Door-to-Door Therapy, Accessibility, and 20 Years of Trauma-Informed Care

Welcome back to Therapist Voices at Reach Link. Reachlink is a digital mental health counseling platform. My name is Jessica Herurwitz and I oversee Reach Link's network of therapists. My guest today is Susette Fagan, LCSSW. She's the CEO and founder of Doortodoor Therapy. Dr. Fagan has over 20 years of trauma-informed care experience. Now, Dr. Dr. Fagen, you started in New Jersey and you're now expanding across multiple states. Is that right? What states are you in currently? I am in, of course, the state of New Jersey. I am in New York. Um, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah, Virginia. I am in 12 states. Wow. Oh, okay. I for some reason I thought it was just a couple. That's amazing. Those are some really from my side of things and you know provider network stuff those are the high need states.

That's amazing. Uh that's one of the reasons um why I thought that it would be necessary to actually expand you know because at the end of the day um at door-to-door therapy one of the things that we want to ensure is that there are no barriers towards um accessibility. We want um our patients to be able to know that if you are willing, if you are ready, we are here. Susette, you stole you stole my line because I was just about to say that I was about to say that something that was so clear to me from your website and everything that we communicated about is how significant your stressor is on removing barriers to care. And I know we talk about that so much that everyone seems to want to remove barriers to care and I know so many people are successfully doing that but I feel like there is something special with you and you were really able to do that differently.

Can you tell us a little bit about about you about how this practice came? I feel like there's more to it. There's more to Susette. So just to kind of give you a little background uh information um about myself. I am Caribbean from the best island in the Caribbean. I am biased uh which is Jamaica. So here I am a Jamaican, you know, Caribbean person, you know, growing up and I came over to the United States when I was 10 years old. Like so many Caribbean people, um, especially Caribbean girls, um, experiencing so many different levels of trauma and not being able to speak about it, that became one of the central part of my childhood that I remember. who can I tell what happened to me? Who can I share my story with? Um, and so therefore, uh, that became an essential part. So, here's my mom with crazy courage.

You know, this is women's history month and I just highlighted her because I believe that is what's your mom's name? Normalin Rose. And there is nothing normal about Normalin. and um she had five of us. And imagine so many years ago, I was 10 years old when I came over to the United States. And we all came in a one-bedroom apartment, five kids, four girls, one boy, my mom, and two years later, my brother got into a severe car accident. So on top of already being in a marginalized environment, you now have a single mom struggling with the idea that um her only boy and especially in the Caribbean culture, boys are so I I would say that they're so praised, they're so honored, they're so chosen, right? And now she has four girls and her only boy now is dying. And I just remember the struggle that she had and being able to leave all of those things.

You know, she could not uh attend to her own mental health. She could not, you know, deal with the fact that, okay, you now have four girls. you're already working three jobs. And now she was working three jobs. My mom worked two jobs uh during the week and one one job during the weekend. And so therefore it is, you know, five of us. And my brother was so intelligent and so smart. And in the hospital, we are looking at all of these scholarships that he would have gotten had he not gotten into this car accident. cuz he got into the accident when he was 17 years old. So he 2 months before graduation. So those struggles and those things watching my mom, you know, tending to my brother, tending to us, learning a new culture, and just me being completely a complete brat. I would love to say that I was just such a, you know, um, a wonderful daughter at that time, but I had my own struggles even previous to this.

And so all of those things led me to the idea that mental health is absolutely important. It's something that we absolutely have to your Caribbean cultures you know you are told to be strong and strength then be veiled in a sense of if if you show that level of vulnerability it is weakness and so it is at that because of those mission because of those experiences I now understood because I lived through it what it is to experience helplessness and not having an opportunity to talk about that. And I went through high school um you know just dealing with a lot. I went through college dealing with a lot and so when I became a single parent um that didn't go away. So these things have when you don't deal with your healing, it it's going to catch up to you one of these ways. You have to learn to heal and deal at the same time.

And so that is why door-todoor therapy is important because we want to open doors for people of all different cultures wherever you are that you can access health on your own time. Call us the Burger King of mental health. You can have it your way. Oh, that I love that. There was something on your site I noticed about concierge services that kind of makes me think that that's a little bit about what you're talking about. So in co one of the things that you know you and I just went through a a bonding moment of yes we did dealing with technology and so during co here I am I had a practice in Roselle New Jersey and I had to switch from doing in-person therapy just like the whole world and then dealing with tellaalth. But here again um if you remember doctors and nurses and the medical um professionals they could they did not have hours like we did.

And so therefore one of the things that I thought the least that I can do as a therapist is to be here whenever they were available. So I had medical professionals, emergency doctors, emergency nurses, anesthe anesthesiologists. They could not say, "Okay, you know what, Dr. Fagan, I am going to meet you at 6:00 because that's when I get off." They did not have normal hours. So therefore, we needed to be able to create, you know, time and space for them. So I had a couple of them and they basically said when we need you can we just contact you when we need you and I said absolutely it is the least that I can do. So I was having sessions at 11:00, at 10:00, at 6:00 in the morning, at 7 in the morning because that's when they were available. And for me, they taught me uh in a sense of, you know, therapists should not necessarily always have mainstream hours, you know, because life is happening all of the time.

And so, um, that's where the concurge concept came in, that you can have therapy your way. I love this. I think when I saw this on your website, I thought I need to ask her about that right away because I think that I think that so many therapists do try to do something like this. And it's so hard to balance, which is what I'm I'm curious what what you would say about balancing that with your practice, having you other clients you see and then being kind of really on call for this population. How how are you able to manage and then also of course take care of the important girl there. you you know what I am going to say that doctors make the worst patients you know and one of the things that I am learning as I'm going I do believe that being a therapist for me is is not just a career it is a calling I I do believe that I was placed on this planet for that and and as a result of that no matter how tired I am before as soon as I start when you start flowing in your gift.

It does make room for you. You know, it it it it's energizing. And so that is something that is important. Now, I should be able to tell anyone who's listening to just be, you know, to be completely transparent, I have the luxury, my son is about to be 24 years old. Um, so therefore I have, you know, my two little doggies will say that they do need me to be a little bit more available. Uh, but of course, um, I I do have wags and they do get their walks a lot. Okay. But um the thing is when we look at what is going on and we look at what is happening in the world the explosion of anxiety and depression that occurred uh before during and after co we are still living in the residual effect of all of those things. And I believe that one of the things that therapists must do, we have to make room for going outside of the norm.

You want to be able to make a difference. You have to be able to look at the system and actually go outside of the system to make room for what already exists and what is growing. And for me it was the idea that you cannot do therapy as usual cuz we're not living in usual times. So that in itself is something that I absolutely agree with. How do I balance? I also work with other therapists and I am the main one of course in door-todoor therapy. I also supervise interns. So I work with um local colleges in regards to providing internships and everything else like that because again that is a passion of mine making sure that the upcoming therapists have the skills necessary in regards to treating and listening and so forth. Utilizing you know the new stuff but the old stuff is the thing that holds it together.

So love the trend, love all of those things, but we can't forget the meat, you know, on the bone. We we have to just be able to deal with all of those stuff. So I believe that teaching is essential part of leading. You become ineffective as a leader when the skill just remain with you. So that is something that I believe is important. So I train the therapists that I have to you know to utilize you know tellaalth in a different way because essentially that in itself is what we do. We utilize tellaalth in a different way. We try to be able to make sure that it's just proximity and not presence. You know, we we want for you to be able to feel even though there might be distance between us, but when we get on the screen, the presence that you and I have is reachable wherever you are. It's huggable.

It's huggable. Yes. Absolutely. I'm not surprised to hear. I didn't know that you supervised and I am not at all surprised just from what I know of you so far. I probably would have guessed that like certainly there's a teaching element here with her. So that makes total sense. Yes. Um I I do I love my craft and I I want it to be able not to be watered down but for the people who are called to it not for people who you know use it as a listen everybody has to live everyone has to but there is I don't like factory oriented therapy you know it has to be unique because people are dealing with some real things people are hurting and I speak as one who when my son was during his teen years I had to utilize uh services I had to utilize therapy and that taught me a lot so when I'm working with adolescence and everything else like that I will just be able to say to them like listen I know your parents want you to be here but you get to fire me you if you are not feeling me you have the freedom to inspire me and they said I do and when they have that sense of autonomy when they have that sense of choice they are able to kind of connect more in a real way.

So that is the one thing that I learned as a therapist, as a parent, when your child isn't okay, you're not okay. And from a child's perspective, when your parent is not okay, everything is off. The system is off. And so it's really important that the family unit in order, you know, they they start talking about policies and so forth like that. Let's check the family, make sure the family is good and then everything else will take care of itself. That's, you know, in essence what I believe. And even as a single parent, one of the things that I wrote about in, you know, uh, in the book, uh, raising David's with Xavon was the idea of I understand that I am a single parent, but if I was on an island and I needed something, I would bring it in. So, as a single parent, I needed to import certain things.

I needed to import, you know, good mentors in his life. I needed to build my own my own team, my own tribe. I am, you know, I am Caribbean. So, at the end of the day, you know, you start talking some stuff and I'm just like, okay, what we going to do? So, by the time I would hear what Devon is doing, my son is doing in school. I would have people talking to me. And so by the time I got to him, I was calm enough to just be able to say, "Okay, what happened?" Because now I was calm. And when I had to watch him cross over and got his degree, I said to myself, this is a celebration of not just one person. This is a celebration of when systems work. When you are able to connect even though, you know, someone could say, "I came from a broken system. My mom was a single parent. I became a single parent.

But that didn't stop me from being able to what I believe produce a whole person, a person that is that may be, you know, having his own scars cuz I am a crazy parent. I will admit that 100%. Uh we don't want you any other way. That's why you have to baby. Yes. But um at the end of the day, these are the reasons why we do what we do. Teaching is important, mentorship is important, building um your tribe is important, being you know vulnerable in a safe way is important. So when I sit with um a patient, a prospective patient, all of me come together. the the the the parts of me that were broken, the parts of me um that don't have it all together, the parts of me that's still trying to figure this stuff out, those come and we sit and we are in this room together trying to build something out of nothing.

And often times I I will say this, I don't need someone to tell me that I am a good therapist. I feel it. I know it. Um, that is the validation that the universe give me and I am so very proud of. Can I quote you if I may? Yes, absolutely. Because even while you're dealing, you can still be healing. You wrote that to me and I thought that was so powerful and so important. It maybe it sounds simple, but it's it's so not when I read that. I I sat and thought for a second and I was like, "Oh, wait a second. She she's right. That's true. Is that is that something that you bring into your practice? Yes. Because healing is not a you know it it it's not a destination. It's a journey. Um and while you are driving, just think about this stuff. While you are driving, you are going to encounter so many different things.

You're going to encounter um some, you know, roadblocks. You may encounter some, you know, traffic lights. that's not always green, but you still got to keep on on the journey anyway. And so I I look at that in a sense of my healing doesn't stop because life happens to be lifing. I I I have to choose. And that is one of the things that I share with everyone of my patients. Stuff is going to happen and you're going to have to make a decision to deal. How do you deal? That's what therapy comes in. Show me how to deal better. Show me how to deal or handle it or acknowledge it so that I can get to the path of of healing and restoration. Susette, something that that you mentioned to me previously that I really want to hear from you about cuz I I've got a suspicion you've got something good on this.

You you've said how important faith is in mental health. Can you can you talk to us a little bit about that and what that is to you and how you bring that? Can I get a little bit really personal? Please, I beg of you. Please, this is the place. So, here I am, you know, experiencing my best life. Um, my son is stable. He's doing well in school. All was well with the world. And then the big bad wolf came in the form of a custody battle. between my son's father and I. And I'm just like, what the hell? I have been here all the time. What do you mean? I was separated from my son for 7 months, 23 days, 11 hours, and 33 minutes. I remember that. That happened on April 15th. I will I it will live with me for the rest of my life because I think that at that moment um I just really had um a sense of just who I am and how life was supposed to be.

And I thought that I had just went through stuff. I mean, come on. I decided that I was going to have this kid. I I I got pregnant in the church. And that's a whole story within itself. And I disappointed my mom by not being married. I finally got my together. And then and now this. Come on. And now this. I am just like, "Okay, um God forgive me for using that word, but I'm real." So I'm pretty sure it's it's appropriate in this exact situation. What other word could you use? It It was It was so crazy, you know, to me because I'm just like I pride myself on being a good mom. I went to every PTA meeting. I went to every meeting. I was there. I was present. I probably I was, if you look up helicopter mom, you would see a picture of me right then and there just like, "Woo!" Um, but I We're both there next to each other.

Don't worry. You're in good. You're in good company. But what happened is in the midst of my accomplishments, in the midst of my education, in the midst of everything else, my education, my money, that could not prevent what happened to me. those seven months, those 23 days, those 11 hours, I had every single emotion imagerable. I I was I was watching I went from watching um Snap to watching all of the tele evangelists. I was I was just very disregulated. So, it was the idea that I had to come to myself. I literally became very depressed, very suicidal. I remember driving to work and calling someone and saying, "I don't feel safe with myself. I need you to stay on the phone with me because all of the voices in my head is telling me to just press the gas." And that was real. That that was a real thing.

I have two masters. I know this stuff. But everything when you are in the middle of a crisis, everything goes out the window. And I had to be confronted with what I had left. And what I had was God in the sense of I hate you. I can't believe that you are allowing this to happen to me. and all I have that that is that's what I was living for. And I had to really really that's really where my healing started taking place because I had to be confronted with the susette that never felt like she was enough. the the Susette who felt as if she had to perform to to to be okay to to um to feel that she like she mattered and my son if I didn't have my son that was my identity. So when I didn't have that I had to be confronted with myself everything. And so it was from there, it was there that I said faith and mental health really go together.

It was at that moment when people that I know in the church begin to pray for me and with me. I begin to really understand a bigger purpose, a higher purpose uh for myself. And then that's where Christ in the crisis was born. Seeing Christ in the crisis because that to me was what I knew how to do. Now let me just pivot and let me just say this. I believe that religion is like chicken, right? It's like food. So, I may eat my, you know, I may eat curry chicken because I'm Jamaican. You may eat barbecued chicken, baked chicken, whatever. At the end of the day, it's still chicken. My faith says Christ. Someone else's faith could say, you know, Jehovah, someone else's faith could say Buddha, someone else's faith could say something that moment. And so I believe that that's where a lot of therapists go wrong in a sense where when you start talking about someone who is very staunch in the church or very staunch in religion and how do we go through that and I believe in some ways that you can utilize that because that's what's in the room.

That's what's in the room. I want you to just be able to picture something that if a building is on fire and you're just like we we we got to use whatever is in the room to get out of this building, you will use whatever. So when I meet with a patient and they said this is who I am, this is my culture. This is what I believe. Then you have to take what they believe and bring them there because you are not going to get me outside the room if you are how am I supposed to understand you when we're speaking a completely different language right so we have to be able to utilize the the language that's in the room the resource that is in the room and often time it is a person's faith and if you allow them to keep what essentially is there. They will be more open to mental health resources that you know you can say you know what uh your faith wants you to be whole.

Your faith want you to have a relief of uh depressive symptoms. They want you to have a relief of anxiety. So what can we do that is comfortable to you? Do you need meditation? You know uh do you want to be able to sit in a room and center yourself? That's connecting them to what they know. But as therapists, we understand that rule 101, meeting your patient where they are. Was that correct? You are the epitome of that. From what I have heard, you are the epitome of of meeting someone where they're at. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Even if it's a different kind of chicken that they're having. Yes, absolutely. Even if it's a little spicy because I like my food a little. Can I ask you Susette, how did you or did you have to after all this happened and you were in this place after everything happened with your son, did you were you in a place where you needed to reconcile with God in any way?

Oh, hell yes. In every way. I I think that because my notion of God um was absolutely ripped. I was already having a sideeye view of God because again I was brought up into the church um as I told you that my brother got into a car accident. So I quote unquote made a deal with God at 12 and say I'm going to be a Christian if you let him live. And so therefore, that in itself is that whole thing that I'm making a deal with you. I'm giving my life to you and now you're going to do this stuff. Come on now. This this is a little bit wrong. And then I met this wonderful guy in the in the church. The first time I met him, he wanted to pray. I said, "Jesus is Lord." Because of course that is amazing, right? you meet someone in the church and you automatically believe that uh that is going to be the person for you and and not no fault of his own.

The one thing that he did do and I am so grateful to him I wanted to get married because that's what people do when they get into the pregnant in the church is to cover it and to get married and he was just like no best decision ever. So I am grateful to him for that because we would have we would have been a complete mess and we were a complete mess even not being married but my relationship with God went through some major transformation. I had to rip up the script of what I believe my relationship should be. I had to throw it away because it was no longer working for me. I thought that God is supposed to give me what I want. I mean this is what I want. give it to me and just let me be. And one of the the things that I want to mention here is that in the Bible and I started studying this, you know, it ne Jesus never said, "I want you to be healed."

He always say, "I want you to be whole." And there's a difference between healing and being whole. And so for me, there were aspects of of my life that I I no longer felt like the quote unquote girl who wasn't anything. I had two masters. I was buying another house. I felt accomplished and that was great. But I am a human u being that a human doing. And so therefore, I had to separate my self from my accomplishments, separate myself from what I do and who I actually am. And those seven months was a journey within Suzanne. I had to rip that all up. I had to just come to God and I just had to say, "I am so effing mad at you." Yes, those were my prayers. It was it was it was it was not holy. I I did not talk to God as a as a quote unquote dearly beloved God. No, I'm just like, you are full of what?

Like, why would you do that to me? And it's in those moments, it's in the time of being okay. I felt that my version of who God is was okay with the broken me, was okay with the me that didn't feel like I am enough. And so that is the messiness and and um it led me to my book, The God of the the Inbetween Girl, because I was I was in between so many different spaces in a sense of like I feel accomplished, but at the same time I feel like I'm not. I I feel holy, but at the same time, I'm not. I feel whatever. And it's in those moments that I had a new revelation of who God is and who God is to Suzanne, you know. And that's why my faith is even stronger now than ever. I I can walk into a room very comfortable with my faith. I don't care where, who, what. I am. So, um, he and I, my relationship with God is at a point in which he's like, "There goes my special little girl.

She's special. She might be on the special side of of heaven, but I am daddy's little girl." And I get to live that. And I get to know that he cares about little me. No matter who I am, no matter what I do, no, no matter all of the dot dot dots, I could be the greatest thing today or nothing tomorrow and he still look at me and love me. And so that to me is transformational. And that to me was the first part of my healing. And then to be able to now go and start speaking in churches and everything else like that led me to restoration, led me to the idea of God being able to restore what was broken, restore the functionality of of who I am and all. So when when I look at myself and I can look at a patient and just saying that what you are seeing as far as you are concerned is so minuscule in comparison to who you're supposed to be and it doesn't matter how you're feeling you are not what you feel you are not what you feel you know and so I think that that is the radicalness in regards to that those seven months being away from my son gave birth to rebellious person.

And so when I sit with a patient or I go because I do uh do inh home therapy too. When I go into a home, I go in with a sense of this is more than just your parent or you just calling. This is where I get to have the opportunity to help you experience what I experienced and which is which is healing Jessica in in in essence and that's what everyone wants you know when you look at everything that is happening that's what everyone wants freedom and peace and I always say freedom ain't free and peace is expensive there are a lot of things that you have to just be able to do to get to that level of peace. And and and I'm I'm not there yet, but I am on my way. I'm finding I'm finding my way. And so that's what I hope to do with with others is to help them uh find their way. There's a show that I absolutely love.

Um and it is called where they find their families. I think it's long lost family or whatever. And it says you have to find all of your pieces. And I just believe that in some ways that a part of this work is being able to find your pieces along the way. That some somewhere along the line as I'm meeting with uh a patient. I'm not going to as a therapist, my job is not to give them the pieces. Is for them to just be able to look in their own spaces and find their peace. and they may go to somewhere else and find the other piece, but the goal is to find all pieces of themselves. Susette, what was your what was your brother's name? Colin Johnson. Uh he is still the most amazing person. He's still with us. He is still with us. He had a um traumatic brain injury, but he is only by the grace of God, he is still here with us.

Well, I was going to ask if you wanted to dedicate our episode to Normal and Rose or your brother, and I think we've got to go for both. Yes. My mom, she always uh say to me, that why can't she be normal? And she always say to me, "All I want for you to be is is is happy." I I remember the day that, you know, Zavon was taken. And I said to myself, I need to see her first before I checked out cuz I'm checking out of here. And she took me in her arms. And and I think that that's where she gave me um she she literally birthed me all over again because I could not imagine going through the that time and she would just she would just pray with me and she would just pray for me and and and sometimes I look at her I cannot believe that this woman 5 foot four on her tallest day and she had the strength of Gibrala.

Like this is a woman who did not have a lot of education, came into this country with nothing and with five kids, five of us, and was like, "Y'all are going to succeed. I don't I don't I don't care. you're going to make and she made the sacrifices for us to be here. I am absolutely here because of my mom. I am so grateful. I am so grateful that God gave me her. I I She is my gift. She is my number one supporter. She pour into me and I always say that she has five kids and I'm her 10th child because I gave her such a run for her money. Oh my god, Jessica, if I could go back, I would beat my own ass. I would just be like, "Girl, what was going on with your ass?" You know, it was Yes, it was. But um she is incredible. She is an incredible, incredible, incredible person. And I just pray that God just continue to just allow me to show her.

I said to someone, I know mountains can move because of normal in Rose because I have literally seen her move mountains. Well, I'm going to write that down right now cuz I need to start saying it, too. And we all need to know more about Normal and Rose. She's going to have to join us sometime. Yes. Yeah. She's she's awesome. And you know she she will love on you, hook for you, but she will beat you. Don't don't get it wrong. She she I am here because of some good old Jamaican discipline as a mother. Don't you touch her grandson. She did not. But she she became a gentle parent when she became a grandparent. But I'm so grateful to her. They do say that. They do say that. Huh. I feel like I hear that. We are so sorry to cut this episode short. We uh encountered some tech issues. How about that? In 2026, we'd like to to thank Susette Fagan for joining us. She's with Doortodoor Therapy. Um her two books titled Raising Davids as well as When Death Do Us Part Ends are both available on Amazon, another to come soon. Please reach out to either us or Susette if you'd like to get in touch.