Her Story
About Elene
Elene Bratton, She/Her, is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Certified Trauma Therapist. She earned her Master’s in Counseling from San Diego State University in 1992 and has been working in the mental health field for 32 years. She is the Founder of ANKH Family Counseling, where she provides trauma-informed therapy, grief support, and healing-centered services including workshops, retreats, and group healing circles. The name ANKH reflects the African symbol for life and represents “new knowledge and hope,” which is central to her clinical philosophy and practice.
Throughout her career, Elene has worked extensively in public mental health settings, including 17 years at a women’s detention facility, as well as roles at a psychiatric hospital, county clinics, case management programs, and substance use treatment services. She also maintained a private practice since approximately 2000 while continuing her county work with the County of San Diego. After recently retiring from county service, she now focuses full-time on her private practice, where she specializes in trauma and grief therapy, with advanced training in EMDR therapy and a strong focus on supporting children, families, foster care, and child welfare populations.
Elene’s work is deeply informed by both professional experience and personal loss. After the passing of her son Jamie in 2002, just shy of his sixth birthday, she found a profound calling in helping others navigate grief and trauma. She is the author of Jamie’s Joy: Honoring Grief, Creating Legacy, and Celebrating Life, which reflects her commitment to transforming loss into meaning and healing. Today, she is expanding her work into group therapy, workshops, and grief retreats, believing strongly in the power of shared healing experiences. She also provides mobile counseling, meeting clients in their homes, workplaces, or outdoor settings, and prioritizes in-person connection as a foundation for trust, presence, and meaningful therapeutic work.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Elene
01What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
I think the first part of it is just following your heart to see what you want to do. Don't force yourself into something that you're not going to enjoy because your career becomes the main part of your life for 40 years. Find something that you really love, because you don't want to be miserable. I know it's not always that easy, and obviously there are people all around the world that don't even get any choices like we do, but if you can, people should just find something that they can feel passionate about. I didn't expect to go down this road, but I found passion in helping people. It was a really good career. I felt very proud of being in public mental health my whole career. Find something you know you can have passion about, and that you'll have a feeling of satisfaction in, that you'll feel good at the end of the day and not - even if you're tired or it's been a long day - that you still feel good about what you're doing, because your work is so much of your life, it's like a quarter, if not more, of your life time-wise.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
My advice to young women entering this field is to be yourself and trust the unique perspective and strengths you bring into the work. In a profession that requires deep empathy, presence, and authenticity, I have found that showing up as my genuine self has always been my greatest asset. There will be many approaches and voices in the field, but staying grounded in your values, ethics, and intuition will guide you more effectively than trying to fit into someone else’s model. Build your skills, stay open to learning, and seek out strong supervision and mentorship, but never lose sight of who you are as a person. Your authenticity is not only enough—it is essential to creating meaningful, healing connections with the people you serve.
03What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I think really genuinely caring and loving. I love my clients. I'm not afraid to say I love my clients. I feel like caring, putting all you can give - for me, it's like, I'm a therapist and I'm trying to help people who are struggling, and in my case, I've helped people that were struggling the most in our society. It was important that they know that I genuinely cared for them. I worked at the women's jail for 17 years, and I still meet sometimes these women, and they come up to me like, 'don't I know you from someplace?' and I'm like, 'Did you ever go to jail?' I mean, it's like, yeah, and they say 'oh my gosh, you were so helpful, you helped me.' I don't want them to see me and say 'oh my god, there's her, I'm gonna ignore her, she was a mean person.' So that's important to me - just to be caring whatever it is you're doing, whether you're a cashier at a store or a high-ranking president of some company. Just really be caring about your work, be passionate, and really, even if you don't always love everything about it, find something that you do love. And be yourself just really be yourself. Sometimes when we go into these different fields, we feel like we have to have a day self and a night self, and I just tried to be myself. So I think just be caring and be yourself. That's really what I would say, and that's kind of what's gotten me through.
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