Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr. Sandy Peace.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Helping others through emotional pain to express their authentic selves is my vocational calling. Ever since I was a child, people have come to me to share their deepest secrets, darkest experiences, and seek counsel. Though I didn’t always know how to help, I was able to give love, encouragement, and acceptance. This is a core of my psychotherapy practice today.
I grew up in a small town in rural Northern Minnesota. Childhood was spent running through the woods and swimming in lakes. I am a naturally curious and philosophical person and contemplated the meaning and purpose of life from a young age. I’m also a bit of a rebel, and questioned social rules and norms that didn’t seem to fit for me and those that people were hypocritical about, particularly sexuality, relationships, gender norms, and cultural diversity. I knew someday I would move somewhere with a diversity of people and ideas — and here I am in Los Angeles! It still trips me out some days to look out my 26th floor office window at the sprawling vista of buildings and roads, trees and mountains, helicopters and planes. LA is worlds away from where I grew up, and I love them both!
I attended Carleton College in Northfield, MN, where I double majored in psychology and religion, with a healthy dose of philosophy and women’s studies. It was taking a feminist philosophy class freshman year that I realized I might be gay — the option had not occurred to me before as I had no exposure to out lesbian women. My senior year I came out as bisexual, and I now identify as pansexual.
After undergrad, I worked as a researcher at the Minnesota Twin and Family Study. I found collecting data about people, but not being able to help, deeply unsatisfying. This experience solidified my desire to be a therapist not a research psychologist. After two years I moved to San Francisco and fell into the world of corporate America. I worked at civil engineering and construction management firm for eight years where I learned about business, accounting, marketing, client development. But the idea of becoming a psychologist kept nagging at the back of my mind….
When I turned 30, I started my clinical psychology doctoral program at John F Kennedy University in Pleasant Hill, CA. I was attracted to their focus on social justice and multicultural competency. True to their mission, they offered a part time program (the only one in the Bay Area) to allow people to continue to work while going to graduate school. This was a huge time of personal growth for me. Every class I learned about how systems of privilege and oppression operate and impact people in our society. I examined my own social conditioning into the system, ways I (unknowingly) participate and perpetuate it, and how I am affected. Most importantly, I learned that psychologist is not objective, we have our subjective view of the world and need to be aware of that in the therapy room to best serve our clients. This intersectional model of understanding identity is deeply liberating, and continues to inform my work and personal growth on a daily basis.
When I finally got my license to practice psychology, I moved back to Los Angeles to start my private practice. I chose to live and work in DTLA, and I love it! After a few years in a small town, I was ready for the hustle bustle of the city again. I started my private practice as a consulting psychologist. As my practice quickly grew to full time, I rented my own office in the US Bank Tower and officially began my independent practice. I chose the US Bank Tower because it is a landmark that can be seen from everywhere in LA, and I wanted to create a beacon of light and hope for my clients. I like the corporate feel, as I believe encouraging professionals to be compassionate, authentic, and to practice self-care is critical to changing social structures for the better. (That and it’s the tallest phallic symbol west of the Mississippi, and that just cracks me up!)
Has it been a smooth road?
The path to creating my private psychotherapy practice has been winding and bumpy; a story of bad luck, good luck. Many people don’t realize that psychology interns and postdocs are paid very little (or nothing) for their work. So there were some hectic years of running between my job, class, and clinical practicum hustling to live in the San Francisco Bay Area. For years I didn’t have a day off, only a few hours. During this time, I was laid off two times from marketing positions due to cuts in government funding for public works projects. This was actually a boon — it was the catalyst for starting my marketing and business consulting venture.
Psychologists have an internship match process for finding a predoctoral internship where they apply at training sites all over the country, hopefully get an interview, then rank their top choices, and are matched using an algorithm. I matched with Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s University Counseling Center. After 11 years in the Bay Area, I uprooted and relocated to SLO. (I found a seaside shack to live in for the year which was an amazing experience.)
I originally move to WeHo in 2012 to find a postdoctoral position to complete my hours toward licensure. However, I could not find any positions that paid. That was a rough six months of networking with psychologists, and doing the LA hustle working odd jobs to make ends meet. Luckily, I was hired back at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s university counseling center where I did my internship training. That was an interesting six months of schlepping between LA and SLO; working during the week in SLO and coming back to LA on weekends to continue meeting people so when I was ready to come back full time I would still be connected. I was offered a position to continue to the next school year, so I moved back to SLO for nine months.
When I started my practice, I applied to insurance panels to help attract new clients. There was a four month wait between my applications and my first approval, so there were four months of marketing, speaking, networking, and hustling to find clients without the safety net of student loans. In that moment of truth, when the choice was pay my office rent or pay my apartment rent, the insurance reimbursements started coming through!
We’d love to hear more about your business.
I am a psychologist and generalist clinician who provides individual, couples / partner, and group therapy for adults. I specialize in working with LGBT and university student populations, and people in polyamorous / open relationships. I am a trained sex educator, and work with people who identify as kinky, sexual minorities, and those who have sexual difficulties. Helping people find sexual freedom, create their ideal relationship structure, and heal old traumas to be able to be their authentic selves, pursue their passions, and bring more love to the world is my mission.
I’m known for integrating the body’s somatic experience into my work, as well as looking at thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. The body holds a lot of stress, so tapping into physical sensations can help access and release old wounds, and build insight into our emotional experience. I have specialty training in treating trauma using EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy. Mindfulness practices to observe and calm the mind, somatic experiencing to get in touch with the body-mind connection, and DBT (dialectical behavior therapy) to help calm emotional reactivity are techniques I utilize that set me apart from other psychologists.
Since this is Los Angeles and DTLA, I am building a specialty working with attorneys and other professionals in high stress industries; as well as artists, musicians, and those who work in the entertainment industry where the fluctuation of work and income can influence self-esteem and exacerbate stress.
I am proud of the fact that I have made multi-cultural competency the foundation of my practice. We cannot ignore the impact that prejudice and systemic oppression has on people’s mental health, and I make sure that fact is brought into the therapy room and treatment equation. Building resilience and having support in the face of -isms is crucial to positive self-regard and changing this world for the better. I continue to do my own personal work as I believe a healer can only take those seeking guidance on their healing journey as far as they have gone themselves.
Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
I love the cultural diversity of Los Angeles. You can visit the whole world by talking to the people around you without leaving the city. Each neighborhood is a gem to be discovered, and has its own evolving flavor and vibe. The mix of natural beauty of the ocean, hills, and plantlife with the urban access to food, art, music, fashion, and entertainment means there is always something new to learn and explore.
The sprawl and transportation options in LA can be challenging. With a busy work schedule, I find it difficult to see friends on the West Side during the week, and a visit to Griffith Park for my outdoor time is way more likely than a trip to the ocean. So I tend to stay in a relatively small orbit that rotates around the route between work and home. As a psychologist it is also painful to see the number of displaced people living on the streets who have addictions and mental illness. The impact of Governor Reagan’s public policy decisions around mental health funding are still impacting us today, and cities are struggling to find feasible options for caring for our most vulnerable citizens.
DTLA is a great place for psychotherapists! There is currently a dearth of mental health providers in downtown, particularly psychiatrists. With more and more people living and working in DTLA, and all the new construction underway to support more residents and businesses, psychologists like me are needed to support the positive mental health of Angelinos.
I started my private practice in DTLA three years ago, and have signed two 2-year leases in that time. With the boom in growth and popularity of DTLA, my office rent has raised dramatically — way more than normal cost of living increases. I would love to see the City provide support for helping professionals to stay in DTLA by ensuring a rent increase cap, a certain amount of new construction designated for medical and mental health service providers that was subsidized by developers (similar to residential units designated for low-income housing), lower City taxes, or similar financial safeguards and incentives to make sure we are not priced out of DTLA.
Contact Info:
- Address: U.S. Bank Tower
663 W 5th St.,
Ste 2640,
Los Angeles, CA 90071 - Website: www.drsandypeace.com
- Phone: 323-432-0676
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drsandypeace/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrSandyPeace
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/drsandypeace
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpil5HJZ579TR4qLFZ28jlE1OgpFUTAoh
https://www.linkedin.com/in/drsandypeace/
Image Credit:
Justin Ledden
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