Today we’d like to introduce you to Philip Alms.
Hi Philip, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I’ll focus on my professional journey and start by answering a popular question I get asked which is what led me to want to become a professional mental health therapist to begin with. It’s felt like an innate wiring or a gravitational pull for me. Though I was born in the Philippines, I’ve spent all but one year of my life in the Nashville area. The story that my mom has told me is from when I was in first or second grade when one of my classmates was having a hard day sitting away from the rest of the class crying. She tells me that I left the group to go sit next to the classmate who was struggling. To this day I tell clients one of my over arching objectives is to create a safe enough space that they can tell me exactly where they are and what they’re going through in life so that I can sit in that space with them and give witness to the pain they’re experiencing so that they don’t have to feel alone where they are in life.
I don’t know what a typical professional journey even looks like now that there are so many different ways for people to get into their desired career, but my journey was far from traditional. I had both public and home school experiences up through high school. My undergraduate journey was a tour of Nashville area colleges starting at Lipscomb University, two different campuses of Nashville State Community College, and ending with a bachelors in psychology from Middle Tennessee State University after 10 years of undergraduate studies. I kept the tour going into graduate school getting my masters in counseling from Trevecca Nazarene University in 2020 and jumping straight into the mental health field.
I worked in a local substance use clinic for almost six years becoming their lead therapist and was part of the 2024 class of Nashville Emerging Leaders before transitioning into community mental health at Centerstone while launching my own private practice, TELOS Counseling.
I love being part of making mental health care more accessible by working in the community mental health space while also being able to cultivate an environment at TELOS Counseling that gets to be a safe space to discover healing where you are, reorient your life towards what matters most to you, and move forward into the fulfillment found in being able to fully live your life. My practice primarily focuses on individual therapy for people struggling with anxiety, depression, and grief while also finding myself supporting more and more clients through processing trauma. Through TELOS Counseling I’ve also developed an immersive one-day outdoor therapeutic hike called “Healing The Wilderness Within” that incorporates six therapeutic principles into a beautiful nine mile hike.
One of the most recent projects I’ve launched is a community-based way to make mental health care more affordable for people who are underinsured or uninsured called, “The North Star Project” which uses the net profit of mental health themed merch to create a fund that gives qualifying clients financial support to afford the treatment they’re needing.
I haven’t always known what to do or what was next on this journey but my focus has been on showing up wherever I find myself being present in the moment with compassion and empathy (both for myself and others). The circumstances and outcomes in our life are largely outside our control, but who you choose to be along the journey is always your choice and is precisely where you can find meaning and fulfillment in life.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It’s difficult to get traction on a smooth road. I’m grateful for the difficulties the road toward owning and running my private practice has held seeing them as experiences that have given my life traction.
My own personal mental health struggles with ADHD that wasn’t diagnosed until I was 35 years old led to a lot of academic hardship in high school and throughout college. It was a frustrating journey at many points believing that I was a smart person but it oftentimes not showing on tests or my grades. I only passed one class my first two semesters of college, struggled at times as a part-time student at Nashville State Community College, and eventually transferred to MTSU where I finally got my bachelor’s degree after 10 years of college classes. Psychology was actually the first college class I passed.
I have made plenty of business and marketing mistakes along the way as I learn those things along the way but competence isn’t built through perfection, it’s built through courageously showing up in life and being willing to fail. There have been so many ways I’ve been fortunate on this journey though such as having hugely supportive parents, family, wife, and friends. I’ve crossed paths with so many wonderful mentors and colleagues who have graciously supported my growth as a therapist and with my practice. I’ve had such incredible clients who have trusted me to walk with them through their pain and suffering.
I’ve had many goals in life; some that have been accomplished, some delayed, some yet to be realized, and plenty that will never come to fruition. Orienting your life around goals leads to a journey of frustration through life with each struggle or challenge that presents. The more fulfilling way I try to live my life is to focusing on who I’m being on the journey which makes each challenge that shows up simply another opportunity to be the person it is most meaningful for me to be regardless of the outcome.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
As a LPC-MHSP, I’m dedicated to helping others gain awareness of their present moment, develop psychological flexibility, and engage in values-based actions in order to live out of a healthier and more purpose driven part of themselves.
My private practice, TELOS Counseling exists to be a safe space to discover healing where you are in your life, to reorient your life towards what matters most to you, and move you forward into the fulfillment found in being able to fully live your life again. At my office I sit down with you wherever you might find yourself in life and walk with you as you discover healing, reorient towards what matters, and maximize fulfillment in your life.
TELOS Counseling currently has three components including individual therapy, an outdoor all-day therapy intensive called “Healing the Wilderness Within,” and a community-based way of making mental healthcare more affordable called “The North Start Project” allowing people to buy a T-Shirt with all net profits going to a financial hardship fund that offsets the costs associated with individual therapy at my practice.
The primary issues I support clients with are anxiety, depression, grief, and trauma utilizing two evidence-based therapeutic approaches. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy identifies the core yearnings we have as human beings and offers a framework to help clients reorient their life from rigidly being driven by the avoidance of pain towards acceptance of their pain in order to gain access to what is most meaningful to them. Brainspotting utilizes the brain’s natural ability to deeply process traumatic experiences that it struggled to process while in a state of stress so that past trauma doesn’t continue to trigger emotional and physical responses in the present moment.
Networking and finding a mentor can have such a positive impact on one’s life and career. Any advice?
For the past two years I’ve worked two full time jobs, in a community health clinic and also at my private practice, so it’s been easy for me to get sucked into the business of 65 hour work weeks and not create space for networking or mentoring. This is actually currently an area of development I’ve been focused on over the past month. Being a private practice therapist can be a lonely and demanding job that makes mentorship and networking exceptionally valuable both for business growth and personal health. I’ve been focused on points of entry that have low energy and time costs due to my current schedule offering to buy other local therapists coffee or even simply hold a 30 minute video call. Approaching these points of contact with authenticity and curiosity has helped me get the most out of the opportunities while things like comparison as well as trying to present myself a certain way my brain deems most professional or likable instead of just being myself has oftentimes limited the value of the time I’ve gotten to spend with colleagues.
Something I’ve found a great deal of value in has been finding people outside my field that emulate qualities that are important to me as a way of developing them in my own life in ways that don’t feel like I’m just doing more work. A personal example of this would be developing the values of patience and consistency through being curious about how a friend at my gym has been able to be patient and consistent with their strength accessory work after classes. Developing patience and consistency in one domain of life does, in fact, translate to being able to show up with patience and consistency in all domains of life.
Pricing:
- Free 15 minute virtual consultations
- The North Star T-Shirt making mental health more accessible is available at my website
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.therapyattelos.com
- Instagram: telos_nashville
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-alms-lpc-mhsp-a481ba1b0/
- Other: Psychology Today URL: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/philip-alms-mount-juliet-tn/1308943
