According to James A. Garfield graduate Rebecca Smith, she has had too many friends end their lives because of their mental health issues. Smith has become a strong advocate to treat r mental health and neurodivergent issues by opening her own virtual counseling practice called Becoming Beautifully Strong Counseling, Coaching & Consultation.
“I offer counseling like therapy to teenagers up through adults and I also offer autism and ADHD assessments,” the 2013 James A. Garfield graduate told The Weekly Village on Aug. 7. Becoming Beautifully Strong Counseling, Coaching & Consultation is a counseling practice that specializes in autism, ADHD and trauma. It is one of the only practices that exists where it is a very specific practice.”
Smith’s counseling practice has officially been open since January but just recently has become approved as a provider for medical insurance companies, as it previously had operated as a self-pay practice.
“If you go online and look up autism assessments, people charge outrageously high numbers for those assessments,” she added. “We are talking thousands upon thousands of dollars. If you come BBSCCC, the assessment is through your insurance, you may have a $20 co-pay per session, but it is not going to be thousands of dollars like most of the other practices.”
Smith’s counseling sessions are entirely virtual but said that there is a strong possibility that she will open an in-person location in Garrettsville soon.
A licensed clinical counselor with a Master’s Degree in Clinical Health Mental Counseling from Kent State University, Smith said that her practice offers a better level of tailored care to each individual that is afflicted with a neurodivergent or mental health disorder.
As someone who has been diagnosed as neurodivergent, Smith said that her personal connection allows her to offer an empathetic perspective to her patients who have been diagnosed.
“That offers a true empathic lens where ifyou are coming in for counseling, your therapist actually gets it. We understand what it means to be neurodivergent, living this life and navigating life with neurodivergency,” she said.
Smith is still the only counselor at her practice and said that her sessions are focused on utilizing a holistic approach to assist her clients. She currently does not prescribe medication but said that she is considering adding a medical provider to her practice who will prescribe the appropriate medication.
“We work toward healing the mind, body and soul as one, but if a person needs medication, not only is there medication that can be beneficial, there is so much we can do with counseling,” Smith noted. “Counseling can be life-changing for tons of people all over the world but there is nothing wrong with medication.”
Smith said that some of her clients are still on medication when they begin counseling sessions and as they go through her counseling, they wean themselves off the medication.
She added that neurodivergent disorders are becoming a more accepted diagnosis today, as the rate of neurodivergent diagnoses has increased in later adulthood.
“There are even science and studies coming out now which show that autism may very well be linked to evolution and it is the brain evolving over time, trying to adapt better with society because of all of the rapid changes that are occurring,” she noted.
Smith said that she developed a strong connection to neurodivergent and mental health disorders due to her own personal struggles when she graduated high school, as not only she but close family and friends struggled.
She acknowledged that she has wanted to help people from a young age and as she dealt with her own personal demons, she realized she could become an advocate in the ongoing battle against neurodivergency and mental health.
“I was actually sitting in a counseling session with my therapist, and we were talking about stuff I literally blurted out ‘I want to be a therapist’ and it was the best decision I have ever made in my whole life,” she said.
Smith said that her connection to the field was strengthened when a close friend of hers committed suicide after she graduated from Kent State.
“Their passing is what encouraged me to get tested for being neurodivergent because I had this realization that all of the people, I surround myself with, they to have those diagnoses,” she noted.
