Please understand that we aren’t going anywhere.

We love what we do and we think we are making a difference.

But we are going to retire the old logo and the old name to take us into the next phase of our lives. Let me explain…

The old Bergen and Associates Counselling Logo

I started out as Carolyn O. Bergen Counselling and Consulting in fall of 1999. I drew this logo out with a pencil and paper at my kitchen table while my Junior Tribe Members napped…and a graphic designer friend created it on computer.

I still like the meaning of it. A circle–wholeness. A seed–cold and wet, in the mud…and uncomfortable and painful place to be…but the splitting open creates new growth not otherwise possible. Hands supporting and holding, but also freeing and lifting. And below…a little line…creating a cross, for those for whom that is important in their lives.

I had preschoolers at the time, and a busy personal life–I started out slow, seeing only 2-3 clients per week in the first year. When my ad came out with the next year’s Yellow Pages, business quickly doubled, then tripled, and so on. As I was in the business a few years, people began to hear about me from successful experiences in therapy that their friends and family had with me, and word of mouth began to be effective.

As the private practice grew, my work with the WRHA gradually decreased, became casual, and then stopped all together. I loved being tucked in the corner offer of Reimer Advertising offices.

Life was safe and cozy.

I worked part time so I could be home for my kids…I worked a lot of evenings to be home for the Junior Tribe Members before school–my spouse-at-the-time (SATT) was home with them in the evenings.

My life blew up when my SATT had a significant personal life transition that was important for him and terrifying for me. After almost a silent year of his own struggle and mystery, he determined that he would leave to pursue a path that he felt led to that didn’t include me.

The bottom fell out of my world.

I didn’t know how I would do it. I wasn’t sure I could do it alone. I knew I didn’t want to do it alone. I knew I liked being married. I knew I desperately wanted to give my kids a two parent home where they could feel and experience a loving marriage, and the stability that comes with two parents joining forces under one roof to raise them.

The secret weapon for my survival, ironically enough, was that years before, I had grieved the silent birth of twin sons. My heart had been broken, but over time I had healed and life went on. My head knew that if I had made it through the death of my children, I would make it through the death of my marriage.

But evening therapy no longer worked as a single mom. And folks were still calling wanting therapy in the evenings. I needed to earn a living to support my children. What to do? And…

A friend of mine suggested a model where I would bring on other therapists to work in my office in the evenings when I wouldn’t be there. The space was there, the clients were calling. It was “just” setting up the infrastructure and finding some therapists.

Easier said than done. A lawyer friend told me this about business planning a long time ago…“Whenever you plan a business expansion, double the hours, project deadlines and budget you’ve carefully developed, and you might be close to what’s realistic”

So…in a process that took hours and hours and hours, (during the year that I was teaching .7 at the university and .5 at my practice to keep a roof over our heads as I was single parenting) I spent a winter developing the systems and processes to have associates.

I. Was. Tired.

The year can only be remembered as a blur. I was exhausted and sad. Seeing clients, being a mom, working on legal matters related to the separation…and setting the groundwork where I would have colleagues who would make my life eventually…in the future. I would tuck the kids into bed and work for another 3 hours most evenings, and on weekends when they went to visit their dad, I would work right through.

And so, on the wintry day early in 2007, when I went into the lawyer to change the name from Carolyn Bergen Counselling to something that would allow for colleagues, I had nothin’. No ideas. Too tired to think.

I had no creativity in me to name it something other than what was the easiest, least creative and most obvious solution: Bergen and Associates Counselling. I had kept my name after SATT left, and I was going to have associates…so, the obvious.

It worked, pretty much, for a bunch of years. I was there, full time, and other therapists came and went, mostly part time.

Then things began to shift… now, I’m doing more speaking to groups and more media. Less clients. More writing. More administration. I’m still parenting Junior Tribe Members, and I have Husband that shares life with me–I don’t want to work 70 hours per week.

Other therapists…more therapy. Therapists around for a long time. And they are starting to develop public voices of their own and solid professional reputations.

So now:

1. There is no “Bergen” at Bergen and Associates.

Everyone (including me!) is gradually getting used to me being known as Carolyn Klassen. It seems sorta goofy when Dahlia Kurtz introduces me each week on 680CJOB as “Carolyn Klassen from Bergen and Associates Counselling”.

2. Bergen and Associates is so much more than one person, with a few others.

We are a group of competent, capable therapists–folks who are building their career at our counselling clinic. Well educated counsellors who have specialities and expertise in areas in ways I will never have. It’s time to take the focus of “Bergen” and stop looking like the others are “add ons” by our name. Our therapists are wonderful and we need to be a group. Together.

I want them to together work at a place that doesn’t single out one as different, or more important. I want the name to have us all feel valued and included.