THE STORY BEHIND THE SHIFT
Why The Therapy Office isn’t a Group Practice anymore—and What’s Coming Next
When you’re an empath, burnout doesn’t creep in slowly. It crashes in. One moment you’re holding it all together, and the next you realize you’ve been carrying so much that there’s barely any space left for yourself.
That was me.
The past few years of my career moved fast:
✨Grad school
✨Internship
✨Associate licensure (in the middle of a pandemic)
✨Agency work
✨Finally getting my professional license
✨Discovering my identity as a therapist
✨Building my brand
✨and eventually starting my solo private practice
Ribbon cutting for the opening of my solo practice in 2022!
On paper, it looked like I was thriving, but the truth was more complicated. Like so many people, I was trying to build a meaningful career while also navigating my own healing, a new ADHD diagnosis, and the heavy emotions of a world that felt like a complete dumpster fire.
At the beginning of my therapy career, the overturn of Roe v. Wade shifted the role of the therapist in the therapy room. Posts on social media encouraged clients to ask their therapists where they stood politically, who they voted for, populations they advocated for, and issues that they believed in. Clients wanted more than coping tools; they wanted to know their therapist was human. They wanted to know if it was safe to be themselves. And as someone who feels everything deeply, I carried those questions home with me. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced. All of a sudden I wasn’t the clinical expert that my professors taught me to be. I was the empath that held the feelings and couldn’t provide a solution.
With each session, I tried to understand myself and my own needs more. Through my work as a therapist and building my own practice, I discovered a new love—helping therapists have a space where they can have peace and autonomy while seeing their clients.
Transforming The Therapy Office into a group practice was a learning experience for me. I ran into that adventure with the hope of being able to focus on the teaching and business mentoring that I love. Instead, I learned so many things about myself and the traditional group practice model that didn’t match my values. Burnout doesn’t even begin to cover it. It felt more like disappearing inside a business I wanted to be proud of.
Our current location in Springdale, Arkansas
There was a conflict that I continued to face:
🚪Close the doors on The Therapy Office forever
or
🫥 Continue to feel invisible in a business that I created
Little did I know that those choices not only SUCKED, but they put a message in my head that I was the problem. I could create more flexibility. I could shift to something that goes back to the heart of the brand–collaboration, community, belonging, and authenticity.
So I made the choice I’ve been encouraging my clients to make for years: I chose myself.
That decision wasn’t easy. It meant letting go of the version of The Therapy Office I thought I had to build in order to be successful. It meant facing the inward shame we so often carry in silence, the kind that whispers “you failed” when really, all you did was change direction.
Here’s the truth: I didn’t fail. I shifted.
And now The Therapy Office is shifting too.
The Therapy Office is no longer a group practice. Instead, The Therapy Office is becoming what I always wished existed: a collaborative space for helpers and healers of all kinds:
🧠 Therapists
🍎 Dietitians
📋 Coaches
🧑⚖️ Lawyers
🧑🏫 Educators
💪 and Bodyworkers
Our newly arranged waiting room, here for you to relax before your sessions!
It’s a place where adults can come for real support, and where professionals can build their work without red tape, hierarchy, or hustle.
The Office vibes stay (Cafe Disco is still here🪩). The warmth stays. The commitment to inclusivity stays. What changes is that the model isn’t black and white. The Therapy Office’s flexible subletting model has been created with business owners and their clients in mind.
I know I’m not the only one who has had to face burnout and make a scary change. Maybe you’ve been there too or you’re there right now. If so, I hope my story reminds you that it’s not failure to choose differently. It’s not a weakness to need something new. Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is to create space that feels sustainable and true.
Thank you for being part of this new chapter.
Becca Ferguson, LPC
Owner & Founder of The Therapy Office
