Career Trekking with MTSG

Career Trekking with MTSG

An interview with Marissa Esquibel, LMFT on her journey from community mental health to private practice. Curt and Katie talk with Marissa about how she used the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide podcast to shift her mindset and change her career trajectory. Marissa highlights the benefits of belief, guidance, and community.  

It’s time to reimagine therapy and what it means to be a therapist. To support you as a whole person and a therapist, your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy talk about how to approach the role of therapist in the modern age.

Interview with Marissa Esquibel, LMFT

“Though she be but little, she is fierce.”

– Shakespeare

Marissa Esquibel is not like a regular therapist, she’s a cool therapist. With her practice located near Los Angeles, Marissa is on a one-woman mission to empower young women to stop playing small and to start taking up space. She works exclusively with young adults, 20-something’s, who are checking off all the boxes of “success,” and yet, they feel like failures internally. They often come to Marissa dealing with depression, anxiety, imposter syndrome, or codependency. As an undergraduate, she attended UC Santa Barbara and then received her Masters in Clinical Psychology from California State University, Fullerton. In September of 2018, she became licensed and opened-up shop to her virtual therapy practice in March 2020. When Marissa is not in session with patients, she spends her time reading, hanging out with friends and family, binging on podcasts and audiobooks, attending her own therapy, and making sure to get her 10,000 steps a day. She loves her work, job, and life and looks forward to connecting with you. 

Learn more about Marissa at therapywithmarissa.com

In this episode we talk about:

• Marissa’s burnout story and how she made the trek from community mental health to private practice
• Reflections on the question: what do therapists get wrong (and the self-analysis and feedback informed nature of the question)
• The idea of self-sacrifice and hard work being required to be a good therapist
• The importance of critical thinking regarding what is effective, what is healthy for me
• How Marissa made the decision to move to a group practice and then her own private practice
• Marissa’s experience at Therapy Reimagined 2019 and her follow up with speakers
• The need for belief, guidance, and community
• Marissa talks about the episodes that helped her to move forward
• How Marissa implemented a new plan for her career
• “I choose this agony, this heart ache, this effort” – Marissa Esquibel, LMFT
• Marissa’s choice to be vulnerable at this time and to keep on going
• The determination and belief that has kept Marissa moving forward on her vision and mission
• The need to hear from (and connecting with) people at each stage of career development