In the Spotlight: Stephanie Brown
At The Center for Family Well-Being, we welcome any individual, couple, or family navigating life's ebbs and flows. It takes a skilled and nurturing therapist to serve as a compassionate guide. This is one of the many reasons why we're grateful to have Stephanie Brown, holistic psychotherapist, as an integral part of our skilled and heart-centered team. Stephanie's presence at the Center is a beacon of support for clients, particularly those confronting grief. However, grief support isn't the only reason our clients seek her out: Stephanie also sees couples and families, and she co-facilitates two In-Tune Groups tailored to our middle- and high-school students.
Whether you're headed into the new year grappling with the weight of transitions and loss, or simply seeking validation for your own story, you'll enjoy Stephanie's compassionate approach toward healing and wholeness.
Meet Stephanie:
Can you share a little about what you do at the Center?
I’m a marriage and family therapist in training. I currently see ages 12 and up, and I work with individuals, couples, and families. I'm also focusing on group work. I co-facilitate our Middle-School Girls In-Tune Group with Aryn Davis, and I'm starting a High-School Girls In-Tune Group in January with Linda Feldman.
Group work is such a valuable part of the Center's offerings, and we're very excited that you're co-leading an In-Tune Group for high-schoolers as part of our spring 2024 schedule! Tell us a little more about this group, and why it's so beneficial for teens and adolescents to have this shared, supportive space to learn and grow.
I get to facilitate this group with the amazing Linda Feldman, yoga and mindfulness teacher. She's very influential in the group, and I help with the clinical part. Together we create a space to help teen girls develop and cultivate skills to understand what's going on inside themselves: naming emotions, talking through them, and expressing themselves in front of their peers.
What's so great about group work is that it gives clients the ability to express themselves and process emotions with others who have more in common with them. It means more, especially for teens, to hear feedback from peers. Being together normalizes their experiences, and it shows the kids they're not alone in their feelings.
Is there anything unique that you're focusing on with your family clients?
For my family clients, I'm enjoying making genograms with them — which is essentially a fancy family tree. I like to do it for 3-4 generations to help us see and understand patterns, which inform where we are right now. A genogram can tell us what happened in the family and what might be coming up, whether that's a history of mental or other health struggles. It's a visual that gives the entire family an aerial perspective.
Previous to your psychotherapy career you worked in film, and as a result you have a real passion for the transformative power of story-telling. Can you share a little more about the inherent value of giving people space to, as you say, "write their own narrative"?
I gravitated toward film because I've always loved movies. I love the aspect of being inspired, and to come out of watching a movie feeling a renewed sense of hope — doing work and getting rewarded for it, or going through a difficult time, but finding something to get through it.
When I worked in film, it definitely informed me about how many mental health issues there are out in the world. People gravitated toward me to tell me what was going on with them, and I liked the aspect of being able to build up people and allow them to feel seen and heard. It comes to me naturally. I think a lot of it came from my mom; she was very intuitive and made people feel good and like they were special, and that influences me and how I show up with people.
I want my clients to be able to share their stories in a way that makes them feel motivated, like they can keep going and accept what's happened to them. I want them to know their story is not over — there's more they can do.
How do you use an individual's story to help them gain perspective on not just a particular event, but their life?
There's a popular Mary Oliver quote that summarizes this well: "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"
Life is a lot more beautiful than we sometimes realize. Even though it can seem dark or impossible at times, I want people to see there are glimmers of abundance of opportunity beyond the moment they're in — rather than thinking we have limited choices. Maybe you look back and think about the paths not taken or the path you did take, but it's important to be able to offer yourself compassion.
Is this a tool you use with your younger clients as well?
Yes. I see this with adolescents going through the college application process, because it feels like this monumental thing. I try to remind them it's about striking a balance between wanting to do our best, and being ok with and trusting that if we make a mistake, it doesn't mean it's the end. It can be the beginning! It's hard to see, but you can find your way. Whether it's certain choices or a difficult experience, it's important to own it — not discard it. When we don't acknowledge and affirm our pain, whatever it may look like, we can get a little off track.
You work with a lot of teens and adolescents in individual, family, and group settings. Are there any common threads you’re seeing within this age group?
Most of my young clients share the same universal desire: They just want to be seen and heard. They want someone to listen to them and say, “yeah this was hard,” or “you're right.” Ultimately, they want to be trusted.
As parents and therapists, we can support them by listening and focusing on the whole person, not just single mistakes or undesirable behaviors. Once we listen, validate, and affirm, then we can get to the work that needs to be done — but we can't get to that work unless they feel like someone understands them.
You've been doing some really helpful work at the Center with clients handling grief. Can you shed a light on what this particular facet of therapy means to you?
Grief is more than just loss — it's the loss of an experience or a relationship, or even something we never had. I believe grief can be a powerful way to transform. It can be a pathway to seeing the world in a different way, and it's a lens that guides and informs how I view things with my clients. By naming it, it allows you to take ownership of your pain and transform it. And you can't have transformation without that acknowledgement.
Something that really helps me move through cycles of grief is the quote by Dr. Edith Eger, "the opposite of depression is expression." It's important to keep things flowing to keep from getting stuck. Eventually we can be inspired by and connected to the very thing that makes us grieve.
What unique or innovative methods do you incorporate into your therapy sessions when supporting individuals who are experiencing grief? Are there any techniques or tools — conventional or unconventional — that you find particularly effective?
We all love to love and be loved. A lightbulb moment for me was hearing Richard Rohr's idea, "pain that is not transformed is transmitted." That statement has been so powerful in my grief work — really understanding that if we deny our pain, then it gets transmitted internally and/or externally.
I did an internship at an addiction center, and there I learned that letter writing can be a great tool for helping people who have lost someone. Of course you can write this person a letter — things you wish you could tell them. However, it's also very valuable to write it from the other perspective: What would this person say back to you? That way, not only are you giving and sharing what's going on in your own mind, but you're also in the place of receiving. It helps create a shift in realization that this person is not completely gone from us. If we understand that the energy of the person and our relationship isn't gone, we can transform it. And that's a valuable part of the healing process.
Yes! Stephanie is currently accepting new clients at the Center.
To schedule an appointment, please contact us online or call the office at (202) 660-1422.
Stephanie also co-facilitates two after-school groups beginning in January 2024, which are both accepting new participants:
High-School Girls In-Tune: Caring for and Connecting to the Authentic Self