Season 2 Episode 21 | Krista Verrastro | Using Your Strengths as a Creative Arts Therapist to Build Your Practice

Hey there, Creatives!! Thanks so much for listening to the show. Today on season two, episode 21,

I'm talking with drama therapist, Krista Verrastro. She has a private practice in Baltimore,

Maryland area. And she shares a bit about how she's gone about building her practice.

And the challenges of building as a private practitioner, you know, we don't necessarily,

all of us don't necessarily have a license because of the specialty that we have. And that

kind of forces people into having to build and not be able to take insurance funds. 

And so it can be a little bit, a little bit more challenging. So she's shared a little bit about how

she's faced that, how, how long it took her to build up to being full and remaining full. And

she shares about how she's done a little diversification in her practice and created really unique,

dynamic offerings that go beyond therapy and have brought her out into her community and into

other businesses within her community, which I think is really cool. So I hope you enjoy this

episode with Christa. 

Now here's your host, Reina Lombardi. Thanks so much for listening to the Creative Psychotherapist podcast. I'm your host, Reina Lombardi and I am delighted to welcome my next guest, drama therapist, Krista Verrastro.

And Christa is a registered drama therapist and a board certified trainer who blends drama therapy,

talk therapy and EMDR therapy. She works with teens and adults in private practice in

Rice to town, Maryland. I hope I pronounced that correctly. And she specializes in helping

people who feel used, abused, neglected and rejected, transform from surviving to thriving.

And this includes people who've experienced various types of abuse or other relational

issues that cause people to feel disconnected from themselves and others. She facilitates workshops

online and in person. And she provides clinical consultation, private practice building consultation

and supervision for drama therapist and training as well as new drama therapists. She presents

nationally and internationally on drama therapy and mental health issues. And she's worked

in a variety of settings such as outpatient mental health clinics, schools and nursing

homes. She received both her bachelor's and master's degrees from New York University.

And she is the administrator of the Facebook group Creative Arts Therapist in private practice.

Welcome, Christa. Thanks so much for being here. Hello. Thank you for having me.

So let's dive right in and kind of talk about, I think one of the challenges that we all

experience as Creative Arts Therapist is the challenges of how do we market ourselves and

and be seen as an appropriate option for people in a landscape dominated by more traditional

psychotherapy methods.

So I think I've come to view it as a strength to sort of market. When I first went into private

practice in 2016, I was like, hmm, this is so confusing to people. How am I going to get

myself across because people always have questions about drama therapy. And I realized one thing

that I'll emphasize is it's a matter of speaking to their pain, right? So more and more when

I talk to all types of therapists, I was told, yeah, people don't really care what your

modality is in a lot of ways. They want to know you understand their pain and that you have

a way of helping them with their pain. So I kind of changed in terms of the wording on

my website and stuff and how I market instead of it being like, I still think I'm front

and center with the drama therapy piece of it, but also just being able to talk to the types

of clients I like to work with, the niche. 

You know, and so part of that too for me is, as you mentioned, I work with people who feel used to be used, neglected and rejected, lovely little alliteration. I came up with it. It's awesome. Yeah. And part of that is people who

feel different, right? And for me, like, hey, I'm a drama therapist, not different. And

I have this different thing to offer. So being able to throw that into my marketing to say,

like, hey, you know, talk therapy is the normal and normal doesn't always work for everybody

and try something that's a little different. This is something outside the box. So if you've

always felt outside the box, try this thing. So I think that's an important aspect of it

is it can be built right into niches, right? For a lot of us, we have some of that. 

And just to be able to speak to our ideal clients pain. And I think the beauty of recent years

is the sort of popularity of creative arts therapies, right? So I know I get more and more

clients who will reach out saying, I read Bessel Vanderkulk and I read how the body holds

the memories. And you know, he talked about the drama and the EMDR. And so the fact that

I do both those things, people are often intrigued to tackle it in these newer ways that are

being talked about. So there's all this bottom up language we talk about when it used to

be the top down CBT kind of stuff. And so it's being helpful that around the same time that

I started private practice, I think this movement was happening where people are starting

to seek out more body-based therapies.

Oh, for sure. I feel like there's a whole movement not just with therapy, but just in self-development

and even in that like coaching sphere, pulling from different types of somatic methods. And

I think that's wonderful that people are realizing, hey, there's more than one way of working

through our stuff, our collective stuff. And the creative arts therapies have been using

those bottom up methods for a really long time while established.

Yeah. And I think the other piece too is we are trained and talk therapy, right? Like

people misperceived that it's all our, or all drama. And I explain to people, yeah, there

is a cognitive piece, right? We're going to process the art stuff that we do. So it's not

like we didn't have that in our training. Like I have written a little bit on my blog

and stuff about the creative arts therapies in general just to clear up misperceptions

and the myths about that, right? And I think all of us have that solid background in traditional

counseling methods and stuff like that, right? So yeah, that's something else I think is

about educating potential clients or other colleagues who might not be familiar, is to

say, I had all the traditional courses in that stuff too. So it's not like that.

Absolutely. I know for like theories, I had to take both. I had to take theories in art

therapy and theories in counseling and like it was like to duplicate coursework. And yeah,

so you do get that rich background, but that that often isn't the perception of what the

lay public thinks and sometimes even other colleagues and professionals. How have you found

it in terms of being a drama therapist, but not having a drama therapy license? 

You have the credentials, right? And even like art therapy, there's only a couple of states that

have some kind of license. Most of us don't carry a license. How do you address that in

terms of the private practice sphere? So I always tell people like I've been in this field

since 2005 and still don't understand everything. Having lived in New York, so the year that the

LCAT went into a fact in New York is the year I left. So I didn't get it because I was like,

well, I'm new there. Why am I going to get this license? It's not going to serve me. 

But other than that, like I moved to Maryland, which has no drama therapy license. And when I moved

to Maryland, no creative arts therapy held a license in 2012, Art Therapist got it and then just

last year, I think the music therapist got one. But theirs is not a psychotherapy license, interestingly,

I was informed. So still no dance therapy license here. Yeah. So it's a, yeah, our drama

therapy, obviously. Yeah. And a lot of us are told when we move to our states that they won't see

our masters as equivalent. So you've got to get a second masters, right? And then who has money in

time for that? Well, I'm a story short. Talking to so many people who've been in the field before me,

some people in it now paying attention to what state says what about terminology and title protection

and all that. So in Maryland, there is no psychotherapy title protection. 

So technically, like I say,

I'm a psychotherapist. But for the most part, what I and a lot of people do is just really be clear

in our marketing to say, like, I'm not representing myself as a professional counselor. I'm not representing

myself as a social worker, right? I am a drama therapist. My credentials are the highest I can get in my

field, right? Like without their being a state license, you know, I'm practicing under what I can.

And so, you know, I know people in different states who, where there's title protection, they're

more cautious and they'll say coaching different things. But again, I feel like in Maryland, and I've

even talked to the counseling board because since I moved here in 2008, I've like been like, what can I do

here? I want to make sure I'm doing everything properly. And I literally had them look at my website

and tell me if the language is, you know, accurate. And I'm not misrepresenting anything. 

And they told me I was fine. So I know some people are more skittish than others about this gray zone we're in.

But yeah, I'm like, all right, I've always been open about it. I'm not trying to hide anything with

my clients. Like, it's in my paperwork. These are my credentials if they're in a thing I also tell people,

like, I had one client ever be like, I don't understand your name, like the letters next

your name. And what does that mean? And so I had to explain it. And, you know, their main concern was,

if ever I had a complaint about you, do you have a board that I could like reach out to? And I say,

yeah, absolutely. For all intents and purposes, like, drama therapy's organization acts the same as

like a counseling or social worker psychology organization. Like we have an ethics board, right?

 Like, we have those things in place that if ever I was out of line, there's something to hold me accountable.

And so I think that's another piece of it. Even to the point of like you were saying the education

piece people often misperceived. And also like, see, you use are the same. We have to get 30 every two

years, just like my understanding is all the other masters level folks have to do in terms of

just all the different things that are in place are internship hours and professional hours to get

their credentials are basically the same as the counseling, social work, all that. 

So just advocating to people like, this is actually the reality of it. Like, you know, I know that it's

still very unknown. I always tell people, it's funny because I use art therapy, music therapy,

as examples when people say, what is what is drama therapy? I'll say, well, you've probably heard of

music or music and art therapy are more popular, more common. Drama therapy so small that when I got

my credentials in 2007, I was number 374. And now it's up to the 800s. It's just I think just about

to hit 900. I was just at the conference two weeks ago. Wow. You're so small. That's really tiny. That

puts things in like big perspective. Yeah, so we are small. 

So I'm so used to advocating for what it is because people just don't know. Do you feel like putting out different workshops or like presentations within your community are helpful to, yeah. Yeah. In fact, when I started private

practice and I did the, I followed all the gurus. This is how you build a private practice. And I'm

happy to talk sort of about the things that have worked for me. But in the networking, I would

talk to all these, again, counselors, social worker psychologists. And they'd be open to me. I was so

thankful. Most people were like, warmly embracing me and so curious, right? Like fascinated and loving

it. And in that process and trying to explain it to people, I'd get several practices like, hey, come

do something for my team. Like I want everyone to learn about this. 

And I would do like a what hour intro to drama therapy, give you a couple brief activities to show you what it's like. And it was a great opportunity to not just build my practice, but speak up for drama therapy in general. So yeah,

no, that's awesome. Yeah. Build relationships, educate other practitioners. I think that's really helpful

because if they have an experience of it, then they kind of can understand who might be best to

refer to you. If maybe they're stuck with a client and all of the things that they have in their

resource bin aren't effective. Sometimes the expressive modalities can provide people another

another way that's more accessible. So having that experience to reference and say to speak about it.

Like, oh, I did this with this person. And it was it was like really insightful or whatever their

experience was. And I think it's helpful. Yeah. And I know I don't want to switch gears too much

if you don't want to go there. But in terms of the vision board workshops, I do. I started those in

2017. So give or take around the year into my private practice. And so many people were interested. Like

professionals wanted to do it. Like I did several private practices that were like, yeah, I want to do it

for my team. And we could extend it out to the larger community. So I've done lots of those at this

point. And it's always great that there is interest. People see the value. I get so many people writing me

that all these things came true. My personal and professional life. Wow. That's awesome.

Yeah. So cool. I have a plan with my with the therapist in my practice. We're doing one in December

at our team meeting. That was everybody said, we want to do a vision board thing for our professional

goals. So we're going to do it. It should be fun. Yeah. So. And if I may just to throw it out there,

like in terms of what I love about mine, vision board workshops have been around forever, right?

And anybody can make a board and hang it up. But I love I have it. Drama therapy heavy. So it's all

about like using rituals to let go together. Using the drama therapy to look at our obstacles and

having people in the group role play obstacles for each other and role play going up against their

obstacles role play as their future self get advice from their future self on how to get there.

I even do role play with the strengths, like choosing our inner strengths and sort of using that

explore ourselves, a gratitude and all kind of practice at the end. So it's not just like the

traditional making of the board. Still great. But I love that. I found a way that you all these other

elements that really bring it to life. Oh, I know that sounds fantastic. And you're doing that virtually?

Yes. Yeah. I was doing it all in person until the pandemic hit. And then I was like, people love

these. I don't want to stop doing them. And then I started doing them on zoom. 

And people can come from all over now. So it's really cool that I've had all these people who for a couple of years

there was like, I want to join, but I can't because so far now they can't. And I've had some colleagues

who actually love these enough that they've attended several. I have a lot of cheerleaders. I love it.

And I've been told it translates well online that there's not much loss. Like in person, I get to

use scarves with people that enhance the role play. But online it works just as well.

So how do you how do you navigate that in terms of like if you have, you know, 15 or 20 people in

your zoom? How do you navigate the role playing? Is it in the large round? Are you like using breakout

rooms? So depending on the activity, like the gratitude at the end, I'll have people go in pairs.

And I'll have them share about when they felt grateful and to sort of play back theater style,

play it back to each other after they hear a story about gratitude. So that's easier to do in

the breakout rooms, for example. But with like the obstacles and the future self, I'll just have

somebody volunteer to be the main person we're exploring. And then they get to pick people in the

group who are going to play certain roles. Like, all right, this what's your first obstacle? I

was to help people up to three just for the sake of time. So hey, time management, this is that person.

And then, okay, so what resources do you need to go up against that obstacle and picking someone

in the group to be a spouse and someone to be a friend? I've even had people pick their pets.

Right. So someone's just going to, oh my gosh, that's so cute.

So we assign the roles ahead of time. And for the sake of keeping it clean, I'll say like, all right,

I want to hear from the spouse right now. I want to hear from the dog right now. And so I'm very

clear with who's going to go next in the role play in that sort of because you have to, right? Like

you just said, the zoom room got a, and I don't make them too big. I've never done more than in person.

I've done like between 20 and 30 sometimes, but I like to keep them smaller under 20 if I can.

Well, that's a lot to pack in in a few hours.

 I think what is it two and a half hours that you have scheduled with them? So between the board, do they make the board before they come in or you make it together? So when I was doing them in person, and I did do an in person one last year, the first one since the pandemic went down and I did it outdoors, which is cool in a park. But then,

hey, the wind was blowing on the art supplies everywhere. So it's a little chouchy. But when I have them

in person, I actually do three hours then and I'll designate the middle hour to the boards. I'll do

like the first hour is letting go, middle hour, making the board last hour. The, all right, let's

how to concretize what we're going to do with action stops, right? Online, I found it much easier to

send out instructions on both how to make a hard copy board and a digital board. 

So people can

choose which way they want to make it. And that way they could take their time because part of the

feedback I would get in person is I could be here all day. Of course. I'd be like, I get it. But I

also really want to do the active stuff. Like that's as an experiential therapist, that's the stuff

I love. It's like, all right, it's nice to have this visual, but I don't want it just be a passive

thing. I want to make sure we tend to getting down to business with that. So yeah, having them make it

an advance and I tell them like have it with them whether a picture of it or the actual thing.

And it also helps me keep the cost down because I don't have to supply, you know, everything like I

used to. I used to have to shut stuff if I was going to other practices and stuff like that, you know,

having all the magazines. This is there's the glue, the boards. It's a lot.

It sure is. But yeah, right. So yeah, online it makes it easier in that sense more accessible.

Yeah, so we're good. Now that's wonderful. I think that's really helpful. And it sets you apart

in how you're facilitating the whole process versus ones where I've attended where it just simply

is the board and like talking about it, which is great. Right. But I love that you're

integrating a whole process of like, okay, it's not just about what's to come. It's what's no longer

serving me and having that ritual of letting go in the group is so empowering, I think, versus if

you're just, if you're doing that by yourself, it's, it's the witness, right? That others are

bearing witness to this process and we're doing it collectively together, which is really cool.

And then the role playing, facilitating the role plays to actually work through any barriers

to getting to where you want to go, that part is like in my favorite part, oh, ways, and I've had so many

people get so choked up when I let them role play with their future self. So they pick someone to

play their future self. They let them know, hey, along the way as we're doing these role plays,

they could say a mantra or they could say something that cheer themselves on the whole way. 

And then at the end, I have them become their future selves and say what it feels like and give themselves

advice on like, okay, so what did you need to get here? And then I have that person

reflect back what they just heard so that the person who's exploring their future gets to hear,

they get to like look right in the eyes of their future self and be told like, look, I made it,

this is great. This is what you needed to stay in the course and people just always get so choked

up and I love it. Oh yeah, you're doing like the EMDR cognitive interweaves, right? 

But I feel like the methods really complement one another, but having that dramatized and being able to actually

see it versus imagine it. Again, there's just something so tangible about it that really moves people

into a different space. Yeah. What other kinds of things have you done to kind of set your practice

up that it's not just focused on individual therapy because what I hear is that you've really been

intentional about kind of diversifying how you have your practice.

Yeah. At first, it wasn't necessarily that intentional. I don't, it's so funny. I can't remember how I first got the idea

for the Vision Board workshops. I don't remember the moment, but I'm so glad I did because they're so

popular and people really love them. I actually have even done them for local businesses. They've found

me on social media and they're like, yeah, they want to hire you. Even a granola company, I love that's

local. They hired me for their team. That's fabulous. So cool. A local beauty store that I love. They

also asked me to do like a lady's night. Oh, so great. So that kind of happened. I was like, I was

going to put this out in the world and like it might be a one-time thing and then it turned into

demand. So yeah, I do those at least in January and sometimes other times in the year.

And then it became like, I really like workshops and I like offering these kind of things to people

who might either already have a therapist and they want to do something, right, else.

And I love self-care stuff as we all have to do. And so another workshop I came up with and I

haven't gotten to do it as much as my Vision Board ones is using the four elements, the water air, fire,

and earth. It's debatable in different cultures like the main elements, but those are the ones I'm

going by. And I make stations with scarves. And so there's the four stations and we first go through

and we get rid of the things we don't want. You can see a theme and how my mind operates, right.

So we go around and let the water take the things we don't want and let the earth take it. And this

was based on, I collaborated with somebody who is, I think a social worker by background, but also

loves dance. So we collaborated, they do journey dance. And so we did like a workshop where I

led my portion and she let hers. So it was based on a book about Vicarious trauma. And the idea was

that the different elements represent different things that we deal with as dealing professionals

and it's not just therapists, but anybody. But I made it kind of more widespread. 

So the different stations, there's different things to get rid of, right, like expectations of self and others who's

one of them. Any sadness brief, and that sort of thing to get rid of. So it's a process of letting

specific things go and then going back around those stations and taking from them advice from nature,

right. So the river might say go with the flow. Be sure of yourself is one of them. Be clear.

So it's the water, right. So there's different things. And when I'm guiding people through these,

we're doing rituals to sort of embody, right. So using the scarves to be waves and letting the

group members throw the things into the waves. Or with the, with the earth part, I have them plant

seeds, whatever expectations of self and others they need to get rid of. 

They're going to plant into the ground. And then when we come back to that station, we become flowers or trees or whatever plant we want to be. And as I read the advice from nature, people get to embody it, like take root,

right. Those sort of things. So that sounds so fun. Yeah. Yeah. So that's something else I've done

in that. I want to keep doing that. And I haven't done that one online, but I'm like, I think

there's probably a way that I can't do it. Just haven't gotten there yet. So workshops have been

great because again, it offers people less commitment and still get to benefit from this stuff.

And then more recently, I've found myself branching out into the consultant thing because I have so

many people, I have so hard. And it's probably because of the creative arts therapy part.

You know, like therapists, again, more traditional types that struggle to build a private practice,

especially not taking insurance, right. Because so many people don't want to deal with that.

For me, I had to because like, like without the state licensure, I can't panel with insurance. 

So I had to be private pay from the get go. And I feel like I have to prove myself because of the creative

arts therapy thing. So I've hustled really, really hard. People have seen how successful I was. It took

me three years to build into a full-time caseload, which am I understanding from talking to even some

counselor friends of mine. Somebody told me it took them seven years with a traditional counseling

degree, right. So three years to me without being able to take insurance is not bad by any means.

No. And I've been full sense to the point of turning people away all the time. So yeah, it's

been where like people come to me where they want to consult about. So how did you build?

Like you obviously were successful. And I decided, okay, so that's something I'll officially add as

consulting for the private practice kind of stuff. And clinical stuff because I've always been a

person who's been in peer groups. I love, I've never not been in a peer supervision group. I just

love to have that, you know, to always have people give me feedback and constantly learn. 

And so a lot of my peers will come to me with clinical issues too. So both the clinical and the practice building

have become something I do. And then last year I got my board certification for training

drama therapists. And that's something I had wanted to do for a long time and sat on. And so now,

like I've added that formal supervising of other drama therapists. And along the vision board

workshop stuff, I'm in the process of writing a workbook because not everybody can attend the

workshops or some people who are into social might not want to be in a group setting.

 And I have done individual work with some of my clients. And I'm actually also trying to branch out into maybe

doing some coaching around that for people who want to do that process with me individually. And I

thought, hey, a workbook would be a great thing. For some people who want to have that more introspective,

they could take their time to do it. So that's my hope. And yeah, in writing in other ways, as you know,

that it is chapter to a book. So lots of stuff that's branching out. 

And the only thing I haven't done yet that I'd like to do eventually is retreats. And I know those are a lot of work to even other fun. Yeah, I feel like the hard part for retreats is the marketing piece and getting people to sign up,

at least from all the folks that I know that have done them or do offer them and like listening to their

process. But if you have a strong kind of. Well, it's challenging. I mean, I do have a strong networking

you know, approach. I'm comfortable with that. But even with my vision board workshops, I get a lot

of interest. But then I don't get a lot of commitment sometimes. 

There's some years that I only get like five people. And I could still do it. Like it's and it's great to have an intimate group. But like then there's years that I've like, you know, 20 people. So you never know. And it's not a personal thing.

It's just like whatever's going on and everybody schedules, don't align. Now so.

Absolutely. It's it's unpredictable, I think, with scheduling everyone so busy. And especially,

I know your vision board workshop I was looking on the website is like the first week of January.

Or the maybe the first Sunday in January. Yes. January 7th, I think. And you know, people coming back

from holidays and that kind of thing too. I feel like plays a role into how much we

how invested people are in showing up for different offerings right after the new year.

Or at least at least here in my practice, I've I've had that where that first week is very slow.

I'm not too bad of luck in the January stuff. It's always tricky though. It's like like now that I'm

doing them online, I did after noon. So that way people on the West Coast can join because I had

complaints about that in the past when I did like 10 o'clock in the morning. They're like, I'm not going

to join some of the clock West Coast time. So now I figure, okay, one o'clock East Coast time,

people can ideally do both coast. Yeah. People are welcomed from outside of country. I'm trying

to think if I've had anybody think I've had at least Canada join. But yeah, I mean since it's online,

anybody anywhere can talk to you. That's awesome. I know I want to go back to you. 

We're saying that you're officially a trainer for drama therapy. And is that specifically like somebody who provides

supervision or are you actually teaching classes to people that want to add drama therapy to their

kind of suite of what they offer? Great question. So board certified trainers really the main purpose

they serve is we have the alternative track in drama therapy. I don't know if you're familiar with that.

So my understanding is dance therapies, the only other creative art therapy that has this. So what

it is is because there's so few university programs is that the alternative track allows people to

get another degree. And then they study with the trainer to get the knowledge they need to meet the

credentials. So somebody could get a counseling degree or they could get a social worker degree.

And then they take the extra training and supervision with the the BCT to get what they need. So

some BCTs have their own training classes like they'll provide the intro to drama therapy, the

principles they need to know, special populations and these sort of things. And others just sort of act

as a guide to like, hey, there's these other people doing these trainings, but here you go. I'm going

to help you get where you need to go and providing that supervision. So I am only a year in. So I'm still

figuring out what I'm going to do. But that being said, you mentioned the teaching thing. 

So for a long time, I have been part of a plate therapy organization in Maryland. And some other

creative arts therapists, especially art therapists, Peggy Kaladni who know she's definitely yes, we actually worked in the same office when I started private practice. As you refer my friends were in the same collective for years and years. And so. Small world. Yes. In the Baltimore area has a lot of great people. I love it. Like we have a lot of local celebrities. You do like Laura Reagan. Yes. Wonderful. I love her Lisa Farons who's not a creative arts therapist, but is a big fan and hired a lot of

creative arts therapist to train through her institute. 

Yeah. So we've got some good people. And uh, yeah. So Peggy was actually the person who hooked me

up with this plate therapy organization. And I have done drama therapy and trauma work training through them, drama therapy and adolescent work through them. And so my thought is with the BCT to get to a point where I can offer some of those courses for alternative track students perhaps.

That would be really cool. Yeah. I know a lot of people who want to pursue, you know, entry into our world, the creative arts therapies world. And then they to find themselves up against them. But I don't want to get another masters. I will and I don't blame them. I mean, it's expensive. It's a lot of work and energy and time. And it's going to be a lot of duplicate knowledge. But certainly doing an alternative track offers an opportunity where, you know, doing another masters may feel really prohibitive.

You'll have to keep me informed if you, you know, once you start offering trainings. Well, I'm funny enough. I just started a Facebook group for the BCTs because at our conference two weeks ago, there's no dialogue in between people between conferences. We have a BCT meeting at the conference. But it's like, okay, so how do we know what each other are teaching? How do we know, you know, like how to get the people were supposed to be guiding. You know, I obviously, we can talk more about that with my Facebook group to create our therapist.

But I am a person all about community connection, talking, not reinventing the wheel because so many of us and creative works there. If you land, feel like we have to reinvent the wheel so often when we don't like there's been a lot of us doing this for a long time. So, only we actually communicate the resources are there.

Yeah, yeah, building community. I feel like is really important, especially like what you were saying, your numbers are so small. And so people are spread out all over and you're there's probably not very many people that are nearby that are also drama therapist. I know when I first started practicing in this area Florida where I'm at, I didn't know anybody had no connections.

I felt like I was like operating by myself in like a desert. Like people didn't even know what it was back then. They were like, what you provide therapy for artists. What exactly is that, you know, are they think you're providing art classes. No, that's not what we're doing. Right. Exactly why I wrote about the misperceptions. And so it's nice to be able to have opportunities for greater connection between us all now like through social media and groups like yours.

And where before that you'd have to go to the conference and maybe you could only get there once every couple of years because that too is cost prohibitive. It's expensive.

Yeah. Yeah. Can we go into the Facebook group? Yeah, let's talk about it. Yeah. So, yeah. When did you, when did you create that? So, when I started, I started to practice 2016 and I found a lot of resources helpful as far as private practice building goes, but they were all geared towards more traditional therapist. And I did Miranda and Kelly's Zenny me, who did the school boot camp. I did find that they had had some creative arts therapist I had asked when I did the interview for it like, you know, are other people doing those do you are you familiar with our stuff.

And they were very, very supportive and they helped me like with my website copy and stuff that was really helpful to get another view on it.

And I still felt like there was no resource for creative arts therapists who are in private practice and I felt like it's not always a safe space to talk about the licensure issues people instantly attack and some communities over it.

Even amongst creative arts therapists, I find some people, you know, people who are like, well, I went back to school and I did it. So you should and all the stuff that's like not everybody has the resources. Some of us are more, it's a systemic thing and it's more like stick it to the man I'm not going to give into your like, you know, white supremacy patriarchy like who gets to be important by your definitions.

So it's complicated and I wanted a safe space for people to connect and to share things like that and to have a place where we just kind of understand each other's language in a way the general Facebook private practice groups don't.

So yeah, that's what it was born from and I think it's been a great community. I always tell everybody like I've actually had a step down to being admin from a local therapist page because it was too intense. There was constantly.

It was exciting. Yeah, I mean, got accused of things just, you know, like, of course, if you try to be a peacekeeper, then you get accused of not taking a strong enough stance is just you can't please everybody.

But the creative arts therapist is in so quiet and very rarely drama in there and people are so lovely and it's a great resource. Yeah, for sure. I, I only learned about it. I feel like maybe earlier this year, maybe earlier this year or sometime last year, I don't like time escapes me, but it was more recent. I didn't know that it was out there, so I was glad to find that and to join and see, you know, my fellow colleagues there and sharing resources and information and opportunities.

My opportunities to learn from one another and and grow, I think is important and I felt the same way about podcasting. I was listening to all these like therapy podcasts and I found like two and both of them had like episode and then nothing. And I'm sure it was probably because they realized like, oh my gosh, this is a lot of work. I can't sustain it. And so I was like, I really want, I want to highlight the voices of creative arts therapist and expressive arts therapist. I want us to have our own platform and and to share what what we do, but also to give the up and coming folks the resources to help them get started and build their private practice.

I don't know about you, but I had a very difficult time finding a job that was specifically for our therapy.

Even harder for drama. Right. And you get pigeon hold in very, very high burn out opportunities because even the, you know, counselors and all the other masters levels we're talking about. Not for anybody, but especially hard. Yeah. And so I feel like we have to, we have to build and educate and advocate for our fields. And the same way that we do for our clients. And if we don't, then we won't, we won't be able to help our clients because they won't know how beneficial what we're offering can be for them.

Yeah. Well, Chris, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me today. If you had any like last final word of our words of advice for up and coming creative arts therapist who are kind of dipping their toe in the water into private practice. So what would you share with them? I guess three things come to mind. One is the networking piece. Don't be afraid to put yourself out there. And yes, you might have to educate people. But people are, I have found more people are welcoming and interested than the opposite.

So there's that something else that was really helpful for me is in this again for any kind of therapist because we can't ask for testimonies from clients for things like Google and Yelp and Facebook and all that where we can get rated to be able to ask our colleagues, people who work with us, people in peer groups with us. People in my case, like when I networked and I would do a little training at someone's place or people who take in my vision board workshops, I'll ask those people, can you just speak to the capacity you know me in and like what you see as my strength or anything like that.

So I have a lot of really good reviews from those sources and I get a lot of calls from clients who can trust my work in that sense. Right. So that's been a really helpful private practice building thing. And the last piece I will leave because the more I am a therapist and the more I've battled my own shame, being a great work therapist and that sort of thing.

Things are always personal. Sometimes the system is very messed up. It doesn't it's not a reflection on us.

I know even early on in my private practice, there is a point for two months in my first year where I didn't have any clients like I had a few and then they all dropped off for summer and I was like am I still in private practice if I don't have any active clients.

And I had to do some drama therapy on myself to say like okay, there's other roles I'm doing right now and still networking. I'm still putting up blogs. I'm still doing all the things even if I don't have any active clients right now.

So it is hard to build a private practice, but not to not to always take it to that. You know, it's my fault kind of a thing.

Yeah. So being being very compassionate with yourself as you're learning how to put it all together and make it happen. And I think that there's something about the longer you've been doing it, the easier it becomes in terms of like referrals and things like that. When you're just starting out, you're starting from nothing and you're having to build everything. It's a tremendous effort.

It takes a while to get there, but you can for sure. Yeah. Well, if folks want to check your website out, what is the link for that? How can they find your practice and your vision board workshop? So my website is www.crystafarashtra.com. And I do have the vision board workshops. It's on the bottom of the homepage. There's a little picture that people can click on and it does say vision board workshops and that has always information there.

On my blog page, there is a sign up if people want to get on my mailing list. I announce the workshops. So even if they can't make the next one, that is a space where they can keep up to date and any other workshops and the other offerings I do have. And I will say just because I do have the upcoming one, as you mentioned, it is January 7th of 2024 and it is online. So anyone can join if they'd like. And I do have a code, a discount code for the listeners.

So anyone listening who wants to join can use creative 2024.

Love it. The code. Beautiful. Well, thank you so much for offering that. I hope that people take advantage. It sounds like it's going to be an incredible experience. And yeah, that you're, you've made it into something really special and unique for participants. Well, thank you so much again. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me. Thank you. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Creative Psychotherapist podcast. I hope you enjoyed the conversation that I had with Christa and all the beneficial things that she shared about practice building and I just love how the vision board workshops that she's offering turned into something that is kind of a staple in her practice each year and how it's been able to bring her out into different businesses in the community.

And if you're interested in attending one, she has one coming up in January Sunday, January 7th. It's going to be totally online from one to 3 30 p.m. You can find more about that at www.kriesta.varr.com/vision-board-workshops. And if you decide to register, use code creative 2024 for $10 off.