Today we’d like to introduce you to Patty Ostberg-Speiker.
Hi Patty, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I grew up in the military as a daughter of a special forces pilot. While moving around as an adolescent and teen can be super tough, it also created in me a need for adventure and storytelling.
In college I majored in journalism and worked at the Capitol in St Paul for a decade. I greatly enjoy hearing other people’s stories and how they came to be where they are today. It inspires my work as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. Just as journalists listen for the story, therapists work alongside clients as their own healing journeys unfold.
Today, I work with parents, military families, and folks wanting to create and cultivate a new story for themselves or heal trauma from their past.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Family systems create strong influences and role assignments. I come from a conservative family of origin where females are expected to be homemakers among other traditional expectations. Finding my own authenticity and inherent worth has been a crash course in trauma healing.
I’m thankful for the meandering journey that lead me to the place of pursuing a master’s degree. I often enjoy telling struggling young therapists the experience I had coming out of grad school and obtaining my hours for licensure. I was working for a local agency that promised me part-time work upon graduation, but failed on delivery and told me I could only work full-time. At the time I had two young children and knew that kind of work load along with demanding daytime and evening hours would not be possible. Luckily, I had done a training at the University of Minnesota in a parenting program and reached out to them asking if they had any openings. They responded quickly that in fact they do, and I can choose how many hours I’d like to work. Sometimes when a door closes, an even better one opens. I became certified in that parenting program and traveled the country training other clinicians on active military bases. While the bait and switch of the agency was a gut punch, I recovered with an amazing opportunity that I am still involved with today.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Evergreen Therapy and Coaching?
My therapy and coaching private practice is based in St. Paul and I specialize in working with parents who have experienced their own difficult childhoods that don’t want to pass along generational trauma to their own children. I’m known for working with all types of coupes and individuals that know in their souls that something is holding them back from being able to have the relationships they want for themselves. I often here, “I know what I don’t want to be doing, but what can I do instead…I don’t know!?”
I am one of the few therapists in the area that is certified in Adaptive Parenting Tools, a trauma informed evidence-based parenting program ideal for parents of school aged children. I also use several trauma and couples therapy modalities, like Eye Movement Reprocessing Desensitization (EMDR) and Gottman Method, along with somatic and parts work.
What was your favorite childhood memory?
We lived in the south and some of my favorite memories include our vacations to Florida beaches. To this day, one of my happy places is lying by the ocean and watching and listening to the birds and waves. I’ll always be grateful for this exposure at a young age.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.etherapycoaching.com
