Today we’d like to introduce you to Chelsea Crow-Fuentes and George Fuentes. Them and their team share their story with us below:
We started building our practice together back in 2015, post-graduate school and after getting engaged. We began specializing in weekly premarital counseling while finding our groove of working together in the therapy room. We are so blessed to have the privilege of being parents and to have traveled the world together. During graduate school, we had the amazing opportunity to travel to Kenya both of our summer semesters to do clinical work and therapy at local schools/children’s homes. We have been together for 12 years, married for five, and have two beautiful daughters ages four and one. Our one year old was born at 29+0 weeks and spent 61 days in the NICU at the height of the second wave of the pandemic.
Our business has been fully influenced by our own life stages and unique experiences. We now specialize in helping couples navigate through the transition to parenthood, couples who are on their last attempt at making their relationship work, and crisis relationships working through the aftermath of a trauma, betrayal, affair, or addiction. We developed couples intensives in which we spend anywhere from 6-16 consecutive hours with one couple while intentionally and aggressively tackling the root of the issues together to work towards the couple’s goals and healing process in an expedited manner.
We offer Gottman’s Bringing Baby Home and The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work psychoeducational workshops. We also developed the expressive arts therapy group for expectant couples called Baby Bumps and Brushes. This group helps connect couples with each other and baby during the prenatal period through paint and touch, utilizing the baby bump as the canvas while processing through the stages of pregnancy, physical changes, hopes, dreams, expectations, roles, etc.
On an individual level, Chelsea supports new mamas with a specialty in maternal mental health, NICU moms, birth trauma, and breaking the patterns of intergenerational trauma for future generations, as well as helping mompreneurs who are balancing motherhood with their business. She utilizes a somatic experiencing approach which allows for holistic healing of the body, mind, heart, spirit and soul and creates movement in areas and patterns that have been stuck or frozen.
Alternatively, George helps men get the most out of life by addressing feelings of anxiety, depression, and addictive behaviors. He works to decrease feelings of low self-esteem, stress and anxiety, romantic relationship strains, addictive behaviors, and overwhelming emotions of anger while discovering ways to increase confidence and effective communication.
Together they make up Couple for Couples Counseling, Chelsea as Baby Bump Therapy, and George as Modern Male Counseling.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
We have definitely encountered many challenges, delays, setbacks, and pivots along the way. When we began private practice, we had an idea of what it might look like, but God had different plans. For starters, we knew nothing about how to start or run a successful business and had to teach ourselves the business side and learn how to become entrepreneurs on the minimal income of our internship, all while starting our own family. On a more personal level, our specialties have evolved largely through our own life experiences – many of them painful but redemptive. From overcoming toxic work conditions as interns, and Chelsea having to stand up to and report a former supervisor for ethical issues, it was easy to become disheartened with the field after having such negative experiences directly within it. On top of that, we have had to conquer our own marital issues, have had to adjust to becoming parents while losing a parent, we have had to navigate an uncertain journey through the NICU while George was taking his licensing exam, and balance the unchartered territory of being a mental health worker during a global pandemic. Ultimately though our love for this work and passion for supporting others through painful life challenges in the broken world we live in has allowed us to feel fulfilled in our purpose and keeps us going. It is through these struggles we have gotten to where we are today and have created an even bigger and more meaningful practice than we could have ever imagined or hoped for.
As you know, we’re big fans of Fuentes Marriage and Family Therapy Practices, Inc. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
We offer wraparound services to support couples at any stage. From direct couples therapy, workshops, groups, and intensives (Couple for Couples Counseling) to individual therapy, groups, and intensives with Chelsea for mothers, mompreneurs and female creatives (Baby Bump Therapy), and for men, entrepreneurs and fathers with George (Modern Male Counseling), we have a lot to offer for continued care throughout different life stages. We are best known for working with couples as a couple and for our couples intensives. That dynamic definitely sets us apart from others along with our unique approaches and alternatives to traditional, weekly talk therapy sessions. We are really proud of the business we have built and the offerings we provide for couples, families, and individuals. Our main goal is to provide couples with the resources they need to overcome any obstacle and maintain a long-term love, as well as equip couples through the transition to parenthood. Overall our mission is to decrease the divorce rate and strengthen the family unit to have a positive and sustainable impact on future generations.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
We view risk as a part of the job to being successful business owners. Every step of the way has been a risk for us and whether it works out or not, it always provides us with valuable information and informs our next steps forward. We believe that in order to grow, we have to step out in faith and take many risks. We have been challenged to go up against authority to do what was ethically sound and protect others from harm, we have had to learn new systems in the age of a pandemic, we have risked financial stability to both jump all into building our own business, and we have risked pushing forward despite critics and naysayers trying to discourage us. Not taking risks for us would translate to complacency and stagnate our growth and ultimately the bigger vision we have for our company. Our growth and urgency to put ourselves out there is driven by knowing people need us – they need our services. So many struggle and are drowning in a sea of lifeguards. We want people to know they don’t have to struggle, they are not alone, and there is great strength in reaching out for support.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: https://coupleforcouplescounseling.com/ https://babybumptherapy.com/ https://modernmalecounseling.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coupleforcouplescounseling/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CoupleForCouplesCounseling/
Image Credits:
Tamara Wroclawsky
