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Episode Description
She told them her limits on day one. A month later, they let her go.
That’s how Whitney’s grad school placement ended. She was a solo parent, and her husband was an active-duty Marine. The placement needed her to work nights. The school blamed her.
Hosts Ashley Charbonneau and Morgen Villegas sit down with Whitney, LCSW, founder of Sunrise Wellness Collective in coastal North Carolina. They talk about what happens when the systems we work in can’t make room for the people doing the work, and why going out on her own saved Whitney’s career.
In this episode:
Why therapist burnout is often a system problem, not a personal failure
The boundaries and self-care that actually help
What civilians miss about military families and deployments
Why resilience isn’t built despite adversity. It’s built in it.
If you’re a therapist trying to balance your caseload, your family, and your own mental health, this one’s for you.
GUEST BIO:
Whitney Graves, LCSW, is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and the founder of Sunrise Wellness Collective, a group therapy practice in coastal North Carolina. She specializes in anxiety, ADHD, trauma, and the unique needs of military members, veterans, and their families. Trained in EMDR and Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), she also draws on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to help adults build resilience and create lasting change.
Whitney pairs a warm, down-to-earth style with a love of clinical research. She enjoys turning evidence-based ideas into practical tools people can actually use. She believes great therapy is grounded in both science and real human connection. Outside of work, she enjoys reading, time with her family, and life on the coast.
To reach Whitney directly, you can visit her website at: sunrisewellnesscollective.com
CHAPTERS
[0:00] Intro & Welcome
[1:37] Whitney's Career Journey
[3:10] Self-Care & Grad School
[6:09] Burnout & Private Practice
[8:21] Advocating for Change
[12:24] Self-Care Practices
[16:22] Military Life & Systems
[22:24] Closing & Gratitude
Transcript
Ashley C.: Welcome back to The Art of Being a Therapist.
Morgen V.: I'm one of your hosts, Morgan, and you just heard from Ashley, my co-host. We're here to talk about the space between training and real life, the deeply human side of therapy, the people, the stories, and the questions that don't always have easy answers.
Today, we welcome a very special guest, Whitney. Welcome.
Whitney G.: I'm so excited to be here.
Morgen V.: Whitney is a licensed clinical social worker specializing in anxiety, ADHD, trauma, and the unique experiences of military members, veterans, and their families. Trained in EMDR and exposure and response prevention, ERP, she incorporates evidence-based approaches to help adults build resilience and create meaningful, lasting change.
Known for combining a warm, down-to-earth style with a love of clinical research, Whitney enjoys translating mental health concepts into practical strategies people can actually use. She is passionate about supporting the military community and helping others better understand and navigate anxiety, burnout, ADHD, and trauma so they can move toward lives that feel more grounded and fulfilling.
Whitney is also the founder of Sunrise Wellness Collective, a group therapy practice in coastal North Carolina. She believes that great therapy is grounded in both science and genuine human connection. Outside of work, she enjoys reading, spending time with her family, and taking advantage of coastal living.
We are so glad that you're here today. Can you tell us a little bit more about your journey as a professional and some of the twists and turns that it took?
Whitney's Career Journey
Whitney G.: My journey and my professional career is a bunch of fits and starts. When I was in undergrad, I went for nursing, but I decided that I didn't wanna help in that manner, but I still wanted something to do.
I grew up in a household that was very much on community service and volunteering your time and being active in your community. I graduated from undergrad with more of a criminal justice direction, and I worked in juvenile probation for a while. I met my husband in undergrad. He wasn't my husband then, obviously, but then he enlisted in the Marine Corps early 2000s, and I had this front row view of the impacts of that on everybody around us, and I became much more interested in mental health.
In North Carolina, we call it community support. It's in-home services with acute individuals. So went to graduate school and got my master's degree. Being a military spouse is not conducive to expanding on your career. I went to another community support role as a licensed clinician, and then from there, have gone out into private practice.
Throughout my experience, I've learned that a strong therapeutic alliance between the clinician and whomever is receiving the services is, I believe, the number one predictor in progress in treatment. I think as clinicians, we have to learn to take care of ourselves in order to take care of other people.
Self-Care & Grad School
Morgen V.: I know it is so cliche to talk about self-care, but it's such a necessary conversation. I don't feel like grad school really showed us the impact of caring for ourselves and the necessity of caring for ourselves in this profession. I agree. As you were telling your story, for our listeners, Whitney and I met in grad school.
We went to the same graduate school program, got our MSW in 18 months. Seems wild to go fall, spring, summer, fall without a break, and Whitney, I know you had several moves during that time, several role changes. You don't realize the reality that you lived in grad school, and that sets you up for the way that so many of us work in the beginning of our career, and we never slow down, and we have 100 tasks and 100 ideas and sometimes 100 clients.
Whitney G.: Do you feel like something or someone or some part of your career allowed you to find balance, to find a good self-care practice? Because it sounds like you're also saying that if we don't take care of ourselves, how can we even have a strong alliance with our clients? Yeah, absolutely. So when you're in grad school, you also have to do your clinical hours in conjunction with the coursework.
I had a one-year-old at the time, and my husband was active duty military and was never home. And right out the gate, start this graduate school program and they put me with an agency, and I was very upfront about, "I'm basically a solo parent. I have a one-year-old. He's in daycare." We were actually in Virginia at the time, and I was doing grad school online.
And I was very upfront about, "I have a kid and this is my limitations. He's brand new in school." Long story short, the program that I was put into was a homeless shelter. After about a month or so of me being there, they were like, "This isn't working for us because we need you to work nights." And I was frustrated 'cause it's like I told you this.
I'm literally paying for this graduate school program to be able to do this. I want to be here. All I'm saying is that I have a child, and I have limitations, and I can't work at 8:00 at night, but there's no way that this job can't be done in regular hours as a part-time employee. You're not a good fit, we have to let you go.
And then the school was like, blamed me. This is a me problem, because I was late in life doing grad school, one of the few parents doing it. How dare my husband be active duty? Civilians don't really understand that. So it doesn't matter how much I wanna help my community. Yeah. I'm gonna be met with difficulty every step of the way.
Burnout & Private Practice
Whitney G.: And I had an amazing supervisor. Our supervisors are under the same systems we are. I remember I was working in a community support setting, and I read an article that said that the average time of face-to-face care for clinicians is five years. And the average time for people working in community mental health settings is one to two.
And at this point, I'd done graduate school, I'd taken time off, I was a stay-at-home mom. I was just back into the field as a clinical social worker. This is what I wanna do. We had a ton of student loan debt, and I thought, "I have got to prioritize my brain to make this a long-term career option for me, for my family's sake."
My family had given so much financial for me to be able to do this, and if I can only do this for five years, that's a really serious kinda thing that I need to address. And I became passionate, focused on my own mental health, and what does that look like? What do I need? What are boundaries that I need to set?
Unfortunately, the only way I was able to do that was to open my own practice, go out on my own. As much as people in our field talk about, we wanna do this, and we wanna do this, I found it was a lot of talking and not a lot of people trying to change the system. We can all agree that systems stink, but what it takes is the person running it to be like, "No, I'm not gonna run my practice this way."
Morgen V.: And I, unfortunately, wasn't able to find an agency that prioritized me. So I prioritized myself I know you and I met, it's been 14 years, Whitney, since we met, and in so many ways it was a lifetime ago. We were totally different people when we started school, and I just wanna take a moment to honor how much you've done even though you're in North Carolina.
Advocating for Change
Morgen V.: I've been in Colorado this whole time. I think you've lived in two or three other states since we've met. Watching your personal and professional journey has been inspiring. I think you said no one was gonna prioritize me. I needed to prioritize myself At what point did you really land on that? Was that pretty early on in your career, and then it was like, "Oh gosh, how do I do this?"
Whitney G.: Or was it more recently? Yeah, I think definitely the latter. So yeah, so we moved quite a bit. North Carolina is where we've settled. We knew where my husband was getting out of the Marine Corps. My kids are older. It's a much better time for me to focus on my career, and I worked again in a community support role.
It's tough, off hours, a lot of work with kids. And being the solo parent, now I had two children, it's not easy to navigate with childcare. And my husband was getting ready to deploy, and there was another director in this agency and they did school-based therapy, and I advocated to get transferred because I was like, "Look, I wanna stay here.
I wanna continue to work my hours here, but I can't do this crisis support anymore, getting phone calls at 2:00 AM. I just am not able to do that while my husband is away. Is it possible for me to switch to this school-based role?" And I was told no. So I realized I have to find a way to advocate for my family.
I have to figure out what that looks like. Even when I went out on my own in private practice, it's so hard, and burnout looks differently. You can finally do your own schedule, but sometimes I joke my boss is a really big pain in the butt. And so learning, wow, when do I really need to back off? When do I need to prioritize myself?
What boundaries do I need to maybe set with clients? So no, gosh, I think it's something I'm still learning. Depending on what season of life I'm in or what my kids are even going through or what my caseload looks like, I think it's something that we always need to have in the peripheral to help us be good clinicians.
Morgen V.: It sounds like there was this idealism of, "Let me work in this agency and see if I can help," and then each subsequent experience that you had, they weren't able to support what you needed as a parent and as a human being, and so you had to leave and then create your own carve-out. And so you've created this carve-out, and that's like a resistance in terms of our field, right?
Whitney G.: The resistance is in creating our own business. And a way for us to create a sustainable practice. And so that's where you are now is in the private practice. Does it seem like that has saved your career? Oh, absolutely. I don't think I could do this long term if I wasn't in the role that I'm in. And maybe that's because of my dual role here as a mother, too.
I liked crisis support, but I recognize that I have other responsibilities. You have children. Daycare doesn't run past 5:00 PM. School doesn't run past 3:00. So we have these things that already kinda make it harder for moms and military spouses. Military spouses are notoriously under-employed. I have these limitations.
Morgen V.: The only way for me to navigate that is to make my own schedule, and I love it. I feel like I have privilege to be able to do that. Yeah, I think you're speaking to so many different things, like the institutional lag that we experience as moms with school ending at 3:00, whereas jobs end at 5:00 or, in your case, 10:00, 12:00.
I don't know, the night shift, right? There's no childcare, and so then it's how do we stay in those types of jobs? And you're saying that you liked working in crisis work, and so what you're saying is that you have the talent and the drive and the desire to do that, but the institution can't sustain it because of their inflexibility.
Self-Care Practices
Whitney G.: So I just wanted to name that. You have this private practice. You are able to set your own schedule. What other things do you do to infuse care for yourself? Is it consultation? Is it peer support? Is it your own therapy? All the things. Absolutely peer support is huge because it's so nice to, at the end of the day, be able to text a colleague and be like, "Our job is really hard."
Holding space for people and not allowing my stuff to project and remembering that some of the things that happen in session aren't me at all. Navigating all the difficulty with sessions, and then running a business is its own thing. And having another clinician, end of the day, that you can say, "Wow, today was hard," and they genuinely get it.
I think humans just need human connection. I'm very lucky that my spouse is supportive and understands. There are some days I come in- And I'm like, I can't people, friends get it, and my kids kinda understand now. And then I love exercise, walks, and getting out in nature, and play are so helpful.
Yes, I am a big proponent of therapy. I see my own therapist regularly, 'cause sometimes this stuff is just heavy and we need to get it off our chest and have a open space to process through it. Self-care is like me with my big cup here drinking my water or setting a boundary and not taking phone calls after 8:00 PM.
I think it requires all the things. I think we're always after this elusive balance, and what is that? It's gonna look different day to day. It's gonna look different week to week, and I try to really navigate what my family life looks like. I'm a therapist, and it's my job, and it's my role, and I do love the work I do and this role.
But I'm also a community member, and I'm also a parent, and integrating all of those aspects into what we do is what makes us a good clinician. Going home and being present with my family allows me to be a better therapist, and being a good therapist and being present with my clients allows me to be a better mom.
Morgen V.: So I think it's something that is always gonna be at the forefront and something to work on and something to figure out depending on what season of life we're in. A lot of systems were putting those barriers in place, which I think is very disorienting for us. How are we taught to advocate for ourselves, for our clients, and then to have systems continually tell us no?
Whitney G.: So all of that being said, is there anything you would tell your younger self about boundaries specifically? It's not you. It is the system, and yet some of this is just learning how to navigate the system. It's kinda like the military. You're a part of it, and we can all recognize the flaws, and what can we do to honor ourselves and keep pushing through despite the flaws, while also trying to change our community?
I think my younger self, she did pretty darn good. I'm stubborn, and I will persevere, and that's what got me here. I don't want other younger clinicians to have to go through that, but I do recognize that gave me a sense of resiliency, and I think I am the clinician I am today because I do recognize how difficult it was and how important it is to try and push back about some of this difficult stuff.
Military Life & Systems
Morgen V.: Your own perseverance helped you to create a system that works for you. I'm curious to hear more about military life and how you've balanced that. We're in a unique role in society where we walk a similar path as our clients. It became more clear during COVID where we're all experiencing the pandemic together, then we're all experiencing political stuff together.
Whitney G.: I'm just wondering if you can speak a little bit more about that, just because you work a lot with military folks. How did you balance it? I wanna say not well, but I did. You just sometimes have to kinda do what you have to do. I remember taking our first class in grad school. There was an article that we read on resiliency, and it said something to the effect of, "Resiliency isn't built despite adversity.
Morgen V.: It's built in adversity." But I don't know if I balance it. I still don't even know if I balance it well, and what does well even look like? But it seems like that's a really humble approach to it. It's like you are recognizing and understanding that there's a transformation that is required almost daily in this profession of evaluating and making sure that I'm doing okay, and then reaching out to people and checking in and monitoring my own mental health, and knowing that it can't be stagnant.
It has to always be growing. And so I'm hearing some pretty clear points from you. We essentially never stop, but it's like we need to seek out the quality of consulting plus supervision if we need those hours. But having colleagues that can help us Because of the ever-changing nature of our brains, right?
Whitney G.: To answer your question about working with military is a different type of system. Surrounding yourself with people who get it is absolutely necessary. Civilians love y'all, but you just don't get it. Having to explain it all, explain the reintegration, and the deployments, and the back and forth, and the fears, and the news cycle, it's just so nice sometimes to have that camaraderie that comes with military service, and I always advocate for people to find their people, 'cause I think we just can't do this thing called life alone.
Morgen V.: I love social work. I love the ethics behind a licensed clinical social worker. It speaks to my own personal values. If I wanna just help people, why is it so darn hard? Is it the systems? Do we continue to perpetuate it because we're stuck in the systems? Difficult questions we struggle with. We all know the answers, right?
we're in this field, we all know what needs to be done. Getting it done is a totally different ballgame. And I had the opportunity to go to DC and engage in protests and see how Congress works. In grad school, they wanted us to take a piece of legislation and follow it, and this was my first foray into politics.
But it was like, "Wow, our Congress is really ineffective." We have some really great legislation that could change our clients' lives, and it just sits there. Where do we make change at the micro level when it is obvious that these macro level issues are difficult to navigate? Personally, what leads to burnout for me, compassion fatigue, is trying to sit with a client, but you're so bogged down by these macro level issues that impact everybody.
I think that's the difficulty of being a social worker is maybe we're more aware of that. I would agree. We talk about self-care, and we also want to have community care, and then it just doesn't necessarily fall into place because of the political leaders who get stuck with legislation that could benefit the people that we work with.
I'm loving everything that you brought up today. This has been super helpful to understand a little bit more, and I do not understand military culture and will definitely name that. Can imagine, like, how isolating that would feel even in our profession. I think for military spouses in particular, again, we're notoriously underemployed.
Whitney G.: Very few have advanced degrees. And then I found myself in two systems. I'm in the system of social work, because I'm a mom and I'm trying to navigate childcare, which is expensive and difficult to find. Also this military culture. And love the Marine Corps, right? Two things can exist at the same time, right?
I can love it while also recognizing that there's some difficulties there, too. Very early in my husband's career, I was told, "If we wanted your husband to have a spouse, we would've issued him one." And it's a joke in the Marine Corps, but a lot of truth is said in jest sometimes. I'm a brand new military spouse and shipping my husband off to combat, and learn very quickly that I don't matter.
I am seen as a dependent. I am a difficulty. And not everybody believes that. We've had great bosses for my husband that have been super supportive as me as a human and as a career. But as a whole, it's hard to navigate those systems. I don't matter. Mandatory meetings. I had a supervisor or a, a boss once be like, "They can't force you to go to a mandatory meeting."
And I'm like You wanna call 'em up? You wanna tell the Marine Corps no? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what to say to that. I need PTO, 'cause they're saying it's a mandatory deployment brief, and if I'm not there, my husband might get in trouble. What do I say to that? They're navigating all these systems. It was a difficult experience.
Even getting out is interesting and I don't think civilians really truly understand the sacrifices that our military give up, and yeah, the whole military, right? Not just the active duty service member, everybody. I'll never be the Marine Corps spouse that's, "Yeah, I served too," right? But we did. We supported our service member, and my kids gave, and it was all necessary.
Closing & Gratitude
Morgen V.: Thank you for explaining all of that. I'm not military. I've never been military. There's a lot of interesting things you talked about today with overlapping systems, but also systems that are very separate. I just wanna take a moment to honor, like, how much you've done, and even though you're in North Carolina, I've been in Colorado this whole time.
So watching your personal and professional journey has been so inspiring, and at the same time, I think you and I have had so many difficult and even scary conversations over the years, including what the F are we doing? I'm so excited to see where your career takes you from here. I'm, excited to be here and excited to have the opportunity to share my perspective, 'cause I do think it's, can be kinda different, and appreciate both of you two.
Actually have appreciated your friendship, 'cause you've seen me navigate these things and figure it out. Thank you, Whitney, for the work that you do, and thank you for joining us on The Art of Being a Therapist. Working in mental health asks a lot of us and requires skill, but also humility and a willingness to keep showing up for people in some of their hardest moments.
Until next time, take care of yourselves.
