Today we’d like to introduce you to Dayna Wood.
Hi Dayna, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I was invited to be a volunteer “peer counselor” at the age of 16. I grew up in Idaho and was attending Boise High School at the time. To this day, I still remember a number of those after-school meetings. I felt honored to be a part of others’ lives in this way – to be talking with such honesty about things that mattered. It is, therefore, not terribly surprising that I went on to get my undergraduate degree in Sociology with a minor in Philosophy. After Boise State University, I started working in community mental health – but soon realized that I felt I needed a lot more education to truly make a difference.
I was determined to become a mental health counselor and had my sights set on the University of Florida, an institution that is known for its academic rigor in the field. It is here that I was introduced to the field of Arts in Medicine and began interning at Shands Hospital. It felt like the coming together of everything I loved. I was working in a hospital setting with children and adults using a variety of creative mediums. I was hooked! (I should also mention that in high school I took all the art classes I could and even deliberately went to summer school to fulfill required credits so I could take more art classes during the regular school year.)
After graduating from UF came the difficult process of becoming licensed. I’m not sure I was fully prepared as an idealistic 20-something when I entered grad school of the full magnitude of how long it would take to be ready to start a private practice, where I had always imagined myself professionally.
My best friend from grad school and I moved to NYC. I was eager to learn more about art therapy and to take classes from some of the best dance instructors. (I took up flamenco dancing in undergrad!) Damn, though – it is hard to get a job in NYC without being licensed and not having gone to school there. I was especially naive to the fact that art therapy is a long-held institution in the City and I, certainly, wasn’t able to find entrance into the field fresh from Idaho and Florida!
I began at a temp agency so I could afford what felt like at that time exorbitant rent ($800 for – basically – a loft bed in a hallway in a 5th-floor walkup railroad-style apartment ½ a block from Port Authority). I was inputting orders for Verizon wireless account executives. I was heartbroken and confused that I wasn’t working in the field that I had worked tirelessly to enter (and was also now starting to pay student loan payments towards). I felt ready and I wanted to jump in headfirst.
However, I met some truly amazing people and it was the first time in years that I wasn’t helping or learning to help in the traditional sense. Instead, I was forced to confront myself and how I wanted to grow – not just professionally but as a person. (It is exceedingly difficult, however, to have grand realizations about Self when you are living off of $1 pizza slices and $3 nacho specials. I was very much in survival mode. But, I knew I didn’t want to leave! I had not gotten what I wanted from the City yet. One truth about New York City: it is hard to enter but also to leave once you call it home.)
Through a serendipitous connection at Verizon, my resume was passed onto a hiring manager at VNSNY Hospice. It felt like God had answered my prayers (and many tears). I was overjoyed and truly felt like I had landed professionally. My interests were fostered and encouraged. They even paid for me to go back to school to receive a certificate in Creative Arts Therapy from the New School. (I also went on to study and be supervised in Expressive Arts Therapy for which I am now a REAT, a Registered Expressive Arts Therapist. What makes expressive arts therapy unique is that it combines multiple art forms (visual, movement, music, writing, drama, etc.) in working with clients. That felt right – so me!)
I was able to pioneer a children’s bereavement program with the creative arts at the forefront and be a part of the founding team of a pediatric palliative care program while also traveling the city offering grief and bereavement counseling to people in their homes. I was in my professional bliss!
When Medicare made changes to how they cover end-of-life care it hit Hospice hard. Things started to rapidly shift, and I quickly found myself out of balance. All the projects that I had so enthusiastically started were not sustainable if not funded. I alone could not do them all. Around this time, I also learned that I was pregnant, and almost immediately I knew I wasn’t able to work in this capacity – at least at that time – anymore.
My partner and I moved to St Petersburg, Florida and we started to build a life (and finally I was able to begin a private practice!) here. I found a truly impressive group of therapists who had also relocated to the area. They were incredibly welcoming, and we have formed a strong network of trusted clinicians to whom I’m confident to refer.
Learning the business side of therapy was an enormous learning curve (none of which was taught in graduate school!). And, all of these were put to the ultimate test when I transitioned from a solo practice to a group practice (three weeks before the pandemic hit). There were many times I wondered if I had made the right decision and if I could endure. There are hundreds of thousands of details for which you can never be fully prepared when taking on the responsibility of bringing additional people onto your team. I am thoughtful and wanted to “do it right” but quickly learned I had to make many initial mistakes in order to learn to do them differently. As they say in Silicon Valley, fail fast, fail often.
We, the team at Integrative Counsel, pride ourselves that one of our primary company values is creativity. However, at the core, this means multiple iterations – prototyping, testing, analyzing, and refining novel ways to best meet our clients and customers where they are in their wellness journey. And, as a leader, this means I’m continually humbled in this creative cycle.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Lesson #1: It’s rarely a straight road. I pride myself on efficiency. Therefore, this lesson has been one that I’ve had to learn over and over again. Though extremely challenging at the moment to feel like I’m taking two steps forward and one step back, I’ve realized I’ve been able to gain tremendous perspective as a result of “having to learn the hard way”.
Lesson # 2: It’s okay to think about money, even when you want to “do good”. It is incredibly unfortunate that they don’t teach business skills while in graduate school to become a counselor. You will hear it repeated over and over again by those who are learning to become psychotherapists, “I’m not doing it for the money…It’s not about the money for me.” I said it to all my relatives when they asked me, “What are you going to school to become?” We, therapists, have a phrase called “yes, and” (instead of “either, or”). Yes, it isn’t ALL about the money. And, it – at least – has to be partially about the money. It took me years of living very meagerly to learn it is OKAY to think about your personal stability and future also!
Lesson # 3: Become comfortable with “multiple iterations”. Therapists teach others how to change but change is very rarely easy, even for us. Humans like things that are predictable and steady. However, all growth is cultivated from change. I’ve changed cities, jobs, concentrations, and titles, and I will likely – hopefully – continue to change. I’m extremely grateful to be in a profession that puts growth at the center of what we do. It, therefore, encourages us to make this a priority in our lives too. Though sometimes this can feel trying, I can most assuredly say it is never boring.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
We offer an eclectic style of counseling that integrates the mind, body, and spirit. Our “special sauce” is a unique blend of creativity, evidence-based modalities, and a synthesis of eastern/western philosophy.
Furthermore, Integrative Counsel values making mental wellness accessible regardless of where someone is in their journey towards Self (with a capital S, a term coined by Jung signifying the unification of the psyche as a whole). We, therefore, know the importance of multiple-entry points for care – from relatable and relevant articles, free resources, affordable workbooks, and workshops to in-depth courses, retreats, quality one-to-one counseling, hybrid coaching, and business consulting.
A new recent endeavor is our “Visiting Professionals”, similar to the concept of a visiting professor at a university. A visiting professional at Integrative Counsel (whether it is as a clinician, coach, or artist), will co-create a group and/or course with Integrative Counsel that highlights their special skill set and interests, which gives our community access to affordable and high-quality groups and courses from experts in their fields. We are especially excited to collaborate with local artists!
Our sights are set on making mental wellness accessible and as commonplace and necessary as flossing – through a variety of creative means. We understand that mental health is more than just its symptoms. At Integrative Counsel, we focus on the meaning and growth gained from our journey toward wellness.
Are there any books, apps, podcasts, or blogs that help you do your best?
Some of our favorite thinkers and writers who help shape who we are and how we practice include Dr. Daniel Siegel, Iain McGilchrist, Brene Brown, Paolo Knill, Arnold van Gennep, Pema Chodron, Carl Jung, Ram Dass, Rumi, Rainer Maria Rilke, Robert Bly, Gay Hendricks, Charlie Morley, Jeffrey Allen, and Clarissa Pinkola Estes. The list can go on and on…
Pricing:
- https://integrativecounsel.org/counseling-coaching-rates/
- Free and low-cost resources: https://integrativecounsel.org/resources-2/
- $95 – $125
- $125 – $150
- $175
Contact Info:
- Website: https://integrativecounsel.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/integrativecounsel/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IntegrativeCounselFL
Image Credits
Cassidy Brooks
