Today we’d like to introduce you to Stephanie Archinas-Murphin
Hi Stephanie, 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?
My story is a fairly typical immigrant one – I was born and raised in Cagayan de Oro city, in Southern Philippines. I immigrated to the LA area after completing my Bachelor’s degree in International Relations at Ateneo de Manila University (go Eagles!) hoping to pursue graduate studies in the same field. Upon realizing that my resources were extremely limited and my own parents experienced the same (having immigrated a few years prior), I had no choice but to find a job to support myself.
I did a variety of administrative work in West LA and while it helped pay the bills, I found the work uninspiring and meaningless. I noticed my stress levels steadily increased and my work environment unhealthy. After six years working in a medical office, I was burnt out, disillusioned, and hungry for inspiration. I made the bold choice of quitting my job despite no safety net in place.
One day, I was browsing through graduate programs in various universities and chanced upon Counseling in Marriage, Family and Child therapy. Counseling was uncommon in the Motherland however, giving advice (I had a high school column that gave advice to heartbroken teens!) was something that wasn’t entirely new to me. I said a little prayer and took a leap in getting a Master’s degree at University of Phoenix.
Fast forward several years later, it was working at an emergency domestic violence shelter and community mental health that left an impression on me; children that were impacted by various stressors whether it was escaping violence at home or anxiety in a social setting. My own experience as a parent to my two girls and my own realizations about my childhood relationship with my parents further lead me to my journey in specializing in attachment work with families. Couples therapy with my husband helped me open my own eyes on what it means to work as a team. And now I have my own private practice specializing in relationships particularly families in Los Alamitos doing in-person and virtual therapy.
I like to tell this story because it’s a road that’s been walked by many people, particularly immigrants, before me – having big dreams in the Land of Opportunity, encountering obstacles with immigration law and acculturation, encountering microaggressions and many more. But as long as you keep your head down, staying intentional and seeking support, nothing is impossible.
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?
Like many people, the pandemic brought a lot of emotional and mental strain on my family. Because we opted to keep our girls at home, my husband and I had to navigate being parents, teachers and employees at the same time. I credit our work in couples therapy, support from our families and our determination to “keep on swimming” to help overcome our obstacles.
Navigating a private practice and small business for the most part has been smooth sailing and some of this is attributed to the other women colleagues and friends of mine who are also parents .They provided with me valuable lessons, support and strategies which allowed me to walk down the same path they have.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Nurture and Heal Counseling?
Navigating my daughter’s separation anxiety and phobias has inspired me to focus on family therapy. My own struggles at emotion regulation and inability to see my daughter’s immense anxiety was a learning experience. My own “stuff” got in the way of truly seeing my daughter’s pain. Since then, I became determined to help parents work through their own triggers and provide comfort to their children.
I named my business “Nurture and Heal Counseling”, as a reminder of how much a nurturing experience can heal attachment wounds in children, among couples and within ourselves.
Even though I have immersed myself in doing attachment work using Emotionally-Focused Therapy with couples and individuals since opening my practice in 2020, at the very core, my passion lies in doing family work. I love helping parents work through their own “blocks” in being the parent they want to be, assisting separated parents to set their own hurts aside to come through for their children, modeling and teaching emotion regulation to a teen and parent (as most likely their own parents didn’t have the skill!), and repairing the relationship between an adult “child” and their parents after years of estrangement. Many times, adults seek me out to bridge the gap between them and their immigrant parents (as I am fluent in Tagalog and Bisaya) and bring their relationship closer.
Nurture and Heal Counseling offers family therapy sessions, family intensives (longer sessions), co parenting sessions, parenting workshops and in the future, parent coaching. I am licensed to see clients in California and remotely in Vermont. I also co-host a podcast called Kamalayan: Conversations to Self-awareness, which is dedicated to wellness in the context of the Filipino culture (on Spotify, Google Podcasts and Amazon Music).
In my offerings, there isn’t just one element that I’m most proud of; it’s the mere fact that I have the space to offer my services and experience to the community.
What does success mean to you?
I consider success to be measured as the impact made on a person’s life. I don’t define that as the number of clients I see or even the number of awards my girls receive. When I see that I’ve impacted my kids’ lives by how they show grace and respect to other people because I model the same to them, or when I hear my clients navigate an otherwise bumpy conversation with their teen after working hard on their relationship for months, that to me is an indicator of success.
Pricing:
- Couples/Family Therapy: $220/50 mins
- Couples/Family Therapy: $350/80 mins
- Individual Therapy: $200/50 mins
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.nurtureandhealcounseling.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nurtureandhealcounseling/
- Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/100070726094589/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@kamalayanpodcast
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/nurture-and-heal-counseling-los-alamitos
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@nurture_and_heal
Image Credits
Allan Murphin, Megan Concepcion Photography, Robin Williams Blake, Nicole Enrique
