🔐 FIELD GUIDE 32: A vault for secrets

I’ve known Susan my whole life. For that, I consider myself very lucky. I have a mentor, confidant, and aunt who often acts as my second mom and that is not something many people get to have. Susan has been working to obtain her Masters of Education Counseling from William and Mary University since 2020 and is set to graduate this coming May. She hopes to focus her bright light, positivity, and guidance in the area of mental health and counseling.

FFOREST team focuses heavily on our mental health and ensuring we each have the bandwidth to do the week’s work that lies ahead. As we close out this week, we encourage you to take care of your brain and your mental well-being, because you are important.

—Skyler

Name

Susan Klemmer

Habitat

Fairfax, Virginia

Occupation

Counselor in training and graduate student

Soundtrack

I grew up in a home that didn’t encourage an open discussion of feelings. When I went to college in the 1980s, I had dreams of becoming the next Dr. Ruth Westheimer (look her up. I'll wait.).

Starting in middle school, I took every girl scout badge or training, every high school class, every church or county training I could find, but at the end of undergraduate, with a degree in Psychology and a minor in English, I ran out of steam. I didn’t see a path to funding graduate studies.

I fell into a job in association management, and ended up making a career of it. I planned meetings and tradeshows, I managed and edited publications, I ran marketing campaigns, and I even supported Foundation and Advocacy efforts to fundraise and push legislative agendas of our members.

Twenty five years later, newly (re)married, newly sober (alcohol, she makes people dance), and finally in some much-needed personal therapy, I was finishing up closing up my father-in-law’s business and estate, and speculating about what my next life chapter would look like.

By now, I had an adult son, two stepchildren, a supportive husband, and a reputation for being a solid, loyal, understanding and open-minded friend who could be a listening ear and a vault for secrets. I began to quietly research degrees in mental health related fields.

After looking into social work, marriage and family therapy, sex therapy, clinical psychology and counseling, I realized counseling was the perfect fit for my passion to support people on whatever personal journey they were pursuing. 

According to a delegation of twenty mental health organizations that worked together to create a consensus definition in 2010, “Counseling is a professional relationship that empowers diverse individuals, families, and groups to accomplish mental health, wellness, education, and career goals.”

A graduate degree in Counseling from an accredited program includes 60 credit hours of course work, plus 600 hours of supervised fieldwork (seeing actual clients in real settings as an unpaid intern) over the span of three years. I was completely overwhelmed at the prospect!

My husband and family encouraged me to apply, and after applying to recognized institutions offering online programs (uprooting my family to move to a college town was NOT an option), I was accepted by all five and selected William and Mary for my degree. I am currently finishing my last three credit hours and my last 200 hours of fieldwork as I write this.

My coursework will be finished in December and my Master of Education, Clinical Mental Health Counseling will be conferred in January 2023. After graduation, I have accepted a position as a Resident in the same private practice where I performed my fieldwork. To be a Licensed Professional Counselor in Virginia (the first state to license Counseling as a profession, 🎉), I will continue to be supervised as a Licensed Resident in Counseling for two years, and I must pass the NCMHCE (National Clinical Mental Health Counseling Exam). 

I am proud to share that I have maintained my sobriety and have the continued support of my family – birth family and chosen family – especially my niece Skyler, who I share with you.

I am looking forward to embarking on a career in private practice that perfectly fits my vision for my next life chapter and my husband’s timeline with retirement from service to the federal government.