Finding the joy again Virtual counseling plays a role in rural mental health care

By Danielle Nauman danielle.n@dairystar.com

MARSHFIELD, Wis. – Carissa Weber’s goal as a licensed counselor is to be sure farmers, who spend their time taking care of their animals and land, take care of themselves.

“Farmers are highly intelligent and skilled, but typically they seem to have no concept of self-care,” Weber said. “It is one thing to deal with trauma, but there is something different when your livelihood is the trauma-producer. You have to work through it. You can’t pretend it doesn’t exist. That is what I love doing, to help people work through it and nd the joy in it again.”

Weber has worked as a licensed professional counselor for the past 11 years and launched her own telehealth counseling practice, Joyful Mind Counseling, last March from her Marsheld home. Weber is working with 32 clients across the state, from Ashland to Lake Geneva. Half of Weber’s clients are directly involved in some aspect of agriculture. She offers group therapy sessions through a Zoom format as well as one-on-one sessi ons.

What makes Weber’s approach unique is her own personal connection with agriculture. Weber grew up on her family’s dairy farm and continues to breed and raise Tennessee Walking Horses.

“I was nding that a lot of my colleagues were coming to me to better understand some of their clients,” Weber said. “Having that background and that understanding is not something that can be learned without experiencing it. I started to see a need. Farmers need someone to connect with, someone who can truly understand where they are coming from. They can talk about what is stressing them without spending the entire session explaining what they are talking about.”

The mental trauma that can be dealt at the hands of a life devoted to agriculture can be varied, Weber said.

“It can be something as massive as the trauma of a barn re, the destruction of crops due to the weather; it can also be the little things that happen every day to wear a person down,” Weber said. “Someone who has never experienced that connection has a difcult time truly being empathetic to what the farmer is dealing with.”

Weber’s practice is 100% virtual, which she said is a great t for farmers.

“With all of the conveniences of technology, we can talk while they are working as long as they are able to concentrate on what we are discussing and the background noise level isn’t prohibitive to a good conversation,” Weber said.

Weber said the average age of her clients is between 24 and 38 years old.

“They have seen the generations before them struggle, and they recognize that is not where they want to nd themselves, burnt out from keeping the farm going,” Weber said. “Then the older generation sees this and asks themselves what is different, and they start to realize