Meet Paul Kiger | Therapist and Business Owner

We had the good fortune of connecting with Paul Kiger and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Paul, have there been any changes in how you think about work-life balance?
This is a great question and something that so many of us, especially today with technology making us so available all of the time, have to address in our own lives. I spend a lot of time with clients working on this specific question. Each person has to find the right balance for them depending on their own needs, season of life, and responsibilities. When I first entered the field of social work I made it a priority to keep my home life and work life separate. I tried my best not to do work emails/calls from home and definitely tried to avoid them on vacation. When I was new in the field I needed this separation. I was working a high stress job and having that time to unplug and be away from work was vital. Moreover, being new in the field, it was hard to do work emails/calls on the evenings/weekends/holidays without it consuming me. If I read work emails and saw that there were incident reports in my inbox, I would feel stressed, which the whole point of the vacation was to lower my stress. Additionally, I would then dread going back to work knowing what was waiting for me. However, as I gained more experience working as a therapist, I found that I could read emails and take calls when I was not at work and it would not bother me. It actually helped me feel like I had my finger on the pulse of what was going on, and it allowed me to return to work without being surprised about what happened while I was gone.

One major element that has helped me find balance over time is healthy and comprehensive self-care. We only have so much emotional bandwidth, time, and energy to give. If our cups are empty we not only feel worse but we have less to give to others. Early in my career I made a comprehensive self-care plan that I was able to incorporate into my life that has had a tremendous impact on me. Self-care has become a buzzword and many people think it is drinking a glass of red wine in a bubble bath. Although that can be self-care, it is much more comprehensive than that. The plan I utilized included a variety of categories such as personal, physical, psychological, organizational, professional, social, and moral. Practicing healthy self-care has allowed me to not only do a better job of helping others as a therapist, it has also allowed me to feel happier, healthier, and maintain positive relationships.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
When I was 8 years old I started taking piano lessons and at around 13 started teaching myself how to play guitar. From then on my dream in life was to become a rock star. I played in bands in the Detroit area before moving to Grand Rapids to attend college at Grand Valley State University. I studied social work and Spanish with the hope of becoming a mental health therapist if my dream of becoming a rock star did not pan out. While attending college I was able to play in a band that had decent success in the Grand Rapids area playing shows at a variety of well known local venues including Skelletones, The Intersection, and The Orbit Room. In the end, we all decided to go our separate ways and I decided to continue to pursue a career in counseling and spent time living in Central America. When I returned to the United States, I began working as a therapist and adjunct professor. After about 7 years I had the idea to start Supporting Act Counseling which allowed me to combine my two passions, music and counseling.

As the demands of life, especially those of artists and creatives, can make it difficult to attend counseling in a physical space, Supporting Act Counseling offers telehealth sessions to ensure touring artists can build rapport and maintain continuity of care with one therapist who can address their unique needs. An aspect that I believe sets me apart is that I am a musician who has played in bands and can relate to the stress, pressure, and anxiety that comes with being an artist. This is also an aspect of Supporting Act Counseling that I am proud of. I was able to find a way to combine two of my passions into a career that I absolutely love.

One of the joys of working as a professional therapist and life coach is supporting people as they move through various phases of their lives to realize and reach their full potential. I currently support clients and staff as they move towards openness, acceptance, compassion, justice, wisdom, and self-understanding. We are all on our own journey and my hope is to meet clients where they are at in their journey. The skills I have refined over the past decade have uniquely prepared me to work in the mental health field to serve individuals, families, and groups.

With over 10 years of experience working in the mental health and substance use field as a therapist, life coach, university professor, trainer, and mentor, my goal is to bring my knowledge and skills to my practice supporting artists as they navigate the complex issues that accompany touring and a lifestyle with such high demands. Before becoming a therapist I played in bands alongside groups such as Hellogoodbye, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Taking Back Sunday, The Spill Canvas, Mayday Parade, Motion City Soundtrack, and The Summer Set, to name a few. I have worked with Grammy nominated artists as well as professional athletes and reality show contestants. My hope is to bring a unique understanding of what it is like to be a touring musician or artist in addition to providing quality and evidenced based counseling and life coaching. I am a Licensed Master of Social Work (LMSW), Certified Advanced Alcohol and Drug Counselor (CAADC), certified in Brainspotting, as well as trained in Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT), Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), the Sanctuary Model of Care, and Motivational Interviewing.

One aspect of starting and growing Supporting Act Counseling that has been challenging is how difficult it was to start a niche organization that could really only grow through word of mouth. Since the work I do is via telehealth, and I do not have a local office, I could not simply advertise locally. Moreover, it was hard to advertise on a larger, national scale as there were not many areas I could target outside of large urban centers that are likely more densely populated with creatives (Nashville, Los Angeles, etc.). To grow Supporting Act Counseling I had to connect with artists and creatives online through social media, and build relationships with them. It was not as though I could simply put out an advertisement about my business, instead, I had to really put time and energy into connecting with artists/creatives on a personal level, which was time consuming work but also very rewarding. It was a very slow moving process. Luckily, since Supporting Act has very little operational costs since we do not have a physical office space, I was able to continue growing the business even though it took several years.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
One of my favorite aspects of Grand Rapids is that it is a little big city where you can have all of the creature comforts of a big city, but if you drive 20 minutes in any direction you are in the country. Since Grand Rapids has a large refugee population, a great week here would include stopping by the non-chain, refugee owned restaurants. If you have an intellectual side, the Grand Rapids Public Museum has so many cool things to see and they bring in interesting exhibits that change so you can go back and see something new every time. Plus, the old town road inside the museum would be the perfect place to host a murder mystery party, which of course is on my bucket list to do. Lastly, getting out of the city we would hit the beaches along the lakeshore. When traveling and meeting new people, they are always shocked to hear that Lake Michigan looks and feels like the ocean, but as the locals say “No salt, no sharks, no problems”.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
There were a few people early on in my journey to start Supporting Act Counseling that were incredibly helpful and supportive. My friend and former bandmate Josh Kulchar and I talked about the idea of combining my two passions, music and counseling. Not only was he very helpful in processing through the idea but he also did the art and design work for my practice. Major thanks as well to my friend Lance Beaudry at Avalanche Creative for helping me design my website. Being an expert in SEO, he was able to help me create a website to effectively outline what I do and how I can reach more people. My sister in law Jeannie Regan was also helpful in fleshing out the general idea of Supporting Act Counseling and she helped early on with developing blogs and content that would connect to artists and creatives. Without the help and support of these 3 people I am not sure if I would have even gotten Supporting Act Counseling off of the ground, and for that I am eternally grateful.

When I was thinking about starting my business, I was having conversations with some trusted friends and family members about the idea. I vividly remember being in a coffee shop in downtown Chicago with my spouse, telling her the finer details of starting my practice, and noting that if I were to start it that my life, and inevitably her’s, would change. We talked about the ways it would change our free time, energy, and how available I would need to be. My spouse was nothing but supportive even knowing that from the moment we stood up in that coffee shop, life would look very different. She has stuck by me and continues to support me every day.

Lasty, I want to thank my parents. When I wanted to be an archaeologist they took me to museums and let me look at all of the artifacts and rocks. When I wanted to be a rockstar, they drove across the state to see me play a 20 minute set as an opening band. When I decided to become a therapist they supported me in my studies, they have always encouraged me to follow my dreams, and always, ALWAYS, believed in me.

Website: https://supportingactcounseling.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/supportingactcounseling/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-kiger-lmsw-caadc-995b10173/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/supportingactcounseling

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@supportingactcounseling

Image Credits
Art and Design by Josh Kulchar