Therapists encourage colleagues, profession to ‘Bloom + Grow’
Being a therapist has never been easy. But it got a lot harder during the pandemic when therapists found themselves navigating our often dysfunctional mental health care system, while trying to treat their patients and attend to their own mental wellbeing.
That’s why Krista Gaston and Sara Thorsen co-founded the Bloom + Grow Collective in 2021, as a way for mental health professionals to advocate for change in the profession and support the well-being of fellow providers.
“It was a wonderful space for providers to show up during a time when people were leaning on us very heavily and there wasn’t a lot of time and space for us to get support ourselves,” Sara said.
Bloom + Grow uses a tool called the Work That Reconnects Spiral Framework to process provider disillusionment in the mental health field. Developed by author and environmentalist Joanna Macy, the framework emphasizes gratitude, honoring one’s pain, and moving beyond grief. Krista and Sara recently published an article, Metabolizing Grief in Mental Health: A Provider’s Perspective, which describes the process of using the framework to “metabolize disillusionment into active hope.”
Since 2021, Bloom + Grow has expanded its network, held town halls, established research groups, applied for grant funding, and begun publishing a regular newsletter. Krista has facilitated groups that allow therapists to unpack and process emotions they experience in their work, while Sara has received training and mentorship as part of the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee of the Democratic Socialists of America.
They also recently launched a podcast series called Fractals. Their first episode was titled “Intro to Disillusionment as Part of Becoming a Mental Health Professional.” Future episodes will highlight the work of other mental health providers using the Spiral Framework.
For Krista and Sara, both members of the BHAM Steering Committee, Bloom + Grow is the logical outgrowth of their experience as therapists and their work in supporting their peers and creating meaningful change in the profession.
“As we started to meet as a group more, that’s when the disillusionment became more clear,” Sara said. “That’s where the idea of the podcast came from: we wanted a way to capture that and share it because it’s important. It’s an indicator of how broken our system is.”
Krista and Sara set out to support therapists because they understand just how difficult it is to get started in the field.
Sara completed her traineeship in a K-12 Catholic school, and following graduation she went straight into school-based work with higher-needs special education students in Oakland. She quickly found herself unprepared, unsupported, and overwhelmed in a high- burnout environment with a revolving door of supervisors and other stressors.
Krista knew she wanted to work with families, but wasn’t sure whether to pursue occupational therapy, special education, or psychology. She started in occupational therapy, but it didn’t quite feel like the right fit. Then she started working in a social skills group and looking at the psychological theories behind behavior, and soon realized she wanted to be a licensed marriage and family therapist.
To help support new therapists finding their way in the profession, Krista and Sara organized a student association to help graduate students navigate challenges and learn more about different career paths. They also held town halls, presented feedback to administrators, and created a speaker series where students approaching graduation and recent alumni spoke to newer students about what they could expect in the years ahead.
“We had adjunct professors who were great,” Krista said, “but they were in private practice and didn’t understand the process of going into community mental health.”
Bloom + Grow and NUHW first crossed paths during the 10-week Northern California Kaiser mental health strike in 2022.
Krista and Sara delivered water and food to Bay Area picket lines and shared picket line locations and strike fund information on their social media accounts. The relationship continued to grow with Krista and Sara now serving on the steering committee of NUHW’s Behavioral Health Associate Membership program, which expands NUHW membership to private practice therapists in order to build the collective power of therapists to fight for full parity for mental health care and change the power dynamics with health plans so that reimbursement rates are transparent and on par with medical providers.
Sara sees changing laws that prohibit private practice therapists from organizing as a major step toward improving conditions for providers and access to care for patients. She’s also excited about BHAM building cross-sector partnerships and alliances to grow power and influence. Krista would also like to create space and offer support for new therapists in the vulnerable time between traineeship and licensure.
“If we organize and we connect and break down silos, we can grow upward and create something new,” Krista said. “By design of the system, we are kept really isolated. I feel like there’s hope.”