Celebrating One Year of Success

Safe Harbour Counseling has recently hit an important milestone, one year of having an office and serving the Columbus, OH community. Christine Railsback had a vision for this business when getting started a year ago, that she simply wanted to help as many people as possible. She wanted Safe Harbour to be a warm, inviting, safe place for people to come and entrust her with their story.

Christine knew from the start that she loved helping people in any way she could, and she wanted to challenge herself to see what she could create by starting her own practice. Christine states, “I already knew that I loved helping people, as I worked at a community mental health center and at a private practice. The logical next step was to start something on my own.”

Safe Harbour Counseling has seen great success over the past year, but Christine has also had challenges of her own. She shared that her biggest challenge was having a full caseload while also managing the business side. It didn’t take her long to figure it out though, as she loves both sides of the business, and in this past year she has been able to acquire two new associates to grow Safe Harbour into a group practice. “My associates have what Safe Harbour is all about; compassion, warmth, mad skills, connection, and are authentic and relatable,” Christine shared.

This first year in their office has been a great start, but Christine doesn’t want to stop here. Her goal is to fill her office with a few more associates to be able to serve more individuals and couples in their current location, and eventually expand into more offices around Columbus. Her hope is that it’s only a matter of time until she’s able to serve other areas throughout Ohio.

Christine’s vision for the future of Safe Harbour is to become a premier trauma therapy center. She has realized over the past year of seeing clients that their issues commonly stem from trauma. Currently, Christine uses EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) as a treatment method, which is a psychotherapy that enables people to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress that are the result of disturbing life experiences. Her plan is to become credentialed in trauma, start using Virtual Reality treatment in the new year, and get her team of associates up to speed on the new and upcoming trauma treatments to better serve their clients.

“When I first started Safe Harbour, I knew that I wanted to become a group practice, but I never imagined that I would like to have multiple offices. Specializing in Trauma wasn’t on my radar either,” Christine explains of the future of her business. But she is motivated to put her plan to work and provide the best services to clients in need, regardless of what they are experiencing.

A Note From Christine

Finding a therapist isn’t always the easiest thing to do. Knowing where to start or who to work with is a struggle for many, and the best piece of advice that we can give at Safe Harbour Counseling is to find someone that you really can connect with. Connection is very important in a therapist/client relationship, and if you don’t have a good connection with a therapist, your healing process may not be successful. For that reason, we recommend that you take your time to find that connection, and if it’s not there, don’t be afraid to find someone else even if it takes some trial and error.

If you are experiencing mental health struggles, we encourage you to reach out to our team to see if we are the right fit for you. Contact us today to get started!