Exploring Life & Business with Lauren Worley of Foothills Psychotherapy

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lauren Worley.

Hi Lauren, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Not sure how far back you want me to go but:

I started as a baker, thinking I would open a bakery and take care of people that way. I went to culinary school and quickly realized that opening a bakery wasn’t what I wanted to do. It wasn’t the owning a business part that I was nervous about, it was the 3 am starts that I didn’t want to do. So I put owning a business aside and started down various paths. During my journey I have worked for newspapers, worked at a water quality lab, assisted with movie screenings, and was an event planner. It was during my event planning days that I started to revisit the idea of taking care of others and that led me to going to graduate school for social work at USC. After graduating I worked at Pacific Clinics working with children in Pasadena and throughout LA. After obtaining my license in social work I started supervising and fell in love with that aspect of the work. Helping new students learn and grow into competent clinicians was a passion and my favorite part of my job. In 2018 I found out I was pregnant with twins and realized I wanted a slightly different career path. So I started a private practice on the side. I did everything wrong when I first started that, but learned some valuable lessons in being a business owner. A year and a half after the birth of my twins, and right in the middle of Covid, I decided I missed clinical work so much that it was worth leaving Pacific Clinics and going full time into private practice. So I did that for a few years. In 2023 a colleague convinced me to be her supervisor once she graduated from her masters program and so Foothills Psychotherapy was born. Again, I did everything wrong but I again learned so much about what I wanted my practice to look like. I have since grown to multiple clinicians and an admin and moved to a lovely office in Burbank. I’m building this plane as we are flying it but I no longer feel like I’m doing everything wrong. I have asked for support, connected with my community, and get a lovely mix of clinical work and supervision work.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Not at all. When I first started I was starting with very little capital and didn’t feel like I could afford to talk to professionals about the choices I was making. So I went out to coffee with so many folks and pieced together what they did. That was clearly not the way to do it. I feel like I have erased so many choices and written over things, if my journey was on a piece of paper you would see scratch marks all over, things written in big letters, and notes scribbled in corners. I take insurance in my practice so I survived the Change Healthcare shut down, but only barely. At one point I was sustaining the income of three clinicians on the income I was getting from my private pay clients. But it was often the income of two clinicians while I skipped many a paycheck. I continue to take insurance but it is a struggle on the daily because there are times I have to wait 6 to 8 months for payments. I still have claims pending from May of 2025!
I also had no idea how to structure the business in way that was sustainable. I am grateful for courses I took and a team of clinicians who have been patient as we erase and start over again and again and again.

As you know, we’re big fans of Foothills Psychotherapy. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Foothills Psychotherapy is a mental health therapy practice in Burbank, CA. We specialize in trauma work, helping teens and adults find a sense of purpose and relief from the struggles that have impacted them in the past. We thrive when doing the deep trauma work, using primarily Brainspotting to help heal traumas. All of our clinicians are trained in Brainspotting, though some also have training in IFS, EMDR, and tapping. The clinicians work with a variety of populations, each having a specialty population that they love to work with. Our folks work with religious trauma, polyamorous and consensual non monogamy, neurodiversity, LGBTQ+ folks, parents who are struggling with parenting neurodiverse kids, high achieving woman, and sailors to name a few.
I am most proud of our ability to offer care to so many people in a way that feels like relief is truly possible. Brainspotting is a life changing modality that has led our clients to find healing with issues they never thought would resolve. Clients have talked about how they can engage in the world again, how they finally get the coping strategies that previous therapists have taught them, things that brought stress in the past feel like a distant memory, and family and friends are noticing that they are visibly more calm and grounded. I am grateful that we are able to offer this service to all of our clients and that my staff is as passionate about Brainspotting as I am.
We have in person and telehealth services available and can accommodate evening schedules (with the hope of accommodating weekends sometime this year!). We take LA Care and Cigna but also work with a third party biller to try and get out of network benefits covered so therapy can be more affordable.

We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
The biggest piece of luck has been finding mostly great clinicians and staff throughout my journey. Therapists have found me since 2023 and each one has been a valuable resource to the business. I have learned so much about being a supervisor and boss with each employee, even the ones who didn’t stay long. I would also say luck played a role in finding the office we are at (that and a little bit of witchiness) because there were a few places that I thought were perfect and they didn’t pan out for one reason or another. But we ended up at the office on Magnolia and I’m so grateful for this space

Pricing:

• Associate therapist – $200/50 minute session
• Licensed therapist – $250/50 minute session
• LA Care and Cigna insurance accepted

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.foothillspsychotherapy.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/foothillspsychotherapy/

Image Credits
Headshots all taken by Kaitlin Saltzman
Office photos taken by Lauren Worley (no need to credit)