Today we’d like to introduce you to Brittany Beninga.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
My name is Brittany Beninga, I am a private practice therapist with an LPCC (Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor) license in the state of Minnesota. My private practice is called Turning Page Counseling, LLC. I opened my practice a year ago after deciding I wanted to be in a position to treat clients with a wider range of skills than I was able to do while working in large clinics or when I did contracting work for telehealth providers. I continue to provide telehealth services within my own practice, as I believe it has given clients a lot of benefits to make therapy work within their schedule and location around the state. I am based out of Sauk Rapids, but my clients are from all over the state. The services I provide are individual therapy, couples therapy, and group therapy. With individuals I work with, I focus on anxiety, depression, trauma, and helping them gain coping skills, education, and understanding of themselves. With couples, I work to provide them with communication strategies, intimacy, and trust. With groups I provide a virtual group therapy we call therapy Book Club where we take mental health books and self help books and we read one a month and then meet every other Tuesday to discuss and I help client’s to take the information they are gaining in these books and help them apply it to themselves and how to implement it within their own lives. My goal has always been to improve the quality of life of all of my clients. We all deserve to be happy and find peace in our lives. We should get the opportunity to be vulnerable, open, and connected in our lives, and our mental health should not hold us back.
I also host a mental health podcast called Your Therapist Is My Best Friend. I host this with my best friend, Shante, who is also a therapist and a psychology professor. We decided to start this podcast for a few reasons. We know that starting therapy can be a scary process, and taking that leap to get into your first therapy session can be a hard bridge to gap, so we want to give people a window into what therapy is, what it is like, and what it can do for clients. We also want people to always have access to mental health information, regardless of income, and having a podcast that anyone can listen to is important to us. We also really enjoy discussing mental health topics, giving people micro learning experiences, and learning from one another.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
With each adventure I have taken on, there have definitely been bumps in the road. When I became a therapist, I started as a crisis worker, and in a way, I “drank from the fire hose” when it comes to growing as a therapist and learning about mental health early on. It came with a lot of self-discovery and finding ways to keep myself from burning out, so I could keep helping others with their mental health. When I was working in clinics and as a contracted therapist, I also felt like a lot of times I could be held back due to insurance carriers or having to follow lines drawn in the sand of what I could and could not do, even if I had the training and the skills. I have much more room to explore my skills now and get more training in things I find important for healing in therapy, and I have seen it be really effective. Even with the podcast, it was and still is a huge learning curve. learning how to record, edit, and produce a podcast is definitely all new to us, and we have always been willing to learn and try and fail to get the podcast to a successful place. I truly believe our ability to learn is endless, so if we keep trying and pushing, and searching for what we need to overcome barriers is how we succeed.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
I have always been passionate about working with diverse populations. I think people who feel like they are misunderstood often isolate, and they deserve to be seen, heard, and understood. My goal is always to create an inclusive space where people can come and know that I will do my best to truly see them for who they are, authentically. There is no need to mask or pretend, and yet we can work together to create an amazing quality of life. Even with the podcast, I want people to hear us discussing mental health casually, authentically, and get information that may give them a sense of being understood and a sense of hope. It is really important to Shante and me that with the podcast, we create a fun and relaxed environment where it also feels easy to learn and understand ourselves better through mental health discussions. Many people start podcasts, and we know there are other mental health podcasts out there, but I also know that Shante and I have built our careers on being authentic, on truly wanting to make a difference in the world through therapy that is done well. Our goal has always been to help the greater population be healthier and happier because that is one of the greatest things we can do in our lifetime. So the podcast isn’t about us, it is about everyone else and helping them.
How can people work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
The best way to show support is to take a listen to the podcast, Your Therapist Is My Best Friend, which is on all podcast platforms and releases a new episode every week. We love to collaborate with people who have questions about mental health, people who are interested in being on our podcast as a guest but ultimately we want to be able to share our knowledge with as many people as possible so giving it a listen, like, share or subscribe gets us to a place where we can reach more great people that are looking for answers. This podcast is an extension of my therapy practice, and I am so passionate about it. It gives my clients a place to get more information, and hopefully, it also brings people into therapy who have been wanting to start therapy but have been a little afraid to start. Maybe we can help them get comfortable with getting started.
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