is to provide affordable and accessible mental health care to the community, so we focus a lot on financially-assisted mental health counseling. We also partner with university graduate programs in counseling and social work as a clinical training site for master level clinical intern students, which is one of the ways we’re able to provide such low-cost care for the community, in addition to fundraising activity. I founded Agape in 2016, as just a one-woman show, but we now have a team (really, a family) of 18! I’m also the Licensed Supervision Consultant at Beachside Recovery Interventions + Consulting (BRIC), which provides clinical case management for addiction recovery including intervention, crisis management, case conceptualization, case management, peer support, family support, consulting, investigations, mental health and substance use assessment, mitigation, and expert witness services. I love working with the founder of BRIC because he really aims to de-stigmatize mental health and addiction, and genuinely advocates and cares for some of the most stigmatized individuals in society.

What inspired Agape? What makes it different from other practices?
I always imagined something like a wellness center, creating a space where people felt safe to open up and talk about personal thoughts and emotions and find their way to wholeness and wellness again. Then in 2016, I felt like I had enough experience and knowledge to really give it a shot on my own. I don’t believe healthcare should be for profit, so I went the nonprofit corporate model route and we provide a sliding scale and financial assistance options for our clients. Another part of my vision was to make this place a teaching institute, where master level therapists could train. Work has become so stressful for so many people, and healthcare providers burn out at high rates. I wanted to normalize that healthcare providers are people who also need mental health days sometimes too, and where it can be safe to show up as your whole self. We all lean on each other and support each other in the work we do for the community, giving each other a lot of strength to keep doing the work we’re passionate about and prevent burnout and compassion fatigue. As for the name, the word Agape comes from Greek philosophy, and simply means unconditional love. My Dad was into reading about philosophy quite a bit, so this was also in honor of his memory and to pay respect to the meaning he added to my life. Agape is a place where you will find radical acceptance, nonjudgmentalism, empathy and compassion.

When did you find your passion for mental health and wellness?
My passion for mental health began around twelve or thirteen years old, at a time when I was battling my own depression and anxiety. I stumbled on psychology as a research project for a science class, and I found it fascinating that something scientific explained what I was experiencing, and that these experiences could be seen in brain scans. Over time, I sunk myself more into the humanities, particularly literature and women’s studies, and that’s where I think the art of psychology really came to life for me as opposed to the science of it. Reading about the experiences of people who go through such adversity, how society and culture plays a role in the development of certain conditions but also how it can be a part of the solution, too, fueled my passion even more. I ultimately made my way to the field of Counseling specifically, which I think does a beautiful job at blending social science, psychology, and the humanities.

How has COVID-19 impacted your business? Have your job differed since the onset of the pandemic?
We’ve seen a pretty stark increase in demand for mental health services. People are more isolated, their routines entirely disrupted, job loss, deaths, health complications from those who got the virus, relationship problems, missed celebratory milestones, adults struggling with parent/employee dual roles from home—the list goes on. Because mental health counseling can be provided via telehealth, people are actually now more easily able to access care than before. Providing counseling over a computer is a bit different than in person—in that the connection might not feel as strong at first—but over time you adjust, the relationship grows and you can still feel quite a strong connection even from a distance. Another one of the other major differences has been the team not seeing each other in person regularly; we’re not able to give to each other the level of support we were working from the office together. I imagine in the future virtual counseling will stick around and our services will be more of a blend of in office and virtual. This seems to help with more work/life balance for the therapists, and many clients appreciate being able to talk to a therapist from the comfort of their home.

How do you practice staying composed and balanced in such an emotionally charged profession? How do you leave your work “at work” and turn off for the day?
It’s definitely a component to our training in graduate school and takes time and practice, but a central component is understanding that our job is to help others help themselves. We can only help and offer our expertise, but the work is theirs to do. This is also important because change comes from within for the client, and in that sense the change can be more long-lasting and truly self-developed. Another key component is understanding that as a counselor, you are your own best tool. If you want to keep helping people and being a provider, you have to take care of yourself, too. One of my favorite quotes has always been, “You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection” (Buddha). You have to care as much about yourself as you do your clients. And it boils down to good time management. Some of your time goes to your clients, and some of your time goes to yourself.

How have your past professional and academic experiences and lessons prepared you for the work you do today? How have they not prepared you?
I don’t think anything fully prepares you for the reality of starting your own company. I’m not a parent, but something tells me it’s similar enough; you just don’t fully know what you’re getting into—and that’s probably for the best! It takes an enormous amount of time, effort, endurance, flexibility and strength to build a business from scratch. Not everything goes according to plan and one day, your business starts to outgrow you and you’ve got to let go and let it fly with the wings you’ve put in place, rather than trying to hold it up all by yourself. You’ve got to lean into faith and trust quite a bit. My professional experiences were in customer service, veterinary services, nonprofit social services organizations, administration, and clinical mental health practices, while my academic experiences have all been in the humanities, psychology and social science. In my experience, being a bit of a jack of all trades is very useful to starting and successfully running your own company. One minute you’re doing a strategic plan and the next the internet goes down at the office and you’re the one who has to figure it out. You have to understand how to build a business from the mindset of the customer experience, but also from the mindset of a therapist who understands how therapy works and what quality service is, while also needing to know how to organize things and simply run the business strategically and from an operations perspective. Odd as it may seem, even working at a veterinarian’s office helped prepare me! We did quite a bit of animal rehabilitation there for those who had been traumatized in some way, and the foundation of that was building trust and a positive relationship with the animal—just like in counseling!

How has being a woman impacted your professional experiences? What can we collectively do to support and empower women in your industry today?
There are certainly times where I felt that I wasn’t being taken as seriously as if I were a man, particularly as it relates to being a business woman more than it relates to being a therapist, since that’s a female-dominant industry. At times, I’ve felt like I’ve had to work much harder to prove my ideas and be taken seriously. But this also strengthened me and fueled my competitive streak to achieve. Every adversity in my life has also fueled my empathy and passion for wanting to help others overcome the challenges in their life, whatever kind of adversity that may be (that’s not exclusive to being a woman). There’s a lot we can do though, to collectively empower women. In my industry in particular, it helps to create networks where women can develop themselves as business leaders in the field too, not only providers. Academic and training programs can integrate certifications in healthcare or nonprofit business administration directly into the degree program, or offer extracurricular seminars. Fundamentally, though, we’ve gotta change the narrative to one that views women as not only competent, but valuable assets in business and executive positions. To quote a babe, RBG said, “Women belong in all places where decisions are being made. It shouldn't be that women are the exception.”

What are some common misconceptions about your job?
I’m sure most people will nod their head in agreement and think, “That makes sense,” but a big misconception is that because we are therapists we have it all together, our relationships are perfectly healthy, we always feel happy, and we have all the answers. Therapists are human beings too, and therapy isn’t so much about arriving at a place where you have the secret recipe of how to live your life in perfect bliss and harmony, but rather it’s about accepting that life is full of a range of experiences from happiness to sorrow, from beginnings and endings. Another one of my favorite quotes is, “You can’t stop the waves but you can learn to surf” (Jon Kabat-Zinn). Being human is to think and feel (all the feelings), and we have gone through (and continue to go through) many of the same trials and tribulations our clients face as well. Of course, as therapists, we aren’t bringing these into sessions (we go to our own therapy for that), but there’s very likely plenty others don’t see.

What’s one thing you’re proud to have accomplished in your career thus far?
It’s really a privilege to be a mental health therapist, hearing some of the most intimate details of someone’s story and their innermost thoughts and emotions. It’s really something when you hear someone you’ve helped say, “I never thought I’d see the day where I looked forward to waking up and being alive. Thank you.” That feeling is priceless.

Who are some women in your field that you look to for inspiration?
Most of the time, on the day-to-day, I look to the women I work with. They’re in my immediate environment, and they’re all incredibly intelligent and talented at what they do. I learn so much from them! It’s one of the things I love most about group practices as opposed to private practices. I also find inspiration working with my own therapist as well and the many female mental health providers and business women I know in the Orlando community. The more widely known women in the mental health industry who I look up to are Tara Brach, Brene Brown, Kristin Neff, Marsha Linehan, and Glennon Doyle.

What does your approach to work/life balance look like? How do you unplug and unwind?
Nothing fancy! Walks and cuddles with my dog, connecting with friends and family over shared interests, hot baths, yoga, positive self-talk, humorous TikTok feeds, and sometimes a novel to get lost in. Something else I do that is very helpful for me is to keep my phone on silent at all times and to keep all notifications on all apps off. I only check apps when I have the time to address the tasks that will be presented as opposed to push notifications, which I find to be intrusive and generate stress through a sense of urgency pressure to respond.

Career and/or life advice for other babes (both inside and outside of your industry?)
Learn to believe in yourself and don’t ever forget who you are at your core and what makes you tick. Be vulnerable and find your people—the ones who are going to support you through the times you think you want to throw in the towel. Pace yourself—but keep fucking going. Work to live, don’t live to work.

Connect with Susan:

IG // Email

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