About Us
In 2021, Mountain View Therapy was founded by two therapists and friends Christina Peterson and Bailey Schendell. Here’s how we came together.
2021
Christina and Bailey met on the very first day of their social work master’s program at Simmons College. We were placed together at a middle school in Roxbury, Boston. From that first day, we found our personalities, skills, and experiences complimented each other to make a great team. Throughout graduate school, we became the closest friends and important supports for each other.
We graduated in May 2010. We moved in together and started our journey as social work professionals.
Bailey’s first position was with South Bay Mental Health. South Bay was an agency that provided mental health services to MassHealth members, mostly based in their homes. She saw this position as a great opportunity to get diverse clinical experience. For the next 6 years, Bailey worked crazy hours, sometimes seeing 8 people daily. While South Bay offered a large caseload, it did not offer support or a theoretical framework.
Christina’s first position was with The Home for Little Wanderers, an agency similar to South Bay. A key difference was Christina was hired into an office that trained therapists in the Narrative Worldview. Christina knew immediately she had found our theoretical home in Narrative Therapy. Together we have spent the last decade growing our knowledge of the Narrative framework and using it in our work.
We are drawn to Narrative ideas because they provide a respectful, non-blaming approach to the practice of therapy that centers people as experts in their own lives. We are wholeheartedly committed to the narrative idea that people are NOT problems and have the skills and knowledges of life to reduce the influence of problems in their lives. We also recognize that problems show up in people's lives as a product of what society expects of them. We have found these ways of thinking the key to helping people develop and live the preferred stories of their lives.
Our experience has taught us that therapists do their best work in a supportive environment grounded in a theoretical framework. We started Mountain View Therapy as a home for clinicians to learn and practice Narrative Therapy. We are committed to supporting our clinicians so they are best positioned to help the people we serve to connect with their preferred lives.
Our practice is founded on the following principles:
We believe that Narrative Therapy is a useful framework for helping people develop preferred relationships with the problems or issues they come across in their lives. Our hope is to build a community of therapists that are richly connected to Narrative ideas.
We believe that therapists practice best when they are connected with other therapists. We want to build a practice that centers this connection. We want to create a space where therapists are truly supported in providing services and learning.
We believe that people should make a fair wage with their work. We are committed to transparency in how we compensate our staff therapists.
We believe if our actions are guided by these ideas we can create a respectful, non-blaming space where people are centered as experts in their own lives.