Ely recently welcomed Insight Counseling to town, a therapy organization whose founder, Dina Clabaugh, hopes will help close gaps for residents seeking access to local emotional health services.
“I’m originally from Littlefork, so I have a big spot in my heart for rural health and access, and destigmatizing emotional health,” Clabaugh said, “In lots of ways, it’s just as vital as having a dentist in town.”
I nsight Counsel i ng opened its Ely office about three months ago, adding to a list of locations which also includes Virginia, Blooming- ton, and its original Duluth practice. The organization just marked its eight-year anniversary on Thursday and has grown to encompass nearly 30 clinicians since its launch.
Over the years, Clabaugh has adopted a go-with-the- flow business approach, al lowing Insight to expand naturally to fit the needs and
locations of both its practitioners and its clients.
“It’s not like I had this business plan to have multiple offices and a large team, but it really happened because clinicians already working for us were relocating to the Twin Cities, or lived in Virginia, or so on,” Clabaugh said.
Insight has two clinicians from Ely who would previ- ously drive to Duluth and Virginia, said Clabaugh. Now, the pair will call the new local office their "home base.”
“It’s really cool that they’re Ely people supporting Ely people,” Clabaugh said.
“We are inheriting the office space (from) previous therapists who are transitioning into retirement,” she said, “People we really respect and love in the field. So it was an honor when they reached out to us to see (if we wanted it) because they knew of us in the community.”
Clabaugh cites Insight’s welcoming approach as a major factor in the organization’s growth.
“The number one predictor of therapeutic success is actually the relationship you have with the therapist,” she said.
Clabaugh has worked to create a supportive environment at Insight, both culturally and materially. Her Duluth office is filled with “lots of plants and color,” and she has made it a practice to welcome interns onto the team — many of whom stay on to become full-time clinicians.
“Through the years, as we’ve expanded, we’ve been able to offer really great ben- efits that help enhance our culture and our retention of clinicians,” she said.
For Clabaugh, therapy is about shifting the way a client approaches their way of doing or thinking about things, especially mindsets and behaviors the client may have developed during childhood or later on that have now become “not so helpful” as coping mechanisms.
“If that’s something you want to shift, just having somebody who’s trained to help you look at that in a compassionate, curious way and offer tools, suggestions and modalities that help you shift, even in small ways that can make big impacts in our lives,” Clabaugh said.
“Of course, it’s going to be vulnerable and scary if you’ve never done it. I guess, trust that we’re qualified and compassionate and vulnerable as well,” she added. “Our practice has a lot of integrity. We take all of those processes and policies and procedures very seriously and we never want that to limit access to care.”
Insight has built this commitment to welcoming, accessible wellness services into its business model.
A majority of the organization’s clinicians practice via telehealth, Clabaugh says, which “has been amazing in allowing more accessibility” for clients in rural areas.
“Prior to opening in Ely, it wasn’t uncommon for us to have many people in Northeastern Minnesota who, for years now, have been driving to our Duluth office," Cla baugh said. “And if you can just hop on your computer or your phone and do an hour of a telehealth session, that’s really cool.”
The new office will fur ther expand options for those who prefer an in-person connection with their therapist. Ely’s clinicians see individuals “across the demographics” and specialize in a variety of focus areas, ranging from anxiety to ADHD to trauma.
Clabaugh is excited to turn the page into this new chapter in the local area.
“(Thank you to) the community for welcoming us,” Clabaugh said. “We look forward to really embracing it and loving on Northern Minnesota.”
