Whatcom Therapy Alliance

I moved from Portland, OR to Bellingham, WA at the end of 2020. My partner and I had been thinking about moving for several years by that point.  We had friends up here who had been hounding us to move, and while we both loved Portland, we wanted a change.  I had a thriving mental health practice in Portland, however, which made it hard to even think about moving any more concretely than “someday.” Then the pandemic struck, and along with all its horrors, it gave us all a crash course in online therapy. Suddenly, I realized, I could take my practice with me.

Moving a household is never fun, but moving a business across state lines, I quickly discovered, is complex (thankfully I had already been licensed in WA, so one step out of the way). And while I had friends in town, going through this process it struck me how hard it was to not have a colleague community.  At my old office, if I had a therapy or business-related
question or if I just needed to collapse into a puddle after hard session, I had a supportive network of folx I could turn to just down the hall.   Now, in a new city, I had no one. 

This led me on a journey looking for what I missed, an office with a supportive community of other independent practitioners.  I searched and searched, but the more I searched and the more people I talked to; it struck me that what I was looking for didn’t exist.  Especially now that the pandemic has restructured how we do therapy and normalized working from home.  So eventually I realized I needed to create for myself what I was looking for. 

So what was I looking for? 

• A stable business address with the office necessities:
  internet, copier/scanner/fax, mail, etc.
• A shared office space:  I didn’t need an office all the time – I have no plans to return to full time in-person model – but I did need an office for the occasional in-person client or when I need a break from my home office. 
• And most importantly, community:  Private practice can be so isolated, and if the pandemic showed us anything it was the importance of community.

Certainly, I am not the only one, right?

I quickly realized what I was looking for was taking off all around the world
– co-working.  Co-working is all about people from independent businesses coming together to work, share, and collaborate.  However, given the specifics of what we do, it can’t be any co-working space. Therapists and other health professionals have specialized needs in a space.  So, I started looking at other therapist shared spaces around the country. I knew of a couple in Portland – Portland Therapy Center and Wise Counsel and Comfort. I discovered quite a few others: Thrive Therapy Space in Erie, PA, and  Boulder Healing Hub in Boulder, CO are just a few examples.  Each have different models, but they are filling a very real need.  

So that is what I am setting out to do

To create a therapist focused co-working community for Bellingham and
the surrounding region.  Who’s with me?