Julianne Rooney

I love being part of the team.

I went into this field because I felt it was a calling—to understand how people’s minds work and to help them. Early on, I dabbled with private practice but felt isolated.

I need connections with others, and there’s no better place than Turning Point for that. We’re always brainstorming on how we can support each other’s work and meet our clients’ needs.

A few years ago, I worked with a client in his mid-70s.  He had been diagnosed with a major depressive disorder and had just been released from the hospital after an apparent suicide attempt.

He was one of the sweetest, kindest people I’ve ever met and one of the most intelligent. But because of his very traumatic upbringing, he saw himself only through a negative lens. He had lost hope.

My job was to help him find a way to see in himself all the wonderful things I saw. The first thing was to get him into our groups program, a transformative experience where he connected with people and felt heard and understood.

We focused on helping him change his narrative from one of trauma to finding strength in himself. He gained a better understanding of how his family dynamic was affecting him and learned how to distance himself from the negative.

Over time his symptoms decreased, and he came less often. Eventually, he felt he no longer needed to see me, that he could stay on medication and see a psychiatrist. When he left, he was doing well.

What we as clinicians do is just one part of the story. The client is the other part. The clients who leave here feeling better are the ones who are fully engaged.