Today, we’d like to introduce you to Steve Knight.
Hi Steve, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today.
Thank you for the opportunity to share about myself. I’m an LCSW Psychotherapist in a private practice in Savannah. I’ve been practicing as a mental health counselor for twenty-five years. I grew up in Raleigh but then lived in Texas, Montana, and, most recently, Hawai’i. I relocated to Savannah seven years ago to help my parents as they retired here. I found my way into my career, struggling to fit in as an adolescent.
Luckily, I ended up having the opportunity to attend a wilderness outdoors school program in Montana, where I discovered counseling, both individual and process groups. Those experiences showed me a different perspective that changed my life path. I still didn’t know it would be my career then. I had parents who pushed me to attend college, where I got a liberal arts degree while learning a bit about social work. In my first job out of college, I had a supervisor who was a Social Worker. I learned much from her, but most importantly, I learned a person could have a career doing what I do now. I found a way to go to a social work master’s program and jumped into studying the theories and practices of mental health counseling.
After graduating, I was offered a job counseling deaf adolescents (because I knew sign language and was one of the only people who applied). The 9/11 terror attacks made me move to a smaller rural place, Montana, where I continued working with kids plus their families, doing attachment-focused intensive work. After about a dozen years of this work, my school loan balance made me search for a way to pay it off faster, which led me to a job with the National Health Service Corps at a Federally Qualified Healthcare Clinic in rural Hawai’i.
When I landed there, I learned the patients most in need of counseling were struggling with PTSD and acute stress problems. I took a year-long intensive training in a trauma treatment approach called EMDR, which allowed me to help these patients more effectively. That was about twelve years ago now, and in the years since then, I have practiced the EMDR approach with child survivors of wars in Sudan, individuals who have experienced school shootings firsthand, military members and their families, former prisoners, domestic violence, and assault survivors, and much more.
Now, I work exclusively with First Responders and other clinicians, especially mental health providers. The recent coronavirus pandemic showed me that those two groups had some of the highest need for immediate help. I learned that if I helped them quickly, they could continue doing their work of supporting our community.
All of that brings me to the fun part, which is that three years ago, I was searching for something that would help ground me in my work-life balance, and that has become throwing clay on the pottery wheel and making things with my hands. I’ve been taking classes and using the open studio at Clayerco, a fast-growing new pottery studio in town.
We all face challenges, but would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I’m fortunate to have supportive parents who helped me tremendously, even when the help was helping me move far away from them for a long time. I’ve benefitted greatly from a number of privileges, and I will try not to forget them.
My choices to move and live in several places have made life so interesting and full, but it has been a challenge to re-establish myself professionally in each new place. I am starting to feel more deeply connected to Savannah and the people here, and I have no plans to leave.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Good luck allowed me to discover Clayer & Co, a local pottery teaching studio on Bonaventure Road. I was searching for another avenue for self-care, and the idea of doing something artistic was appealing. I found something that has given me the self-care I needed, but I didn’t expect to love it so much! I have taken five classes with the teachers there and spent hundreds of hours in the studio practicing and learning more. I have learned to make many unique things, but recently, I settled into making pottery lamps.
My father created unique lamps for my mom when I was growing up. They often did art projects together, and lamps always stood out to me as one of their most compelling creations. They made lamps out of pieces of pottery they found in estate sales and even made a pair of lamps out of leather English riding boots. My lamps are more traditional in style, and I’ve even sold some of them in local art markets!
Is there anyone you’d like to thank or give credit to?
The support I’ve had along the way in my life is how I’ve been able to thrive. I learned in my twenties that people enjoy telling you about what they love to do- so I asked them. I asked people I looked up to or was curious to tell me how they learned things or how they came into their careers. I tried to emulate that and kept up my curiosity.
I had mentors in graduate school, and afterward, I learned from and benefitted from them. I still seek out workshops and classes from professionals in the counseling field that inspire me to keep refining my skills. Of course, with my pottery hobby, I am constantly learning from the teachers and peers at my studio.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.counselinginsavannah.com
- Instagram: @knightpottery
