For many years in my career I have joked with my clients that I grew up with a family that I so badly wanted to understand that I went to school and made a whole career out of it. I grew up with a strong and resilient single mother, who tried her best at prioritizing and caring for us but at the end of the day grief, poverty, generational trauma, my absent father’s severe substance use and mental health disorders all naturally created family dysfunction. I remember I used to beg my mom to let me change my last name because I wanted to be like the rest of my family and frankly I carried shame around the fact that it was my absent father’s last name. Now through my own healing and personal growth, I have learned that keeping the name alive is a reclaiming of my power. That while my history may have impacted me, it does not define who I am, who I will be and who I can be. So now to prove that shame, family dysfunction, mental illness, and poverty do not define me or anyone else, the last name Lyon is spoken, shared, and blasted out into the community with courage. 

To me the word recovery is a way to measure progress and can be sustained to promote long term well being. Recovery happens when we change the intensity, frequency and/or duration of symptoms. Here we use the word recovery to support your mental health well being. Traditionally the word recovery is primarily used in the substance use community but the reality is more than 80% of those with substance use disorders also deal with mental health disorders. Here the word recovery will refer to both and is interchangeable for both to refer to someone’s mental health and/or substance use disorder journey. How do you define recovery? 

Therapy is the practice of finding remedies, healing, restoration, and sometimes the curing of one’s pain or issue. Mental health therapy is the focus in which we want to work on finding the right skills and support to promote a change in your overall well being and quality of life. In my own journey, it was once shared with me that therapy takes the approach of looking for or into the roots that the present issues may be linked to. True therapeutic interventions may dig deep, be uncomfortable at first, but then provide longer term relief. We want to assist others to work through some underlying issues which will then reduce the present symptoms or issues and hopefully help with managing and preventing the return of these symptoms in the long run. 

At the end of the day we hope to provide mental healthcare services and be a beacon of healing and hope. We want to provide the community and individuals a service to heal, grow and thrive. Lyon Recovery Therapy Services is closely connected to our sister clinic Oases Counseling Center, which has been in Greenfield, Indiana since 2017. Oases was started by Kim Hage, LCSW, a wonderful friend and mentor of mine. Without her and without Oases, we wouldn’t exist. She has agreed to allow me to incorporate her tagline of “Heal, Grow, Thrive”, which is a way to honor and continue the brand and services Oases contributed for many years.