Christine Colburn

Honestly, I cannot stand to see anybody in emotional pain. Knowing that they just need to know how to use those tools, or just in that moment, somebody to say, hey, I see you, it's gonna be okay, you got this, or we're gonna get you through this. Growing up, my sister, no matter when I messed up, she would say, Chris, you know, what are we going to do about this? How are we going to fix this? She always said the we thing, and I remember thinking, you know what? She always says how are we? Like, I'm not alone. So when she died, years later, I started putting reminders in my phone's calendar at random days and times that say, hey you, be kind to yourself, you're doing the best you can. Probably 7 to 10 years, somewhere in there, 3 times that has come up at perfect timing. The first time, I was ready to throw my computer, and it popped up, and I start crying and hugging myself. I'm like, girl, I love you so much, thank you. I gotta be my own cheerleader, because everybody has stuff. It's like, who are we to tell them, put yours on hold, I need you to help me. So I just do it for myself, because I can't let myself down. Jordan Peterson says, treat yourself as you would like us to treat you. If you think about it, we're our own worst critic. If we're treating ourselves well and being kind to ourselves, we're never going to let anybody treat us less than.

Runs her own practice but acknowledges:
Business ownership is very different from therapy work
Burnout is real—she had to scale back for health reasons
Uses Fridays for:
Training, consulting, and professional development
Enjoys:
Writing (published a book and workbook; working on a memoir)
Family time and creative activities

When I have interns or when I was training them doing their clinical work before they graduated grad school, I would always tell them, do not work harder than your clients. You will burn yourself out so fast. Our field is one of the top five highest burnout careers. So if you're left tired all the time, it means you're working harder. If they don't want to do the work, then you know what? Don't do the work for them, because it's not going to help them. I firmly believe you have to practice what you preach and lead by example, because a lot of people are visual. If you show them what that looks like, it's gonna be easier for them to do it. In mental health, we always talk about self-care, but I kind of got away from it at one time when I had my group practice, and it was an eye-opener for me. Now I intentionally don't work on Fridays with clients. I do my trainings or CEs or consulting work instead.

It's scary to me, because I don't know about other states, but in Arizona, our firemen, our police officers, even our military, when they return, they have to get a psyche eval and be cleared to return to work or return to be civilians. But therapists, we don't get a psyche eval. Ever. And I'm like, what? I check in twice a year, because I'm like, hey, is it okay up here? Because I'm working with people and I'm trying to get them out of therapy and keep them healthy. They might be afraid, because there's such a shortage of therapists, that we're ready to crack. I just hear so many unethical things being said to some clients when they come to me from their last therapist. I'm like, oh my god, what? They told you what?

I'm passionate about early intervention, believing helping kids young prevents long-term issues. I wanted to be a voice for the children until I could teach them how to use theirs in an appropriate way, not screaming, yelling, and cursing. I feel like we all have the tools we need to get through this life, but we don't all know how to use them, and they need to be taught. You can't blame parents because they can't teach what they don't know. In the practice, even when I had the group practice, we speak in we, us, and ours, because growing up, my sister would always say what are we going to do about this, and I never felt alone. I firmly believe you have to practice what you preach and lead by example. I'm very direct and authentic. I don't like social media and never post anything about my personal life because I'm a private person. On my business cards, it doesn't say anything, it just says therapist under my name. I don't care about titles. You could be the CEO for all I care, but you're still getting paid the same. I tell people all the time, I don't care if you're the pope or the man under the bridge, you're still a person. Those are just titles, they mean nothing.