088: Mental Health Care, Grief, & Accessibility w/ Tori S. Dixon, MS LPC

Aug 19, 2020

Tori S. Dixon (MS, LPC) is the owner and practicing clinician of Graceful Journey Counseling in Arlington, Texas. A licensed professional counselor with a background in funeral direction, her specialty has naturally become grief and loss; she practices from the belief that any barrier to mental wellness is ultimately attributed to some sense of loss. Whatever the loss, she believes that grace and space to acknowledge and properly grieve loss is the first step on the road to true healing and emotional and mental wholeness. Tori adopted a theoretically-sound, culturally-competent and faith-based approach that focuses on engaging and meeting clients where they are on their journeys. Her goal is to provide the safe space her clients need to grow fully into who they were created to be — and to thrive in life and relationships. In this episode, we discuss mental health care from a chronic illness perspective; we also address the need for culturally-competent care, and for access to mental health care as an imperative.

Tune in as Tori shares:

• that she has worked with past guest Dr. Jessica Shepherd for the last 2 years, helping clients manage mental and physical wellness
• that sometimes her work is about bridging the gap between patient and clinician
• that she specializes in grief and loss because she worked as a licensed mortician for 14 years
• that she sees grief and loss not only as the loss of a loved one — but also as losses related to relationships, jobs, home, finance, health, etc.
• the importance of cultural sensitivity and competency in mental health counseling: that often, patients want to talk to clinicians who can understand their experiences
• that she often comes across clients who have not been believed, had requests denied, or felt they were not heard by other clinicians
• that her role is to empower and validate her clients — to acknowledge that their experience is real, and not imagined
• a discussion of the social factors that impact mental health and wellness
• that so much of medical research has been created out of bias — and it’s time to reinvent mental health service infrastructure to support the Black community, among others
• that race, gender, and other inequities in healthcare are a public health crisis of the scale of COVID-19 — or greater
• why she works on a sliding scale with her clients
• why she coaches clients to cultivate life-work balance, rather than work-life balance
• why consistency is key to creating real, lasting change
• why you are one decision away from changing your life
• that it is your right to be healthy in mind and body
• why everybody needs a therapist