Strengthening family relationships through therapy & education
Rachel Sullivan, LMFT, CFLE-P
By Rachel Sullivan, LMFT, CFLE-P
Owner & Founder, Solid Ground Counseling Center (Madison, Alabama)
As a marriage and family therapist (MFT), I’m really helping people to strengthen relationships and make connections between the pieces of life that are intertwined. I’m working to help people be okay with them.
I love when clients can make core types of changes that propel them to a healthier place. Through my practice, I’m able to offer tailored services to meet people where they are:
I see clients three days a week — a mix of individuals, couples, and families.
I’ve partnered with a local veteran-owned organization that rehabilitated an apartment complex, where I provided free in-home counseling for residents.
I offer a counseling scholarship program by partnering with a nonprofit foundation that contributes to the session fee for scholarship clients.
By holding the Certified Family Life Educator (CFLE) credential, I’m also able to layer Family Life Education onto my work. Therapy is a lot about healing what has already happened, and Family Life Education is about providing information that helps normalize what’s to come.
So, I can offer information like premarital counseling, helping couples talk about things like family planning, differences in finances, and spirituality. Then when they do hit junctures in life where they need help in the therapeutic realm, I’m equipped to do that as well.
Ultimately, I want to help our communities understand the transitions that families go through. My hope is that we’ll be able to normalize talking about those family things and have more educational classes in communities, and that it’s not taboo because people recognize the value of learning something that they don’t know. I dream about what that world would look like.