What Will a Fully Staffed CATHARSIS Look Like?
The people and roles we're envisioning
Imagine with me a picturesque building, with a garden beside it and a calm parking lot nearby . . . The front door opens to a café where you discover healthy food and drinks available, quiet music playing, tables and comfy nooks arranged invitingly.
A back hallway leads to the restrooms and (through a door with keycode) into the healing center. There are several private offices, as well as two shared spaces—a beautiful multi-faith chapel, and the soundproof music and art room.
What people are around helping create this magic?
As the name suggests, “Therapist-Healers” are key to CATHARSIS. The main modality will be psychotherapy (i.e., good old-fashioned talk therapy), and we plan to have at least one full-time Licensed Clinical Pastoral Therapist on staff along with a few therapists with other types of licenses (Psychologist, LCSW, etc.).
I’ll continue serving as the Lead Visionary & CEO for the time being, while still seeing a few clients as a part-time therapist. Eventually I’ll train the right next person to become the CEO and will carry on as Lead Visionary in more of an emeritus role.
There will be either a psychiatrist or a psychiatric nurse practitioner on staff who can prescribe medications when clients need this service; whether that person is full-time or part-time will depend on what proportion of therapy clients also need medication and with what frequency of check-ins.
We will also have at least one bodyworker, such as a licensed massage therapist or physical therapist, preferably someone who is also able to offer a form of energy healing (Reiki, healing touch, etc.).
Because we are whole beings—body, mind, emotions, spirit, relationships, and community—our holistic approach will include a clergy person (e.g. minister, priest, rabbi) who is trained in providing pastoral/spiritual care for people coming from different faith traditions, or none.
All of these services will be completely optional for clients and offered on a pay-as-you-are-able basis.
To keep everything running smoothly, we will need a business manager who may possibly also function as my assistant.
We’ll have a feng shui / cleaning lead, a maintenance lead and (part-time?) gardener, someone to oversee community relations & development, and another person (probably part-time) over technology, innovation, & cybersecurity. We’ll have an attorney on retainer for when needed.
Then there is the café part! We’ll need a café operator and several staff to cook food and prepare drinks. We anticipate that the café will pay for itself, and if it results in net revenue, that would be even better.
Each year, we’ll hire a musical theatre director and accompanist(s) to lead a production, which will delightfully serve as our annual fundraiser. We hope that creatively inclined clients, staff, and community members will all participate in the show!
At first, we will start on a smaller basis. Likely there will be two or three therapists and everyone else will be part-time, as we continue funding our endowment and building our client community. Our goal is to ensure long-term sustainability by running CATHARSIS primarily off the endowment interest, so we will expand our capacity and staff as our budget grows. G*d willing, we hope to open during 2027 and be flourishing with all of the above team by 2029!
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And now, dear readers, what would you like to read about next? Some topics include:
What Is Transliminality?
Ways to Support Us that Don’t Involve Money
TLC for HSPs
In Memory of Hannah
Inspiration from Susan Howatch Novels
The Mary Magdalene Part
Or, what questions do you all have for us about CATHARSIS Nashville?
Thank you so much for reading—please leave us a comment and let us know what most interests you! :)