Today we’d like to introduce you to Carly Bassett.
Hi Carly, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
As a young child, I knew I wanted to do something with my life that had purpose and meaning. I watched my mom impact our community as a school teacher, giving so much of herself to her students. I also had a special bond with my grandma, who had been a counselor herself. Our relationship shaped me in several ways, but especially as she aged, I recognized I had the desire to support older adults and a gift for connecting with them. When I attended college, I started in business school because that was the sensible place to be. I quickly realized my talents and interests needed to be aligned with Accounting 101 and changed majors as quickly as possible. My desire to work with people led me to Public Relations, where I thought I could be creative and impactful. I graduated from The University of Texas at Austin in three years and was excited about being a professional. I landed my first job at a homeless shelter for kids in Dallas called Promise House. I was part of the development team and was in charge of marketing efforts. At Promise House, I realized that a PR job working with people wasn’t really what I envisioned. I wanted to work with people. This was the first time I ever met a social worker. I got to see what they did and how they helped real people directly. As soon as I realized this, I knew it was my true calling, and I made steps to get there, which meant I would need a graduate degree, so I went back to school!
In 2008 I earned a Master’s in Social Work from the University of Texas. The two years in my social work program allowed me to hone in on where I truly belonged professionally. After graduating, I spent seven years as a hospice social worker at Hospice Austin. I finally felt like I had arrived at the place I longed to be as a child and found great purpose and meaning in working with the dying. Bereavement counseling was one of the most rewarding aspects of the work. I cherished the one-on-one experiences and supporting people through deep loss and trauma. This was where I felt the most effective and the most purposeful in my work.
I left hospice work and spent four years at Family Eldercare, another non-profit organization serving older adults in Central Texas. In this role, I was a home-based psychotherapist, conducting counseling sessions in the homes of older, homebound adults. Over the next several years, with the support of mentors and friends, I started a part-time psychotherapy practice specializing in grief, loss, and trauma.
Late in 2019, I decided to launch into private practice and received an opportunity to do social work in an entirely new setting—the corporate tech field. I worked as a Wellness & Resiliency Coach onsite with employees in a social media company several days a week. I continued to build my counseling practice and enjoyed exploring new ways to support people in their workplaces. I loved where I was in life and my career. Then, the pandemic hit. The tech job went remote and then finally ended.
But, where loss and change exist, so too does opportunity. The months before the pandemic changed our lives, my former colleague, Grace, and I decided we wanted to build a counseling practice in town. We knew from our own experiences that transitioning from a full-time agency worker to an independent counseling practice was not a risk that many of our amazing colleagues could take. There were too many barriers and risks for individuals to make that leap, which kept many people we knew stuck in jobs and places where they couldn’t do what they truly loved. We wanted to change that and create an opportunity for great clinicians to enter private practice and help clients access high-quality mental health care. We are committed to serving people across the lifespan, especially older adults.
In March 2020, just days before the pandemic shut down the world, Moonstone Counseling Center was born. The pandemic initially allowed us to launch a teletherapy practice while while we worked on securing our first office. We have two locations and over twenty clinicians working in practice three years later. In 2022, we were named “Best of the Best” in the Austin Statesman, which was a testament to the amazing team that we formed. After dropping out of business school all those years ago, I am a business owner living her dream and finding purpose every day.
I continue to see clients in my private practice while running Moonstone with Grace. My fulfillment these days also come from mentoring and supervising other clinicians and helping them fulfill their professional dreams. Having supportive mentors, managers, and colleagues has made all the difference in my life and career, and I believe in being that person for as many others as possible.
You wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been fairly smooth?
Starting a business a few days before a global pandemic gave us opportunities and challenges. There were so many unknowns early on in the pandemic and in starting a business. As the world began to shut down and businesses vacated offices, we felt like we were running into a burning building while everyone else was running out. We had a vision for Moonstone Counseling; a large part had a beautiful and welcoming space to treat clients. It felt risky at the time to secure a large office space, not knowing when or if people would feel safe again meeting in person. In the mental health landscape, lots of change was also happening, and we had to adapt quickly. As a practice committed to creating client access, we knew accepting insurance was important. The pandemic turned insurance plans and policies upside-down, and figuring out how to navigate that was an unexpected hurdle.
A year into business, Central Texas was shut down by a massive winter storm. Power outages impacted our ability to remain open and serve clients at first. Then, there was a massive amount of collective trauma from the storm’s impact on the community. We decided to give back by offering free short-term counseling to people struggling after the storm. The need for these services was great, and the demand exceeded our capacity then. However, it ended up being a great chance to partner with other clinicians and groups, and we expanded our reach and provided pro bono counseling sessions to many Texans. From a personal standpoint, in my career, the struggle was always about finding the right job that checked the most boxes at the time. I loved working in non-profit organizations, but those jobs typically don’t pay the best. For a good part of my career, I hustled to create more aspects of what I wanted. This meant building a part-time private practice and working nights and weekends. It meant putting in a lot more than the standard 40 hours to gain the experiences I wanted to grow professionally and increase my earnings so I could do the things I wanted to do in my personal life and start a family. Sometimes it felt like a lot, and I wished it were easier, but everything I committed to had a purpose and helped me get to where I am today. I am glad I put in the work.
Thanks for sharing that. So, you could tell us a bit more about your work.
I am a proud Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Board Approved Supervisor in Texas. This means I am licensed to work independently and provide the public with clinical services, like psychotherapy. As a supervisor, I am licensed to help master’s level social workers gain work experience and hours toward earning their clinical license. I am a co-owner of Moonstone Counseling, and I also work as a psychotherapist. My social work career has focused on death and dying, grief & loss, older adults, trauma, and mentorship. In my practice, I specialize in supporting people through grief & loss, including many kinds of loss besides death. Often people come to me following a break-up, job termination, pet loss, divorce, or the impact of an empty nest. I am motivated and inspired by resilient people in my personal life who have faced tragedy and unimaginable pain from loss and who have survived and thrived.
One of the greatest compliments I have ever received was when a teenage girl told her mom that listening to me speak was “like comfort food for the soul.” To be known for comforting others in their darkest, loneliest places is a true honor. I am proud of being a social worker because I gained so much “real-world” experience in my early work in the field. I would not be the therapist I am today without being intimately involved in people’s end-of-life experiences and challenges. I would not understand the depths of pain and suffering if I had only read about it in textbooks or case studies. I am proud that I have the knowledge and skillset to navigate systems that help keep someone’s lights on or where to find transportation services as much as I can support someone clinically and relationally through their depression or PTSD. I have always valued being well-rounded, and I believe that versatility also helps me as a professional. Healers and helpers are called to this work for a variety of reasons. I care about people and want others to have the best chance at experiencing the greatest quality of life possible, and I know that starts with relationships. When a client tells me, “I have never been able to share this with anyone else before,” or “I trust you,” I know that I am being used for good, and that fills me up. I hope clients I serve leave my office knowing they are genuinely seen, loved, and cared for. If I can achieve that, then I feel pretty good about who I am as a therapist.
We all have different ways of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
I would define success for myself as the following being met:
- My life and work have meaning and purpose.
- My impact on others is positive.
- I have enough resources to meet my needs and some of my wants (such as travel and hobbies).
- I have and maintain supportive relationships.
- I have time for myself and my interests outside of work.
- My family feels unconditionally loved and cared for by me.
- If I died tomorrow, I would be content with who I was and how I spent my time on Earth.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.moonstonecounselingcenter.com and www.carlybassettlcsw.com
- Instagram: @moonstonecounselingcenter and @creative_socialwork
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/moonstonecounselingcenter
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlybassettlcsw/
