Meet Faith Larson of Holistic Hope LLC

Today we’d like to introduce you to Faith Larson.

Hi Faith, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My road to opening and operation a mental health group practice has been anything but a straight career line. I actually started my professional career in law enforcement. I worked as a juvenile probation officer for 8 years and worked with youth ages 10-17 that were involved in the juvenile justice system. As I worked with the youth and their families, I started to understand that the intersectionality of crime, social problems, and the negative impacts of unresolved trauma played a key role in the lives of the kids involved in the juvenile justice system. Additionally, I was involved in exposing and reporting a commercial sexual exploitation enterprise in the area. The people involved with exploiting the youths that I worked with were brought to justice in a federal court and that was a HUGE win in the law enforcement world. I received a reward from the FBI for my help in identifying, reporting, and aiding in the investigation. However, what stuck with me most was the lack of resources for the youth who had bravely testified after the trail was over and they aged out of juvenile probation. They still had a lot of trauma to deal with and not a lot of support. All of these experiences influenced my decision to leave juvenile justice and go back to school to be a social worker. In school, my priority in becoming a social worker was to work with survivors of commercial exploitation. Being a therapist or a practice owner was not on my radar. After graduation and working as a Licensed Masters’ Social Worker (LMSW), I worked for a human trafficking non-profit advocating and working with survivors of commercial sexual exploitation and labor trafficking. I also worked at a local private practice providing clinical social work psychotherapy to work towards becoming a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW). I fell in love with being a therapist, working directly with clients experiencing symptoms of PTSD, anxiety, depression, CPTSD, and suicidal ideations. I also fell in love with learning more evidence based therapeutic modalities to use with clients such as EMDR and IFS. Over the years, my clinical practice, experience, and training continued to grow and I had the opportunity to start my own private practice in 2023 and so I did! It has been such a thrilling experience to build a successful mental health group practice and also A LOT of work and sacrifice for myself and my family. The in person and behind the scenes work it takes to run a successful business is never ending. I am forever grateful for the support from my family, none of this would have been possible without them or their support. I wouldn’t change anything about my journey because every experience has had an impact on me as a person, a social worker, an entrepreneur, and as a therapist. I thank God for everything that had to happen in the past and everything has come together in the past couple of years to allow me to own Holistic Hope.

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?
There were so many struggles along the way. The struggles are what make me so grateful for the success but there are too many obstacles to write about all of them. However, I would have to say that the COVID pandemic was one of the biggest struggles. I started working as a therapist in November 2019, and the COVID-19 pandemic moved all sessions online in March 2020. Being a brand new therapist while navigating the new COVID-19 restrictions while providing ethical and effective psychotherapy online for the first time was such a learning curve. It was also so hard to be experiencing all the same fear about the future while showing up to support clients through all the chaos of that time. Ultimately, those experiences made me a better overall psychotherapist. Now that the pandemic restrictions are lifted and we can meet with clients in person again, I don’t take that privilege for granted. I love meeting with my clients at the Holistic Hope office in Clear Lake. I do still offer telehealth services because telehealth allows for greater access and convenience to mental health treatment which is an important value of mine.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Holistic Hope is a mental health group practice located in Clear Lake, Texas. Our mission is to provide hope driven, trauma informed, and evidence based psychotherapy, training, and consultation. We specialize in working with clients that experience symptoms related to CPTSD, PTSD, anxiety, depression, suicidal ideations, and personality disorders. We are trained in neuroscience and trauma informed based therapeutic modalities such as Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Internal Family Systems (IFS), Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), Motivational Interviewing (MI), Trust Based Relational Intervention (TBRI), Trauma Informed Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) and the revolutionary musical intervention the Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP). Access to mental health care is a high value of mine and thus my practice, Holistic Hope. Holistic Hope accepts insurance for services and most clients pay a small copay per session. We offer psychotherapy services to individuals, couples, families, adolescents, and children age 6 – 17. Our website provides specific details about our staff, our values, our mission, our modalities, and our services. Readers can find us at www.holistichope.net.

What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
I love the diversity of Houston. I love the Houston Zoo and Museum District. I love living so close to the water and the beach. But for me, the traffic in Houston is a big deterrent to exploring all the different parts of Greater Houston. When I am not working with clients or on my office (my home away from home), I enjoy hanging out at home with my family and my dog and volunteering with Texas PTA to advocate for children’s mental health and safety in public schools.

Pricing:

• BCBS of Texas
• United Healthcare
• Optum

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.holistichope.net
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100087486040419&notif_id=1768470484051376&notif_t=page_user_activity&ref=notif#

Image Credits
Timothy Heard – Photographer