Local couple encouraging therapy in Black community, getting to the Elephant in the Room

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WJBF) – Benjamin and Vivian Ross have a heart for spreading the message about the importance of therapy, especially for couples.

Despite personal and global setbacks, the Rosses are thriving with their business, Elephant in the Room Counseling Service, and they sit down with WJBF to talk about they overcame those obstacles.

Thank you for being here for Celebrating Black Excellence. So, let’s get start with how you guys met. You met in 1998 while working at the Augusta State Medical Prison. So, what was that like? What was going on with that?

Vivian: We always say we met in prison. (Laughs)

Benjamin: During that time, I was a mental health counselor at the prison, and Vivian was a nurse. We had been at the facility for two years and never met. I had a close friend of mine working on that unit, and I went on the unit to see my friend, and then, I noticed her. So, I asked my friend Debra, “Hey, who is this?” And then, all she could do was look at me and smile and say, “She’s a good girl.” (Laughs)

Vivian: And I always tell him I tricked him. (Laughs)

So here we are today: you’re together and you have your business, Elephant in the Room Counseling Service. Now, what inspired the name Elephant in the Room?

So, we had a contest. That’s how we came up with the name. I had a birthday was coming up. We knew that we were getting ready to open a practice, and so, we sent out information to all our family and friends that was going to be at my birthday dinner. We said, “Hey, we need a name for our private practice that’s opening up. So, they sent in about 20 names, so we narrowed it down to ten. Then, at the party, I had all of the names on a paper and had everybody vote on it, and Elephant in the Room won, which was good because that’s the name that we wanted. Yes, I love elephants. So, the fact that ended up being the name, and it goes perfect because we were primarily with couples. So, the elephant in the room always comes up.

What made you guys want to start the practice?

Benjamin: We were working at our church conference, Church of Hephzibah, with that ministry with couples. Pastor Reverend Tony Millard, our senior pastor, asked us to take this on, and we found out late on that there was a need for it and that we had to go beyond the doors of the church. We had to go outside to dig deeper into the area because we saw that many couples needed some help or assistance, and we had to go beyond just praying in church to get really to get down to what people to help people needed.

Vivian: You know, church folk are only going to tell you just a little bit. They’re careful about what they’re going to tell you, but when we get in the privacy of our office space, now, they do the real work. What we learned from that started that working with just couples is the actual mental health need of the community. So, now we do a whole lot more work than just working primarily with couples.

Now, let’s start with your first workshop in 2019. How was that experience for you?

So, the experience was great. That was the first workshop, which was to announce Elephant in the Room Counseling Services, that we were coming, and the services that were going to be providing. For it to be our first workshop, we probably had about 40 couples there. It was a large workshop, and it was all couples-related. It was really interesting, but immediately after that, two weeks later, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. So, all of it just kind of went really, really fast.

Just to update everyone, you are in remission; you are cancer-free. So, congratulations on that. How was that? How did your cancer diagnosis impact your business?

So, where we thought we were going to start a business, and then just run with the business, we had to say, “Okay, we’re going to start a business, but we can’t run as fast as we thought we were going to run.” Then, because of chemo, surgery, radiation, and all of those pieces, we still opened the business and started the business, but we only accepted a few clients at that time. So, the business set up at that time was really, really small. We may have only seen one or two clients a week at the very beginning while I was dealing with the cancer. But you know… God is good!

And Benjamin, you were her caretaker. So, how did how did that impact you?

I knew I had to be strong for her. I went to every appointment. I sat there, tried to encourage, and tried to be positive. I think for me, the experience was amazing because I never got down because of her personality. She’s a kind of bubbly person. So, I was just talking to her. There was only one incident where I got excited and upset because of the medications she was receiving, but the nurses were fabulous. They just converged on her, and everything went well.

Now, not only did you have to deal with cancer, but then we have COVID. How did COVID impact your business?

So, we started the business in 2019, and then, there was cancer in February of 2020. So, I had another job that I was working. I quit that job to go full time with Elephant in the Room. That was in February. In March, we were shut down because of COVID, and we had to completely pivot the business. Initially, the business was all private pay. I mean everything that God does… He just works everything out. In order for us to be where we are now, I think we had to go through that. In the beginning, everything was private pay. All of our clients were probably small business owners at that time. When COVID shut us down, we lost every client. So, we had to pivot. We started getting credential on insurance panels, which by towards the end of the year, we were accepting all major insurances. So, whereas some people in Augusta-Richmond County wouldn’t have been able to afford the services, now, they can get services because of insurance. However, we wouldn’t turn anybody down from services anyway.

Why should people consider counseling or therapy? Why do you think that’s important?

Benjamin: I think is very good in a sense that many times people don’t want to talk about the issues or problems they may be having, especially in the Black community. We grew up with, “What stays in house, remains in the house.” You don’t go outside talking, and being able to receive counseling from somebody that is outside of your family is needed because you are protected. So, there should be an ability to where this is your safe space, and you should be able to speak about anything that you want to. I encourage people, particularly my thing is Black men, because the women will come. I challenge women to motivate their mates to come for counseling. I encourage Black men to come because we grew up even as young kids, we fall down: “Boy, get up! Stop that crying!” It’s a masculinity thing that we have to get past, and that’s what’s blocking us from achieving the mental health services we need.

Vivian: You asked about COVID, and how it impacted. Another thing that happened during COVID was everybody was isolated. So, anxiety rates grew. People recognized that they had anxiety, and that social media helped a lot with that, too, because as people were at home and couldn’t go out, they were on social media. It was a lot of people at that time talking about mental health, mental health services, anxiety, depression and being secluded. It gave people a platform to not just talk, but other people to receive the information. So, a lot of a lot of people didn’t receive services because they didn’t understand the services, and then in our community, we weren’t going to see no therapist. However, being able to see somebody who looks like us on social media talking about therapy and explaining a little bit about therapy, mental illnesses, anxiety, and depression, you’re like, “Oh, wait a minute, I got some of those same symptoms. Maybe I need to talk to somebody.” So, now to see that our community is starting to reach out more… there’s a stigma. It’s definitely still the stigma in our community, but definitely to see our community reaching out for therapy or looking for a therapist that looks like them. We get the calls every week looking for a therapist. One of the questions that they ask on the phone is, “Is the therapist Black?” We’re like, you know what? I hate that COVID happened, but I’m glad people were able to get additional information that they need about therapy and get a better understanding about therapy. So, yeah, that’s where we are today. When we get those calls, we say, “Yes, your therapist is going to be Black.” […] So, that safe space that we offer for anybody that needs services, that’s exactly what they’re going to get: privacy and a safe space. They’ll get to learn a little bit more about their illness, and they’ll learn about their family, their grandmother, their grandparents. How many times have we heard, “Oh, my momma had that same thing, or my grandmother used to do that same thing,” but they didn’t know what it was. So, now we are able to educate our community on mental illnesses, what it looks like, and how it differs for us versus someone that’s not of color.

So, if people want more information on Elephant in the Room Counseling Services, how can they get that information?

We’re located at 2101 Central Avenue in Augusta, Georgia. You can reach us at (706) 750-2809, and you can go online to our website, www.eitrcounseling.com.

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