COVID-19 laid bare the fragility of U.S. mental health. Fortunately, Pelican Cove shines light on a way out of this storm. The idea: long-term, quality, dignified care to those who traditionally lack access, by quality, well-trained, well-cared-for clinicians. This model has served me well as a therapist. Here’s how:
Supervision
In our two-hour group and 1-hour individual supervision sessions, we focus on one or two clients, building the skill of psychodynamic case conceptualization with a more holistic, person-centered approach to therapy.
While we share common psychology, humans are unique, complex individuals with varying desires, neurology, family histories, cultural influences, and social locations that inform how we view ourselves, the world, and our place in it.
This approach humanizes our clients, letting us see the person beyond their diagnosis.
This vantage becomes a mirror to clients to see themselves as we see them, increasing self-compassion.
This type of supervision is, unfortunately, rare. A client’s case may get only a few minutes of supervision at other sites. Overbooked, understaffed agencies are left focusing on emergencies and band-aid interventions for symptom relief. They do not often have time or resources to unearth and target underlying, systemic, complex processes contributing to clients’ suffering.
Community
When I feel stuck or at an impasse in a client’s care, I reach out to a Pelican Cove alum to consult. This often creates a breakthrough in my client’s treatment, as the client and I have a deeper, fresh view of the client’s struggles, leading to new solutions.
My clients at Pelican Cove were treated with much more dignity and respect than I’ve seen in other agencies. This created a buy-in to longer-term treatment, which has included clients referring family members and friends, helping entire family systems and communities.
Many previous clients are still with Pelican Cove, years after I graduated. Others have followed me to other sites. The depth of our relationships is strong; their healing and progress are tangible and meaningful to them.
Therapist Care
Pelican Cove helped trained me to be a well-rounded therapist by:
Providing weekly didactic trainings for the full phase of client treatment, from intakes to termination. My cohort members at other sites did not receive this level of depth or number of trainings.
Ongoing work on setting boundaries and therapist self-care. Many therapists feel a calling to give back that draws us to this field. Unfortunately, this can lead to burnout without proper boundary setting. Boundary and therapist care work are weaved throughout our training and supervision, setting us up well in a field that often does not support this.
The Mission
While attending USC for my MFT degree, I concurrently completed a fellowship in community health. The Pelican Cove mission offers a model rarely seen in community health — one often acknowledged by other site directors and cohort members I visited as part of that fellowship. The private funding, sliding scale model helps solve some of our fields’ most entrenched issues: access to long-term, quality, dignified care, and proper, well-rounded, whole-person therapist training. As a Pelican Cove supervisor told me during my interview: “Once you learn this model and receive this training, you can take that as a foundation to any other agency. It will be there with you to draw from.” She was so right; I do so — often.