Solo Business Stories: Dave Ebaugh’s Transformation into the Next Level in His Counseling Business
Dave Ebaugh is a mental health therapist who has been in private practice for over 15 years. Dave established Break Free Counseling in 2011 and practices in both a Northwest and Southeast Portland location where he is the sole therapist. He specializes in treating trauma and panic attacks, and also works with anxiety, depression, and other common psychological problems.
In 2011, Dave began focusing on treating trauma, using a variety of methods. While he was getting good results, there were always some clients who were stuck and not getting the change they wanted . In 2016, Dave heard about Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART), a new therapy that was proving very effective in recovery from trauma, as well as other conditions. Dave investigated ART and was so impressed with what he learned that he took a training, and then became the first certified ART practitioner in the Pacific Northwest.
Dave explains, “I’ve been using ART since June of 2016, and the results I’ve been getting are unlike anything I’ve seen in my 30 years of professional practice. I work with trauma reactions, chronic anxiety, unwanted behaviors, and emotional triggering. Time after time, I see remarkable results in just a few sessions.”
According to Dave’s website (traumafocusedtherapy.com), ART can help people with emotional recovery when traditional therapies haven’t worked. He says he is “passionate about helping my clients recover from the effects of trauma and reclaim their lives.”
“Trauma is an experience that overwhelms the nervous system and generates fear memory, which remains stuck,” Dave explains on his website. “Traumatic stress creates memories that are like grooves in a record, etched into the neural pathways and nervous system of your body. When the trauma memory is triggered, the fear response is activated, and you are caught in a loop of anxiety, irritability, fear, or intense feelings of guilt or shame. ART can break this cycle. Studies since 2000 show that eye movements combined with imagery can create new emotions, which replace the old negative emotions and typically provide permanent relief.”
ART treats full-blown PTSD and panic attack in an average of 4 sessions, and often in one session. Since 2014, four studies and 12 scientific articles have been published on ART. This therapy is now being used by the Veterans Administration and is becoming more widely available.
What’s working?
Dave is organizing trainings in ART for other therapists. He is partnering with organizations and talking to key decision makers to secure contracts to provide ART trainings for government and non-profit social service and health care providers. Dave is passionate about ART and wants anyone who treats people in distress to know about this fast and remarkable therapy.
He had several reasons for taking Jackie’s Better, Smarter, Richer class. While he greatly enjoys his private practice, he was feeling isolated and frustrated that he wasn’t growing his business to match his vision. As his passion for ART grew, he knew needed to learn from others how to grow his business to realize his goal of training and supporting new ART therapists. Taking Jackie’s class was Dave’s next move.
Through Jackie’s class, Dave was able to network with other solopreneurs and outsource a number of business tasks he either didn’t have the time or expertise to do himself. This freed him up to do more of what he loves: working with clients and training other therapists in ART.
After working in private practice for ten years, Dave appreciates learning from the experience of other solo business owners. “Having people to talk to is so important. The value of networking and getting expert help in taking an idea to action is the single most valuable thing I took from Jackie’s class.”
Dave acknowledges Jackie’s Waterbugtm model. “Don’t just hire people to do big jobs, pay people to do some of the little jobs, too. Websites like fiverr.com and upwork.com are great for finding help. You need to free up your time and energy so you can spend it doing what you love and are best at doing. This is how you realize your vision of your business.”
Any advice for our readers?
“Take a business class through a community college. Find people to talk to so you can make your business work. If you have a question, you have to find someone to talk to. Being in private practice is isolating, and Jackie’s class provided me with a community of other solopreneurs to talk with and share ideas. It gave me leads to resources and people to get things done that I had wanted to do for a long time, but either didn’t have the time or the knowledge to do myself.”
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You can sign up for Jackie’s next class that starts in April here.