Today we’d like to introduce you to Brittany Escuriex and Danica Harris.
Brittany and Danica, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
We met in 2016 when we were both serving as staff therapists within a large organization. We felt an immediate connection, both personally and professionally, and that year really set the stage for us later founding Empowered Healing Dallas. Within that shared work environment, we often connected around issues of social justice and equity, and we loved challenging one another to grow as therapists and humans. We began to feel more constrained by working within a large system, particularly given how these larger systems often perpetuate hierarchy and inequity. We started talking about what it could look like to build our own practice, create an enriching and empowering workplace, and provide therapy truly congruent with who we are as therapists.
In Fall 2018, the time finally felt right to take a leap and start the practice – and the timing was so right! We found a space, leased it almost immediately, and dove right into getting the business established. By January 2019, we were seeing our first clients and beginning to create our own work culture. Now, a little over a year later, we both agree that staring this practice was the best move both of us have ever made. We are profoundly impacted by the clients who entrust us with their stories and immensely grateful for the opportunity to create a business that is founded on our shared values of social justice, healing, and empowerment.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It’s hard to imagine starting a business is ever completely smooth, but overall we’re incredibly grateful for how things have developed in the 14+ months since we started the practice. In graduate school, we were taught how to be a therapist, but not how to be a business owner! This seems to be common for many folks who wind up in private practice – we know how to do the work of being a therapist, but the work of owning and operating a business just isn’t part of our formal education. In this way, we needed to learn a lot, and pretty quickly – this process was simultaneously exciting and filled with learning curves. We also both worked other full-time and part-time jobs while getting the practice off the ground. Given the nature of our work, it takes time for potential clients to find us, to get a caseload built, and to be ready to transition fully into private practice. While challenging at times, the process of creating and building the practice solidified our investment in the business, our partnership, and our clients. Any struggles along the way have been worth it!
Empowered Healing Dallas – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
We co-own Empowered Healing Dallas, a private psychological practice where we provide therapy services for adults and consultation/training for other professionals. Sapna Patel also recently joined the practice full-time, and we are so grateful to share space with such a passionate and like-minded therapist. While we have various clinical specialties and issues we address, we’re most proud of the values we collectively share and the intentions we set around connecting with our clients.
As a practice, we are social justice-informed, meaning we value and affirm all cultural identities, and explicitly integrate discussions of identity into our work. We recognize that mental health is impacted by the socio-political climate, experiences of oppression, and other factors connected to one’s various identities; we consider it vital to affirm folks’ experiences and create an open space to process these experiences. Our entire practice is also trauma-informed, meaning we recognize the broad range of traumatic events our clients might have experienced, and intentionally work to sit alongside our clients as they find safety, healing, and empowerment in recovering from trauma. Finally, our practice is deeply invested in the relationships we form with our clients – we consider ourselves humans first and therapists second. We foster connections with our clients that are rooted in authenticity, transparency, and equity. All of these values create deep and meaningful relationships that are truly transformative.
Within this general framework, our practice specializes in complex trauma, couples/relationship counseling, anxiety, identity development, identity-based trauma, family-of-origin concerns, mind-body wellness, and more. We love sharing our knowledge with others, so we offer training and consultation related to these areas, as well.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
We’re right in the middle of it! We both took huge leaps of faith to start the practice, and we are so proud of making it through the first year as women business owners. We also take pride in providing therapy we believe in and creating a practice truly founded on the values that matter most to us. We can’t wait to see what lies ahead!
Contact Info:
- Address: Empowered Healing Dallas
12810 Hillcrest Road
Suite B123
Dallas, TX 75230 - Website: empoweredhealingdallas.com
- Phone: Brittany – 214.417.5328 / Danica – 214.679.3083
- Email: Brittany – drescuriex@empoweredhealingdallas.com / Danica – drharris@empoweredhealingdallas.com
- Instagram: Brittany – mindfully_empowered_therapy / Danica – the_empowered_therapist
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