Life & Work with Kaylee Criswell

Kaylee completed an interview with Voyage Dallas, a publication which aims to highlight local “gems”. The link to the article can be found here: http://voyagedallas.com/interview/life-work-with-kaylee-criswell-of-southlake/. The transcript is below for your convenience.

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kaylee Criswell.

Hi Kaylee, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I change.” This thought-provoking quote by Carl Rogers, a pioneer in Humanistic psychotherapy, defines both my personal experiences and the work that I do in the counseling room. My desire to help this truth become the lived experience of the men and women I work with is the defining feature of my work as a Licensed Professional Counselor and Nationally Certified Counselor. In 2014, I graduated from the University of North Texas with a Bachelor of Science in Development and Family Studies and minors in Spanish and Counseling. During the year between my undergraduate and master’s programs, I completed a secondary teaching certification. I was hired at Keller High School and taught Counseling and Mental Health and other Family Consumer Science courses.

Teaching at Keller High School while completing my Master’s Degree was a time of tremendous growth and excitement. I was supported by some incredible mentors at Keller High School, who helped me manage the various obligations of being a full-time teacher while completing my internship in the clinic on-campus. Part of my story is the tremendous gratitude I have for the people who invested in me and provided opportunities to help me get to where I am today. Learning in this environment exposed me to the intricacies and unique pressure experienced by today’s adolescents, the expectations placed on adolescents by self, family, and society, and the remarkable impact that a healthy system can make on young people’s development.

During my graduate studies, my upbringing’s conservative philosophy was challenged against the modern struggles of a 21st-century world, leading me to the development of a cohesive world view that informs the work I do as a therapist. A particular moment of change was when I realized the immense amount of privilege I have as a white, heterosexual, middle-class woman in modern America. I decided that I would use my privilege to investigate and advocate against the systems that encourage oppression.

As a product of my experiences, I am a therapist who passionately seeks to understand my clients by continuously adding new knowledge to my practice. I continue to evolve to better understand other people’s pain and better connect with people in their most vulnerable moments. I regularly collaborate with my peers to gain other perspectives and approaches in the work and better hone my craft. I am also continually studying the work of pioneers in the field to emulate their approaches. I value people and am honored to know people in the intimate ways afforded me as a therapist.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Getting to where I am today has been a road full of personal growth and learning through experience. While I am proud of where I am today, primarily because of my work’s meaningful nature, I am keenly aware that my story is one of opportunity and privilege that has not been available to many of my colleagues and friends. So in that sense, the struggles that have come my way have been quite manageable. Having been a DFW practitioner for a few years, I think one of the struggles for mental health professionals in our city is the somewhat disjointed nature of the mental health community. As a practitioner in private practice, I know that it can be easy for some to fall into the trap of only seeing clients and becoming isolated from the professional community. To offset this challenge, community leaders have developed different Facebook networking groups, which help practitioners feel more interconnected. In the future, I hope to be part of the solution that develops a user-friendly system wherein referrals, requests for collaboration, mentorship, and supervision can all be easily communicated between practitioners and clients.

Mental health care accessibility is also a challenge for therapists to consider. Though taking insurance as a therapist typically means more work and less pay, I believe in making mental health care as accessible as possible, meaning I take all major insurance panels and offer a sliding scale when needed.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am a psychotherapist practicing as a clinician at a Blank Slate Therapy, a group practice in Southlake, Texas. As a person-centered therapist, I take a Humanistic approach to counseling. In the context of safe relationships, I believe people can change and grow the most, thus inspiring me to connect with my clients on a fundamentally human level. I work to understand what clients are going through in the context of their diverse systems. I can often help clients identify both what they have and do not have control over by taking a systems approach. When one can differentiate between those two concepts, clients often leave feeling empowered, with the tools to make meaningful changes they had been unable to achieve previously. With a focus on empathy and acceptance while offering helpful tools, feedback, and resources, I formulate treatment to help clients meet their individualized goals. I am most known for my work with adolescent clients for helping them manage their diverse needs and in helping parents and adolescents effectively communicate with one another. This connection affords the family greater intimacy. My success in navigating relational dynamics within the family has inspired my growing passion and desire to specialize in relationship counseling, focusing on couples. It is as a relationship counselor that I have found my home as a therapist.

I recognize there are many talented therapists in the DFW from which to choose. Choosing the right therapist can be time-consuming, but finding a good match is an most important part of the therapy process. Even more than my theoretical approach, education, and training, what makes me a unique choice is that I am an active participant in my own healing process and therapy as a client. I do these things to make sure that my “stuff” doesn’t get in the way when I sit down with you.

What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
One of the challenges that I have observed while living in DFW is the stark contrast in opportunity between areas of affluence and poverty. Though I believe this is a problem in any major city, I am often concerned about the inequitable representation of people in power. However, I am hopeful that our community can overcome this through awareness surrounding the need for children to see people like them as community leaders. Having lived in the Dallas area since 2011, I have witnessed the influx of new residents from across the globe and have enjoyed seeing our neighborhoods and schools continue to become more diverse. Though we have a long way to go, I do see grassroots efforts to raise awareness surrounding the need to interact with diverse people. When we interact with people who are different from us, we are given the opportunity to learn about and develop empathy and understanding. In the vacuum of same-ness, dangerous ideologies and plans have the ammunition to develop, while the potential to develop faulty beliefs surrounding anything “other” is almost inevitable. I believe diversity leads to empathy and progress, which facilitates the development of more equitable policies and legislation which serve the greater good.