Spotlight Series

Guest Name: Laura Parry

Credentials:  LCSW, PHM-C – Roots & Branches Wellness

Laura Parry: Awesome.

Dr. Betty DeLass: All right. Laura Parry, she is a licensed clinical social worker practicing since 2009 and Clinical Director of Roots & Branches Wellness. Laura founded Roots & Branches because she wants to help people practice self-compassion and understand that there is no shame in whatever you’re struggling with. She seeks to help others find their voice and feel empowered to make changes in their lives by understanding the past. Laura is passionate about helping expecting parents understand mental health during the pregnancy and postpartum phases of their life and has made this a core pillar of her practice. Laura’s also created a curriculum for and hosted a therapy group called Faith Deconstruction Through the IFS Lens. Part of her mission is to help support those who find themselves in transition of faith using research backed theories like internal family systems. She seeks to support those who struggle with shame or the pain or the painful and often misunderstood experience that comes with transitioning faith and so that is our wonderful love. So we will Jump Right In into our questions right off the bat and first one is what made you decide to be a mental health therapist?

Laura Parry: Yeah. Um well thank you so much. I’m excited to be talking with you today. Um I decided to be a therapist I actually knew I wanted to be a social worker before I knew I wanted to be a therapist and that’s not the path that everyone takes.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Yeah.

Laura Parry: Lot of people are like I want to be a therapist how do I get there because there’s several different avenues you can take right. Um but I knew I wanted to do something to help people. I love the social justice aspects of Social Work and at first I really wanted to be a hospital social worker. Um and it was for a while but I was actually sitting in an econ class in college of all places and the professor told a story about a social worker in the NICU that had a profound influence I think it was on his family and I was like that’s it that’s what I want to do that’s how I want to help people. Um so I was really drawn to like medical social work uh so I graduated and I had both like a hospital job and a clinical job a therapy job so I did kind of both for a while then I did just hospital um but then I started working at a Therapy Clinic that’s specialized in perinatal mental health and I fell in love with it and was amazed that no one like in my graduate courses or in any experience before I hadn’t really known much about postpartum depression. I think I’d like heard it the word but I didn’t know a lot about it so I really started studying it more in depth and was like oh my gosh we need to talk about this more there needs to be more access to this and more awareness. So I from there just started um specializing in that and then started a solo practice and then in 2021 started hiring people to grow my group practice.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Amazing. Amazing. So cool. What a cool story. It’s always like a random thing sometimes. Um then what makes you and your practice different in general?

Laura Parry: Well we all have training in perinatal mental health because that is my passion and one of the like core pillars of our practice. Um we also all of us really emphasize self-compassion as is so important for new parents especially and we also practice in a cute cozy little house which is really fun. Um we’ve been there about six months and we’re just off Lehi Main Street and it’s just so like I love walking in there. I hope clients love walking in there. We’ve gotten a lot of good feedback that it’s just nice to feel it’s just I don’t know it’s just a homey cozy place.

Dr. Betty DeLass: So yeah cozy. Very cool. Awesome. And then who’s an ideal fit for people coming to your practice?

Laura Parry: Yes obviously new parents are an ideal fit for us that fits with our training and experience. Um anyone with relationship issues. We have a couple of that do couples therapy but in general as a you know as an individual seeking therapy you want to talk about relationships sometimes and then anyone who wants to experience internal family systems as a therapy modality. Um we all are IFS informed and practice that and then a few of us also practice lifespan integration which is a trauma modality. So that’s probably our ideal but cool.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Very cool. Um okay and then walk us through what the process looks like to work with with you in your company.

Laura Parry: Yes we try to make it as easy as possible. Um so you can email us fill out the form on our website call or text. We’ll ask you about insurances. We do take several insurances so hopefully we can work with that. Um and then yeah we just find the best fit provider that we have for people calling in so.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Amazing. Awesome. Awesome. Okay. Um then with like the transition from to postpartum and into that time space what does recovery look like in your clinical like ethos realm that you’re in?

Laura Parry: Yeah that is a great question and there’s it’s almost a cliche now I feel like but healing is not linear right. We want it to be like every day I feel better but unfortunately that is not the way that it is usually. Um especially I know being a mom myself like we’re really impatient we’re like we got to get this going I got to get better I got to have you know take care of kids live this life right. So um we know it’s so hard but it is kind of an up and down process especially for new moms. Um there’s a period called matrescence have you heard that word? I don’t know if your audience knows about that but there’s just this period where we kind of can expect to feel a little different. We’re like adjusting to our new life. It’s a new adolescence that’s why it’s called matrescence as we adjust to like pregnancy and postpartum. So um it is up and down but there is hope that you will get better sometimes it’s two steps forward one step back but yeah.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Love that. Love that. Okay. Um what’s something that most people don’t know that you think that they should know whether that’s about you your business healing in general therapy like any little nugget that you could share with us?

Laura Parry: Okay so I’ll share one about my team. Um we have a really strong clinical team. We really like support and push each other. I love our staff meetings because we talk about our clients. We care so much about our clients and we kind of push each other to find the best modalities and the best framework for working with our clients as we get together as a team and do that. Um a little nugget about me is I love being outside. I love hiking. I love nature. Um hiking is my second therapy so I love sharing about hikes and just yeah being outside in general.

Dr. Betty DeLass: So I love running into you on the trail too. On the which is awesome. Um okay and then is there anything special that you’d like to promote to the audience about anything?

Laura Parry: Um we are running a perinatal group right now. It’s just an education and support group. Uh we are a few weeks in. It’s eight weeks long but anyone’s welcome to join us at any point. It’s so helpful to get connected with other parents in the same space. So we’re running that perinatal group.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Awesome. Super cool. Okay and then my favorite last question to ask everyone is what’s the main thing that you want to be known for?

Laura Parry: Um this is a hard one. It’s like so big right. Um I think professionally I want to be known as someone that always kept learning and kept growing and like you know including new things in my practice and being flexible and um yeah and then personally obviously I’m a mom to three and a partner and I want to be known for just doing the best I can in that area too so.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Awesome. Awesome. Well where can we find you in your company at website social media all things?

Laura Parry: We’re at rootsbrancheswellness.com. Our Instagram is roots.branches.wellness um so yeah we could find us there.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Amazing. Well thank you so much Laura for coming on and doing the spotlight series with me and I’ll see you do on the trail.

Laura Parry: Awesome.