Spotlight Series

Guest Name: Aimee Mortensen

Credentials:  CMHC, CST, NCC – WORTH IT

Aimee Mortensen: I’m excited.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Yeah. Before we jump into all the questions, I’m just going to read your bio here so that everyone knows who you are and what you’re all about and then we’ll we’ll dive in.

Aimee Mortensen: Okay.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Awesome. Aimee has her master’s of arts degree in mental health counseling and a master’s of science degree in administration and supervision from I don’t even know how to pronounce that university.

Aimee Mortensen: Gallaudet schooling so nobody knows how to say it in Washington DC.

Dr. Betty DeLass: She earned her bachelor’s of science and psychology from Utah State University. Aimee is a is skilled in American Sign Language. She understands and appreciates deaf culture and enjoys working with individuals and families that need assistance in the deaf and hard of hearing situations. Aimee was in an auto accident in 2001 shortly after she was married in which she nearly lost her life and her husband was killed. She sustained many injuries including a traumatic brain injury. She has personal experience with grief, loss, and trauma and is grateful she can support others through her life experiences and training. Aimee’s specific area of expertise includes grief, death and dying, trauma recovery, mild traumatic brain injury, faith crisis transition, LGBTQIA+ open. I’m like, get it out of my mouth. Um, open polyamorous relationships and divorce. Areas of special interest include working with sexual abuse survivors and couples during or after divorce to co-parent in a healthy way. She is certified um rape trauma advocate. Aimee is trained in Gottman couples therapy. Is that correct?

Aimee Mortensen: Okay.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Aimee enjoys working with teens and entering the transitional stage of adulthood and young adults determining their life goals, careers, relationships, and futures. She is also an American health American Mental Health Counseling Association diplomat and clinical mental health specialist in trauma counseling and couples counseling. She has taught seminars on suicide prevention, stress management, improving communication skills, de-stressing your marriage, grief and loss, dealing with trauma, preparing your children for emergency situations and disasters, understanding the effect of pornography on children, and getting the most out of your current employment. Aimee is happily divorced and has a great relationship with her ex-husband. They each have their two children half the time. They co-parent like champions and prior prioritize their children and their needs, no matter how challenging it may feel at times. Aimee works hard to attend all of her children’s events, which currently include many soccer games. I know that life. She loves watching their personalities develop and appreciates teaching them about life, feelings, and relationships. Amazing. What a bio, Aimee. You have quite the history, my girl.

Aimee Mortensen: I was going to say, you must have got that from the website. I could have given you a much more concise bio.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Yeah, that’s what I got. So, um, tell us what made you decide to be a mental health therapist and start your company and obviously like that’s that’s your your bio shares a little bit of that, but like what give us the the meat and potatoes of like the oomph behind that.

Aimee Mortensen: Well, I I was planning on going the physical therapy route, which I would hope I would end up in your shoes, but um, I took a psychology course and I loved it. just the idea of understanding people, why they are the way they are and why they do the things they do. Um, and then my husband passed away in our car accident and kind of just fell into my lap that I would do grief and trauma. Um, and then I I I work with a lot of couples and sex and intimacy. I don’t know that it even mentions to the degree in my bio that I’m a certified sex therapist. Most doctors, OBGYNS, you name it, anyone does not talk about sex. So, how how are we expecting our kids to grow up with healthy relationships and intimacy and boundaries and consent and conversations around that when we’re not talking about them as adults? So, I started going the sex therapy route probably 8ish years ago, and I love it. Um, all of my clinicians are going that direction because we want to be the place that talks about sex, encourages you to. It’s not it’s not shameful. It’s not forbidden. It’s not awkward. We need to teach our kids. We need to have open, healthy conversations with our partners. Um, it’s kind of up your alley, right?

Dr. Betty DeLass: Oh, pain. Talk about sex all the time. Yeah.

Aimee Mortensen: Why do we have pain with intercourse? What what’s going on? Trauma and and and sexuality, they’re so interrelated. We do a lot of work with LGBTQ. So, Oh, just sex. All the sex.

Dr. Betty DeLass: All the sex. Yeah. Love that. K. Um, what do you feel like makes you and your practice different than any other mental health clinic? Like, what’s what’s the difference with Worth It?

Aimee Mortensen: We are anti-shame. I don’t know that there’s a lot of clinics that are pro-shame. I don’t think there are any. But but we want you to feel safe and comfortable and accepted the moment you walk in our door. There’s there’s no motivation from religion or or shame. We just want you to feel accepted and supported and understood here. So that’s our probably big motto. And in Utah County, there’s not a ton of certified sex therapists. There’s not a ton of clinics that you could go to that have a library of resources for you to borrow books from. You know, who wants to I’ve got this great book right here, Guide to Getting You. It’s a phenomenal book, but it’s a textbook that no one wants to buy. So, come, you know, borrow it, rent it. Yeah. So, I think that sets us apart. We have lots of resources available. Um, lots of several clinicians that specialize in different things. We do generalized therapy, but we also want sex therapy and couples to be our niche.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Okay. Talk to us about who an ideal fit would be for you then. Like of those things.

Aimee Mortensen: We love couples. We love couples. Polyamorous couples, gay couples, lesbian couples, couples that are um experiencing libido differences, which I have yet to find a couple that doesn’t have libido differences. Um couples that are, you know, maybe trying to understand someone their partner’s trauma, trying to decide if they should stay together. We love couples that are not in the messy part yet that they’re they’re trying to be proactive and preventative. Like therapy is kind of like exercise. Do you want to wait till your doctor says your cholesterol is through the roof? You got to figure something out and you have to go through these major lifealtering changes. Or do you want to exercise preemptively a little bit every day? That to me is therapy. So when I hear a couple say, “Well, we’re not broken. Why would we need we’re not getting divorced. Why would we need therapy? Preventative. Those are our favorite clients. The ones that want to invest in the wellness and the health of their relationship.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Love that. Love that. That’s awesome. Okay. What does the process look like to to work with you, someone at your clinic? Like, do we just call? Do we show up? Do we need a referral? Like, talk to us about all the things.

Aimee Mortensen: You don’t need referral and you don’t just show up. You can find us on our website. You can find us through social media. We’re all over in Google, but you just you can text us at 801. Let me make sure this number is right.477569 or you can call us at 801-443069. The irony that I’m a sex therapist and all of my numbers, my all my phone numbers are in69 and I didn’t even do that on purpose. Um, you can email our front desk, you can contact us through our website. It’s easy. Yeah. And then we send you the paperwork. It’s it’s all electronic, easy peasy. There’s more paperwork than we would like, but always it’s also incredibly helpful to us when it’s complete and done well. It gives us so much history that we don’t then have to spend a lot of time in gathering during that first session. But then that first session, you come in and we offer you a drink and and you sit in our luxurious space and you get to talk to our friendly office manager who’s just lovely. And we hope you feel just safe and comfortable the second you walk through our door. We hope the process is easy. If it isn’t, let me know and I’ll do what I can to fix it.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Amazing. Okay. What’s something that most people don’t know that you think that they should know about the services you offer?

Aimee Mortensen: This is the one that I that I had an idea of and now it’s um the services we offer. Okay, this is going to be a weird one, but I’m going to throw out that therapy doesn’t have to be scary or miserable. I I think therapy can be fun even when we’re talking about difficult topics. We can keep them light-hearted. We can laugh occasionally. Um there’s humor involved. the depending on the type of therapist you want. We’ve got we’ve got confrontational therapists that won’t let you sit in your stuff. We’ve got validating supportive therapists that that are going to be more patient and wait with you while you figure out your process. The the most important thing in therapy is finding the therapist you like and trust. It is not their their certification or the theories they subscribe to or the homework they assign. it is if you like and trust them. So if you have a therapist that you don’t like and trust, find another one. And if if you if I’m your therapist and you don’t like and trust me, find another one. I’m not going to be offended. Your therapy is yours. So I think that’s it’s not necessarily specific to our clinic, but that is something about our our profession that I wish everyone knew.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Absolutely.

Aimee Mortensen: Shop for your therapist. There’s lots of us and different varying skill levels and different personalities and we would love to believe that your therapist is a clean slate, but we have our biases and our personalities. We try to hold them back a little bit, but yeah, we’re human. So, find the human that you connect best with.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Love that. Okay. Um, is there anything special that you want to promote to the audience of like anything new that you have up and coming? Any workshops? any like things in general about your profession that you want to promote? Anything in

Aimee Mortensen: Oh, soon I I we just had an architect and some construction crew here measuring for a big glass wall in our conference room. So, in the next month, we are going to be offering classes, workshops, and group therapy. I’m so excited. In the meantime, I would just advertise our services when you’re when you’re looking for someone to help you with any type of relationship. Relationship, parent, child, sibling, partner, co-workers, we’re here for that.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Awesome. Awesome. Okay. My favorite question to ask everyone. What is the main thing that you want to be known for?

Aimee Mortensen: Shattering shame.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Powerful. Shattering like a hashtag shattering shame.

Aimee Mortensen: Yeah. Uh, letting go of it. We don’t yuck anyone else’s yum. We want to be curious and understanding. So, I I think that’s our, you know, tagline if I were to tattoo that on my forehead. Shame and shame.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Love that. Hey, tell us where we can find you, where you located, your website, social media, all the things.

Aimee Mortensen: Okay. Um, we are located at the point of the mountain next to Thanksgiving Point, just off the freeway. So very convenient for for Salt Lake County and Utah County. We also offer HIPAA compliant telehealth though we prefer having people come into our luxurious space. Um we are on every social media thing there is. We’re on Pinterest, YouTube, Tik Tok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter X, right? Um we’re everywhere. Worth-it.com on you know the internet. We still call it the internet, right? Uh, and you can contact us that way as well. We’re on lots of um therapy directories. Psychology Today, the Gottman Therapy, LGBTQ Therapy Guild of Utah. If you search for Worth It, you’ll find you’ll find it.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Yeah. Perfect. Well, thank you so much, Aimee, for being on our spotlight series. Thank you for all the work that you’re doing here in Utah. And keep fighting the good fight.

Aimee Mortensen: Right back at you. I am referring people to you left and right. I love pelvic health and we love sex therapists all the mutually mutually good teamwork there.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Yes. Yeah.

Aimee Mortensen: Thank you for having me.

Dr. Betty DeLass: You’re welcome.