Starting Out After Graduate School: Team-Based Care, Stability, and Early Career Decisions
An Interview with Eden Lathem
Special Series: Becoming a Therapist
Curt and Katie welcome back Eden Lathem for a second-year conversation in the Becoming a Therapist special series. Since her first appearance on the podcast, Eden has graduated from her Marriage and Family Therapy program and entered the workforce under temporary licensure, a designation that is expected to shift to associate licensure as state laws change. In this episode, Eden reflects on the realities of working in an intensive outpatient treatment setting, navigating supervision and licensure requirements, and making early career decisions around stability, learning, and financial sustainability. Together, they explore how expectations shift after graduation and what it can look like to prioritize team-based care and growth during the early years of practice.
Click here to scroll to the podcast transcript.Transcript
(Show notes provided in collaboration with Otter.ai and ChatGPT.)
About Our Guest: Eden Lathem
Eden Lathem is a Marriage and Family Therapist practicing under temporary licensure, working in an intensive outpatient treatment setting where she provides individual and group therapy as part of a multidisciplinary clinical team. Her clinical work focuses on supporting individuals and families navigating caregiving stress, disability, trauma, anxiety, depression, identity shifts, and major life transitions.
Eden is currently employed at Rogers Behavioral Health, where she works with adults in a structured, team-based environment that emphasizes collaboration, supervision, and shared responsibility for complex clinical care. She values the stability and learning opportunities that treatment center work can offer early-career clinicians.
In addition to her current role, Eden is completing training in Parent–Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), an evidence-based treatment for young children and their caregivers that uses live coaching and play to strengthen parent–child connection and support emotional and behavioral regulation.
In her work with clients, Eden strives to create a calm, supportive therapeutic space where individuals and families can sort through challenges, understand what has been holding them back, and develop practical tools for change. Her goal is to help clients feel more grounded, connected, and hopeful as they navigate the realities of life, relationships, and transition.
In this podcast episode: Life after graduation, treatment center work, and early career realities
Curt and Katie talk with Eden about the transition out of graduate school, including obtaining temporary licensure, navigating supervision requirements, and adjusting expectations about early career work. Eden describes her role in an intensive outpatient program, where she provides both individual and group therapy and collaborates closely with a clinical team supporting higher-acuity clients.
Eden reflects on her initial attempts at private practice and why she ultimately chose to leave in favor of a treatment center setting. She discusses the isolation she experienced early on, the financial pressures of supervision, exams, and unpaid training, and the importance of paid learning environments. The conversation also explores differences between agency work and private practice, early-career wages, and how Eden is thinking about flexibility, continued training, and long-term professional development as she works toward full licensure.
Key Takeaways for Therapy Students and Early-Career Clinicians: Post-graduation choices, stability, and learning
“I think that there’s a lot of learning that can be done in a treatment center…and I’m also learning those skills, of how do you handle something like this, and how do you learn from these things? So I think really what was the biggest thing for me [in choosing working at a treatment center instead of in a private practice] is where am I going to learn the most? ”
— Eden Lathem
- The transition from graduate school into practice often involves unexpected administrative, financial, and emotional challenges.
- Team-based treatment settings can offer stability, supervision, and collaborative support that may be especially valuable early in a career.
- Private practice is not always the best immediate fit after graduation, particularly for clinicians who value structure and shared responsibility.
- Early-career clinicians often face significant upfront costs related to supervision, licensure, exams, and continuing education.
- Flexibility in career planning can support both professional growth and personal sustainability.
“There’s not one approach to becoming a therapist — you can work toward a goal and still be flexible about how you get there.”
— Eden Lathem
Resources on Early Career Practice, Treatment Centers, and Supervision
- Rogers Behavioral Health – Intensive outpatient and treatment center care
- State licensure boards and supervision requirements (vary by location)
- MTSG episodes on supervision, early-career decision-making, and agency work (see below)
Relevant Episodes of the MTSG Podcast
- Identifying the Graduate Program for the Career You Want
Special Series: Becoming a Therapist — An Interview with Eden Lathem (Year One) - I Just Graduated, Now What? – Career Advice for New Mental Health Clinicians
- Career Trekking with MTSG: Interview with Marissa Esquibel, LMFT
- Why Therapists Shouldn’t Be Taught Business in Grad School
- The Clinical Supervision Crisis for Early Career Therapists: An Interview with Dr. Amy Parks
- Agency and School Drama
- Topic: Therapist Education
- 3 Things I Wish I Knew Starting Out (blog post)
Meet the Hosts: Curt Widhalm & Katie Vernoy
Curt Widhalm, LMFT
Curt Widhalm is in private practice in the Los Angeles area. He is the cofounder of the Therapy Reimagined conference, an Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine University and CSUN, a former Subject Matter Expert for the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, former CFO of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, and a loving husband and father. He is 1/2 great person, 1/2 provocateur, and 1/2 geek, in that order. He dabbles in the dark art of making “dad jokes” and usually has a half-empty cup of coffee somewhere nearby. Learn more at: http://www.curtwidhalm.com
Katie Vernoy, LMFT
Katie Vernoy is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, coach, and consultant supporting leaders, visionaries, executives, and helping professionals to create sustainable careers. Katie, with Curt, has developed workshops and a conference, Therapy Reimagined, to support therapists navigating through the modern challenges of this profession. Katie is also a former President of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists. In her spare time, Katie is secretly siphoning off Curt’s youthful energy, so that she can take over the world. Learn more at: http://www.katievernoy.com
A Quick Note:
Our opinions are our own. We are only speaking for ourselves – except when we speak for each other, or over each other. We’re working on it.
Our guests are also only speaking for themselves and have their own opinions. We aren’t trying to take their voice, and no one speaks for us either. Mostly because they don’t want to, but hey.
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Transcript for this episode of the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide podcast (Autogenerated):
Transcripts do not include advertisements just a reference to the advertising break (as such timing does not account for advertisements)
… 0:00
(Opening Advertisement)
Announcer 0:00
You’re listening to the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide, where therapists live, breathe and practice as human beings. To support you as a whole person and a therapist, here are your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy.
Curt Widhalm 0:13
Welcome back, modern therapists. This is the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide. I’m Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy, and this podcast for therapists about the things that go on in our practices, things go on in our profession, and we are continuing on with our series. Last year, we started talking with some grad students, and we decided, let’s invite them back. Let’s see what’s happened over the course of a year, and hopefully this is something for people who are interested in joining into the profession can be a resource as far as what it’s really like to go through the process of becoming a therapist. So we are joined once again today by Eden Lathem, and thank you so much for coming back and spending some time with us.
Eden Lathem 0:54
Yeah, of course. Thank you for having me.
Katie Vernoy 0:56
Excited to talk again and see what’s going on. I’ll ask you the question we’re asking our grad students slash new therapists in this series, who are you and why do you want to be a therapist?
Eden Lathem 1:08
Yeah, so I’m Eden Lathem, and kind of what really got me to want to be a therapist is that, you know, I think I said in the last episode, like, initially I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do when I was an undergrad, I was doing psychology, and was like, people are what I’m interested in. I’m interested in people. I’m interested in helping professions. But I didn’t initially know that I wanted to be a therapist. Really, like, the two main populations that I enjoyed working with was people who are incarcerated, and then people with disabilities. And so then from that, I was like, well, I could do both by being a therapist. So that’s kind of what led me down that pathway. And then I kind of made the decision of, like, I like systemic thinking, I’m going to go the Marriage and Family Therapist’s route as well. So that’s kind of what got me into it. And then I was at Lipscomb, Lipscomb University’s Marriage and Family Therapy program, and I graduated this past year in the summer.
Katie Vernoy 2:08
Congratulations!
Eden Lathem 2:09
Thank you. Feels like a long time ago, but was really not that long ago, within the same year. So yeah, and then right now, I’m working at an intensive outpatient clinic, and I’m the trauma therapist there.
Curt Widhalm 2:12
So what is the process been like as far as graduating, getting registered with your state licenses board, just kind of all of the bureaucratic stuff that you’ve had to face here?
Eden Lathem 2:40
Yeah, it’s been, you know, I think our program tried to prepare us as much as possible, but there’s still also those aspects of, I don’t exactly know what I’m doing. So having to, you know, reach out and, you know, get additional help from, you know, past professors and stuff like that. But, like, as soon as I graduated, we were really told, at least, like, in the state of Tennessee, there was a new law coming through where you wouldn’t be able to practice unless you have your temporary licensure. So they were like, get your temp license as soon as possible. And then, you know, our temp licensure is about to switch into associate licensure. So there’s a lot of like, laws kind of going down the line. So I was like, I need to get my temp license as quick as possible. So the process for that was essentially just doing a lot of paperwork. Needed to get, like, birth certificate and like all that kind of stuff, finding a supervisor. And that wasn’t too difficult. I had some people in my cohort who were going to somebody who had graduated previously and was a supervisor. And I was like, Yeah, I’m gonna do that too. So found her, found my supervisor, and then kind of just submitted the paperwork, waited maybe a month, and then got my temp license, which, you know, wasn’t too difficult, but also, you know, had lots of help. So that was good.
Katie Vernoy 4:03
So you’re working, describe your working situation.
Eden Lathem 4:06
So right now I’m working in an intensive outpatient Rogers Behavioral Health. They’ve got a location near where I live, and so I’m working there, and they’ve got, basically, it’s kind of kind of like group therapy, a lot of it. So there’s a mix of like individual therapy and then also like group based. So we’ve got different programs. There’s like an adolescent side and then an adult side. And so I’m on the adult side, and I’m the trauma therapist, and I have a mix of patients who are working on trauma as well as depression. So kind of with that there’s, yeah, a mix of individual and group. So it’s a, you know, they’re there from about from morning to afternoon. So it’s about like six hours that they’re there. And we’re kind of working with them, doing groups, also helping them with some individual therapy stuff. So it’s it’s a very different, different than I expected I would be doing, or at least from what I was like the individual type of therapy that I was doing, mostly in my internship, like in school and stuff. So have have had to adapt to the way that it looks different.
Curt Widhalm 5:21
What were you expecting at this point in your career? You spent a couple of years in grad school. What did you imagine that your pre license years would be looking like, and how have the expectations really been different?
Eden Lathem 5:37
Yeah, I think maybe, I I think I felt prepared in some senses, but also there was some things that I wasn’t prepared for, of just like the the variety of what being a therapist could look like. I think I, or at least a lot of people in my program were very much going private practice route. And so in some ways, I kind of expected, like, okay, I guess I’ll kind of land there too. And I tried that for a little bit, and then I was like, I don’t really like this. And so then I switched over, because I was like, I feel like I like working in a team better. So that’s one thing that I appreciate. But I guess, yeah, my expectations were that I would just kind of be getting into private practice and just kind of doing that, but that really was what I found that I didn’t really like. And you know, it might change. I might want to do that eventually, but at least for right now, I feel like the best thing for me is to have a lot of people around me who probably know more than I do. So I think that, that that has been something that I maybe kind of knew, that I wanted, but didn’t listen to that at first.
Curt Widhalm 6:59
What were you finding in that private practice situation that you realized that you’d needed the team around you? Can you talk more about, really, what that experience was like and what helped you come to that realization?
Eden Lathem 7:12
Yeah, I think, I mean, just like the business side of it, I just did not, was not prepared for that at all. And other people probably have a lot more experience, like with business things, but my I’m just not as experienced with those kind of things. So the business aspect of it, I was like, Oh, this is challenging. I think eventually maybe I could grow to learn those skills. But I was like, really, what I want to focus on right now is becoming a good therapist and having having resources of, you know, people around me who I can learn from, and I think in private practice at least, what I found was that it’s kind of isolating, and especially for me, you know, still being in that learning like you’re always learning, but really being early on in that learning process, I just found that it was a little bit too isolating for me, and I didn’t have all the money in the world to spend on trainings to be able to learn, learn things. And you know, at least where I am, I’m getting some training, and I’m getting paid for that training. So that’s been that was kind of what, what led me to switching out of that.
Katie Vernoy 8:26
How quickly did you switch out?
Eden Lathem 8:28
Probably, probably, like a month or so, because originally, I was at two different private practices, and then left, left one of them, and then started working where I’m currently working, like PRN. And then after I did my training, I was like, well, actually, I think I’d rather just do this. So then after that, I just left both those private practices and was like, I’m just gonna do this. Makes financial sense, makes logical sense for me, just felt like the best choice.
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Katie Vernoy 9:03
Oftentimes, folks are hesitant to go into agency or treatment center work because of the horror stories. You’re saying kind of the opposite. And so maybe talk through the benefits beyond training and team that you’re seeing that have led you to feel happier in a agency treatment center setting versus private practice?
Eden Lathem 9:29
Yeah, I think because there’s also parts of me that see the challenges of those agencies, and like community health care or community health places like, I also see that.
Katie Vernoy 9:42
And obviously, let’s be clear, there’s, there’s a lot of different ways that you can work for organizations. So treatment centers have different reputations than public mental health or community mental health. So.
Eden Lathem 9:53
Oh yeah, of course
Katie Vernoy 9:54
But for your for your perspective, this is something that a lot of folks don’t even consider, because they’ve had such heard such bad things about working for organizations, and so what’s the good, the bad, the ugly about where you’re working?
Eden Lathem 10:08
Yeah, I think definitely, like, what has really pulled me to it is the stability. I think there’s so much instability in private practice, at least, like starting out, for sure, and that kind of came down to, like, the financial and like logistical sense of it too, of like, I’m can’t really make a livelihood on, you know, trying to build up a caseload right now, while also just coming right out of grad school. And so that was one thing. But specifically, like, for, for like, the good of, you know, like treatment centers and stuff like that. Like, I think you get a different perspective of, like, what therapy can look like, and what you know, working with clients can look like. And at least for me, like I don’t, I have a hard time like seeing, like, what the final destination is for me, like as a therapist. But I think that really what, what is important for me is like the learning that I’m doing. And so I think that there’s a lot of learning that can be done in like a in like a treatment center, in like, more kind of intense, acute cases as well, where, you know, I’m not having to handle it on my own, and there’s other people that I can go to, and I’m also learning those skills, of, like, how do you handle something like this, and how do you learn from these things? So I think really, like, what, what was the biggest thing for me is like, where am I going to learn the most? And I felt like that’s probably going to be in, you know,a treatment center. So kind of like that.
Katie Vernoy 11:49
That makes a lot of sense.
Curt Widhalm 11:52
You’re talking about money. How are you finding wages to be? What were you finding that private practice? Let’s get into the dirty details of what it is to be kind of in your first year out of grad school, what you’re facing.
Eden Lathem 12:08
Yeah, yeah. I was talking with one of my friends, and we she kind of joked. She was, like, they should have told us, like, if you’re going to go into private practice, you should, like, be married, or, like, have another person, have some other kind of, like, steady income going in there. So that was kind of a joke we had, but, yeah, I think definitely for for private practice, you know, it takes a while to build it up. And, you know, having going straight into that, like some people find find a lot of success, like I have people in my cohort that have been able to find a lot of success, but at least where I am, the, you know, we’ve got a lot of therapists, and it’s kind of hard to, you know, differentiate in some ways. So yeah, I think with that, and then also for me, and like, my job, I think wages are not super awesome, you know. I think there’s always that aspect of, you know, we have our internships, and a lot of times internships are unpaid. And then also, when we’re getting into our careers, you know, we’re having to pay for supervision like, that’s another thing too, is that we’re getting paid less than, you know, like a licensed clinician, which in some cases, is pretty fair. But there’s also that aspect of we have to pay for those trainings, and those supervisions, and a lot of the times it can be challenging to do all of those things. And there’s a lot of training that I would like to do. You know, I have people that have done, people in my cohort that have done, like, specific trainings on certain modalities, like EMDR, and, you know, more kind of specific training, trainings on stuff. But that can be challenging to do with also having paid for supervision and things like that. So there’s just a lot of upfront costs, as well as paying for your licensure and paying for the exam. So there’s just a lot that you do have to pay for. So yeah.
Katie Vernoy 14:15
And it’s so interesting, because in California, you get paid to go to supervision because you have to be an employee. So it’s very different in different states, and so it’s it is interesting to hear folks around the country talk about their experiences, because you will need, if for folks who are listening, who are considering this career, you will need to look at what’s available and how things work in your particular area. But I know money is hard to talk about, so I want to ask a little bit of a broad question so we can get actually, some some nuts and bolts here. You said that some of your cohort has been successful in private practice. What does that mean? What does that functionally look like? Do you have even, you know, dollar ranges per hour, that kind of stuff. It doesn’t need to be in depth. You don’t need to out anybody, yeah, but what is actually possible, from where you are to be quote, unquote successful in private practice first year out of grad school?
Eden Lathem 15:11
Yeah, I’ve been, I can think of one person in particular who I think they’re at a group practice. So there’s, you know, a maybe 30, 40% that’s being taken out of their session fee. But I think they’re, you know, at $150 per session, and they’ve got a full caseload, which it looks like 20 to 25 clients a week. And so they, you know, their job is also nice because they’re getting paid. They get paid for also doing, like, notes and stuff like that. Like, they get like, an hourly rate in addition for, like, documentation stuff like that, in addition to, you know, the session fee. But of course, when you’re at a group practice, there’s a portion of your fee for seeing a client that’s taken out a little bit. But yeah, it looks like most people, at least the rates that I’ve seen are about like $150 to $180 for private practice.
Katie Vernoy 16:08
So we could do the math, but I think that’s probably not that interesting, but it’s, you know, you get a $150 to $180 fee. You’re getting probably more like $100 per session yourself. And then there’s some nominal fee that you get for your administrative time.
Eden Lathem 16:24
Sure.
Katie Vernoy 16:24
And that can, that can be fairly successful and most likely, my experience is a lot of group practices don’t have benefits you’re paying for your other for your benefits, that kind of stuff, unless you have a partner that you know you get to put yourself on their benefits.
Eden Lathem 16:38
Right.
Katie Vernoy 16:38
For salary ranges in your area. For folks working in treatment centers, what kind of things does that, what does that look like?
Eden Lathem 16:45
Yeah, I mean, I’ve seen anywhere from like $45,000 to unlicensed, probably like around $65,000 and then for licensed, it goes up from like $65 to I’ve seen all the way up to $80, 80k so that’s kind of what the numbers look like. And I’m sure that there are some other spaces that do more, do less, but that’s kind of the average of what I’ve seen in my area.
Katie Vernoy 17:14
Yeah, thanks. That’s very helpful.
Eden Lathem 17:15
Yeah, of course.
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Curt Widhalm 17:17
You’re talking about some of the job or career aspects that are kind of a surprise and a learning curve. As you’ve been out in the field a little bit more here too. Reflecting back on grad school, is there clinical aspects that you feel that you weren’t quite prepared for, as far as moving out into the workforce?
Eden Lathem 17:39
Yeah, in specific, I think that there were a lot of things that I was able to learn, but I think really kind of reminding us that we also need to maybe have, like, our own learning plan that we set for ourselves, like post grad as well. Because I, you know, early on, I was kind of like, Wait, do I remember anything that I learned? And so I think that at least, like, I’ve had to kind of reevaluate with myself, of like, okay, I need to, like, continue reading my books and like, continue learning and reminding myself to keep doing that, as well as like, reminding myself, but like, I do know stuff, and like, I don’t also want to, you know, I want to be humble about, like, there’s a lot of stuff I don’t know, but there is, you know, I’m I know stuff, and there’s that aspect of like, I think it’s hard for like, young clinicians to trust themselves in some senses, and so…
Katie Vernoy 18:39
Sure.
Eden Lathem 18:39
You know, I think that comes with experience, and it comes with like, good supervision too. Of, you know, being like, Oh, wait, I did have a good I did have a good sense of what I was supposed to do. And then these people around me are also saying, like, yeah, okay, yeah, you knew what to do. So yeah, I think good supervision is a big part of that as well. But yeah, I think maybe I mean, working with, like, higher higher acuity cases, I think at least for like, marriage and family therapy, we don’t, we’re because we’re more, like, relational and systemic and so like with, with certain, like, you know, different kind of mental illnesses that you see, there was some like, I don’t know exactly how to work with this, or maybe I do, and I’m just second guessing myself. But also, you know, making sure that I’m seeking additional supervision for things that I’m like, I need additional help with this. So, yeah, I think maybe an other, like, like a more clinical kind of, I don’t know what, like a clinical mental health program looks like, but I’ve, I mean, there’s a lot of in, in where I work, also there’s a lot more, like, LPCs and like, like clinical mental health counselors, and so I’m kind of one of the sole MFTs in my practice as well. But, you know, it has its it has its strengths as well. I’m able to conceptualize a little bit different. So it’s, you know, we all kind of have different backgrounds and different ways of looking at things, which I think, in the end, is helpful to have those different perspectives.
Katie Vernoy 20:23
So a lot has happened since we last spoke with you. It’s been a full year. Lots of things in the news, lots of things in you know, kind of technological advances. There’s been so many things that have shifted out in the world. And even before we hit record, you talked about that, a lot has changed for you as well.
Eden Lathem 20:44
Sure.
Katie Vernoy 20:45
And I’m curious how your personal life or current events have impacted your training or your work as a clinician.
Eden Lathem 20:54
Yeah, that’s, I mean, it’s a lofty question,because there’s…
Katie Vernoy 21:00
So break it down as much as in whatever way you like.
Eden Lathem 21:02
Yeah, because there’s so many different ways that things have changed. And, you know, I think there’s been a lot of public opinion and, like, you know, just something that’s coming into my mind is, you know, the cuts to mental health care, and I think that that has been scary for a lot of people. And a lot of people have been afraid of losing, losing jobs, and, you know, all this stuff with AI, you know, that was something that, you know, it was fun way to think. But like when I first started my grad program, like that, it was kind of a thing, but it wasn’t as big of a thing. And so like, now there’s just so much with all of that. And you know, there are ways that that can be really helpful, and there are ways that I’ve seen it not be helpful, like for clinicians as well as like, for clients. And so like, at least, you know, one way that I’ve seen is that, least the place where I’m at right now is changing the way they do screenings, and so they’ve got, like, an AI screening, and haven’t been getting good feedback on that from people who have been taking it, but, you know, those are things that they’re learning. But yeah, I think that there’s, you know, a lot of tangible ways that people are struggling. And, you know, as as clinicians, there’s, you know, there’s the aspect of like ourselves as people too. And I think a lot of clinicians are also like, whether it’s like moral injuries and like having to, not being able to help in ways that maybe we would like to, in those tangible ways, but kind of doing what we can with what we have. Yeah, I think there’s, there’s parts of me that is like, Oh, I wish I could do some more kind of, like social work as well, of being able to help with, like, tangible things, of like people’s, you know, basic needs as well. But I think mental health is such a huge part of that, too. And you know, it all is, you know, as a systemic thinker, I’m like, It’s all connected. It is. It’s hard for a lot of people out there. And I think that at least another thing that I’ve seen, like with current events too, and I think this impacts, like, you know, and another part of, like, private practice too, is I was like, I don’t have the money to pay for that. And there was a part of me that was, I don’t know, I just kind of had, like, some some feelings about it, of like, asking for that much, knowing how challenging it is, which, you know, I think is something you have to, you know, because figure out of how to, how to make that work. Not a lot of people can afford how much therapy is. So there’s a lot of ways that people are trying to make it more accessible and kind of using insurance, but then also, insurance is getting more expensive as well. So it’s just, it’s it’s a lot, it’s a lot.
Katie Vernoy 24:18
Yeah, it’s a scary time for a lot of folks.
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Curt Widhalm 24:22
Have you found some of the uncertainty around budget cuts, around technology affecting the workforce, affecting you, and the decisions that you’re making in your career path?
Eden Lathem 24:37
Yeah, I think I had said earlier, like finances was a big reason that I also decided to do the job that I’m doing, and there is a level of job security you get when you’re in an agency or in a treatment center. You know, it’s not foolproof, but it’s a little bit more secure than when you’re out on your own and kind of have a business of your own. And, you know, I’ve had a friend who was working in a group practice, and then the group practice suddenly closed, and she got, like, a month or two, but from when they closed it and so that, you know, that’s scary.
Katie Vernoy 25:19
Sure.
Eden Lathem 25:20
And yeah, there’s definitely challenges in being more independent. I mean, there’s a lot of good in being more independent, but sometimes you get a layer of safety when you’re embedded in, you know, a larger system, essentially, of like a treatment center or agency.
Katie Vernoy 25:44
The world is kind of hard to navigate right now, or especially the country is hard to navigate right now with what you’re talking about, and you’re at the very beginning of your career. And so there’s the uncertainty that you’re describing around finances and how to stabilize those elements of your career. There’s it seems like a need that you’re describing to get clinical support and really learn your job, which I know Curt and I’ve talked about this in other episodes, so we’ll link those in the show notes at mtsgpodcast.com. And it seems like to a certain extent, you’re getting some support from the folks at the treatment center. It sounds like you’re keeping in touch with folks in your cohort. And I’m just curious, what types of support do you have, and what types of support are you looking for as a temporarily licensed clinician.
Eden Lathem 26:43
Yeah, I mean, I think there are resources that I have are definitely like past professors, like I had good relationships, so that has been helpful to be able to, you know, I’ve multiple people that, you know, have been in my cohort have been able to reach back out, and I’ve been able to reach back out, and that that is a great line of communication, and very helpful because they’re very experienced. As well as, like with, with, with the supervisor, that is helpful too, to have that. And I’ve got, you know, an individual supervisor that I’m able to, you know, get hours for, and then one that I have at work, but I’m not, you know, it’s not going towards my licensure hours because they have a different license. It’s hard, because it’s like, there could always be more support. And I think that something that could be helpful, and something that I’ve thought about is like having a mentor, kind of or like friends that are more advanced and in their careers, because I’ve got my friends who are at the same level as I am, and my supervisor, but I’m paying for that, and so being able to, just like, have those organic relationships with people, so that I’m not having to, you know, pay my friend, but, you know, we’re able to learn from each other. And it’s that that I think that would be something cool, just to be able to find other, other, more experienced clinicians in different areas, and just have you know relationship, to be able to just learn from that, I think would be another thing that could be helpful.
Curt Widhalm 28:14
What are your goals for the next year? What are, what is your plan to continue to move forward and expand upon Eden’s career, Eden’s life.
Eden Lathem 28:26
Yeah, I think I would love to do some more training, and I’ll have to see if I can, you know, budget for those things, and really kind of zoning in on, you know, the type of therapist I want to be with with those trainings. And I hope that I’m going to take my exam. I’m planning for that I’ve got, I’m probably going to ask for, like, some study books or something for Christmas. I think is going to be what’s on my Christmas list. And then also, just like, continuing with reading and kind of getting a an education plan for myself, so that I’m able to kind of continue learning and create that plan for myself. But yeah, I mean, hopefully, just continue to get my hours and, you know, make a living and continue learning and growing and working towards licensure hopefully.
Curt Widhalm 29:18
At this point in your career, do you have any parting advice on this episode for anybody who might be interested in pursuing becoming a therapist?
Eden Lathem 29:29
I guess something that I had to learn was I knew what I kind of wanted to do when I was graduating. I kind of always had the idea of like, I don’t want to go right into private practice. And you know, some people know that they do want to go into private practice. So I think getting in touch with what it is that you want from your career, if you are wanting to be a therapist, kind of knowing like, what do you want that to look like, and also knowing that you might have to be flexible with that kind of given, given this state of the world and the state of the job field, being flexible with like, if you’re working towards that, if you’re working towards a certain goal, like, great. And then also being flexible with how you get there, because, you know, there’s not one approach to do it. I think that that would be some advice that would have been helpful for me as well.
Katie Vernoy 30:22
So trust yourself, be flexible, and I’ll add another piece to it, because I started my career in agencies, treatment centers, that kind of stuff. Recognize that there’s, there’s different eras, and you can, you don’t have to know exactly where you’re heading before you start it. You can learn a lot.
Eden Lathem 30:40
Yeah, definitely.
Curt Widhalm 30:42
Well, thank you for spending your time with us and sharing your experience with our audience. And this is a wonderful projects that we’re doing. We’re really glad to be sharing kind of this pre license experience with everybody. So love for people to follow us on our social media. Join our Facebook group, Modern Therapists Group to continue on with this and other conversations, and until next time, I’m Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy and Eden Lathem.
… 31:11
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