Why I Became a Therapist: My Path to Working with Women in Salt Lake City
“Why did you decide to be a therapist?”
I get asked this question often, and I still sometimes stumble over my words. I don’t think I ever fully unscrambled it until recently. As a therapist now working with women in Salt Lake City, Utah, it feels meaningful to reflect on how this path started and how it shaped the way I support women today. Let’s process it together.
That same desire to help and connect is what now guides my work, providing anxiety therapy for women in Salt Lake City, especially for those who feel responsible for everyone else and struggle to slow down or ask for support.
Why I Decided to Become a Therapist
I have this distinct memory of sitting in freshman English class and deciding I wanted to be a therapist. I didn’t know what a therapist was exactly. I hadn’t taken any psychology classes but knew it was a career centered around compassion and caring for others.
Later that year, I remember being handed an envelope with my name on it. Inside was a letter letting me know that in a school-wide anonymous survey, my name was submitted by students as someone they would trust in or confide in if they were struggling. This was shocking to me. I was not wildly popular but actually blended in. I was friendly to other people and had many acquaintances but not many really close friends.
That letter invited me to join about 15 other people who had been selected as “Natural Helpers” to receive training on how to help other students struggling with mental health. We went to a retreat and had monthly meetings. It was there that I started learning about eating disorders, anxiety, depression, and other mental health struggles.
How Helping People Shaped My Work as a Therapist
It was life-altering to be a part of something that was focused on having a purpose, meaning and offering other people compassion. It helped me develop meaningful relationships. It also helped me feel more positively about myself to think that I was helping and caring for other people in need.
It’s crazy for me to think that as a 15-year-old, my career goal never changed. I went to college and diligently went through the course catalog and identified all of the classes I needed to take to graduate, and then I went to graduate school, and here we are now just doing the thing.
The Values That Led Me to Work with Women in Therapy
I think another part that interested me here is how I grew up. I had compassionate parents and grandparents. They valued loving and caring for other people, which also became important to me. Another part is being a child was challenging for me, especially in my teenage years. While I don’t work with teenagers anymore, I never want anyone to feel alone or unloved.
I also remember having friends older than me and being told I was a good listener and gave good advice. Obviously, I know now that therapy isn’t about giving advice, but it made me feel that maybe being a therapist is something I could be good at.
Now almost twenty years later, I work with some of my favorite types of people. People inspire me with their determination to be better versions of themselves. People who continue to help me progress and improve myself as a person and as a therapist.
Therapy for Women in Salt Lake City Who Feel Like They Have to Hold Everything Together
If you’re a woman in Salt Lake City who feels like you’re always the strong one, the listener, the helper, the one who keeps things from falling apart, therapy can be a place where you don’t have to carry that role alone. Many of the women I work with are thoughtful, capable, and deeply caring, yet privately exhausted or anxious from feeling responsible for everyone else’s emotions. Therapy isn’t about changing who you are; it’s about understanding the patterns that formed around caring for others and creating space for your own needs, feelings, and relief. You deserve support that feels grounded, compassionate, and centered on you. If anxiety has been the thread underneath always being the strong one, anxiety therapy for women in Salt Lake City can help you understand where that pattern came from and how to soften it.
Eating Disorder Therapy for Women in Salt Lake City
If you are struggling with an eating disorder, you don’t have to keep living this way forever. Maple Canyon Therapy has an eating disorder therapist who can help. To begin eating disorder therapy, follow the steps below:
Meet with a mental health professional
Begin eating disorder recovery
Online Eating Disorder Therapy for Women in Utah
When you are struggling with an eating disorder, it’s important to work with someone that has the specialized training and experience to help you with eating disorder recovery. Many parts of Utah don’t have access to eating disorder treatment. This is why I offer online therapy in Utah. This makes it so you don’t have to travel to therapy appointments and can receive therapy in the comfort of your own home.
You can access eating disorder therapy anywhere in Utah.
Therapy Services for Women in Salt Lake City
Eating disorder therapy isn’t the only counseling service provided at this practice. . Other mental health services provided by Maple Canyon Therapy include binge eating disorder treatment, body image therapy, trauma therapy, birth trauma, and anxiety therapy in Utah.