09/04/2024
Hello and welcome everyone! We, at B&B Therapy, understand the importance of connection when searching for the right practice and therapist to share your time and story with. We believe that a key factor in feeling connected with someone is by getting to know them and learning about their journey. Over the next couple of weeks, we want to invite you to read about how B&B Therapy came to be, and all the amazing people that help make us unique.
To get us started, we'd like to first share the story of B&B Therapy, and the journey to making mental health therapy different!
✨The Story of B&B Therapy✨
B&B Therapy was founded by two friends, Kim and Stephanie. They met in their first year of graduate school at Aurora University, and they often describe their friendship as “the group partner that never left”. Kim and Stephanie bonded over their passion for social justice, and although Kim moved out of state during her last year of school, they kept in touch. They often would meet at Buffalo Wild Wings (AKA B-Dubs) talking about various topics from world events to trash TV.
Fast forward to two years after graduation:
Kim was back in Illinois, and her and Stephanie began working alongside each other at a behavioral health hospital. Shortly thereafter, Stephanie began working part time at a private practice when COVID hit, and everyone went online. Six months later, Stephanie and Kim obtained their clinical licenses, and Kim began working in private practice as well but at a different practice. Stephanie decided to open up her own individual practice leaving her current practice, and after a year, she decided she wanted to expand and asked Kim to partner with her to open a group practice.
HERE’S WHERE THE EXCITING PART COMES IN!
Kim and Stephanie both came from private practices that they felt didn’t tailor to all the different needs of clients between each life stage. They wanted to create a place that clients could come and feel not only comfortable to be themselves but feel like an individual and not just another number. They came up with ideas for each room that would not only resemble a sense of home, but also promote creativity and healing.
Once they decided on a name (feel free to ask about that!) and had a rough idea of what they wanted the office to look like, they began looking for the perfect setting. Their dream of owning a house with 10 therapy rooms, was bigger than a new small business' budget. They put that dream on hold and began looking for places to rent. After looking at many places, they decided on a 6 room suite in Joliet. After 4 long weeks of decorating, cutting couches in half (that's a funny story!), finding a way to stick fluff to a ceiling (that'll really test a friendship), and lots and LOTS of hiking amazon boxes and furniture up to the second story, they were finally able to begin inviting clients to the office.
🌻Present Day:🌻
It’s been two and a half years since the opening of B&B Therapy, and we have accomplished so much! We have 3 amazing therapists on our team that bring connection and light every day to the office. Their love for being a therapist shows in their excitement to help their clients by finding creative solutions to providing care, being vulnerable when they don’t know the answer, and their desire to be curious and learn more so they can provide clients with the most up to date techniques and information. We have an amazing office administrator that has been the biggest breath of fresh air. Her consistent determination to help clients, learn about mental health, and new ideas was the missing piece to B&B Therapy.
Now that you have heard our story, we want you to learn more about the people that bring B&B Therapy to life! Kim and Stephanie believe that being a therapist doesn’t mean you have to always be serious and speak in clinical terminology. We can wear crocs, hoodies, swear a little (mostly Stephanie), and just be ourselves and provide great care while doing it. So over the next couple of weeks we welcome you to connect with us and learn about our 5 clinicians– Brooke, Renee, Erika, Stephanie and Kim– and our office administrator– Megan.
We hope that this is just the start to a different perspective of what mental health therapy is.
Please comment below with any questions or thoughts you have about our story. Thank you for taking the time to read about us!
