Taylor Hooton Foundation > Hoot’s Corner > Podcasts > Episode 73: How Mental Health Impacts Us – Brandi Garza, LPC
May 31, 2022
Episode 73: How Mental Health Impacts Us – Brandi Garza, LPC

The ALL ME® Podcast

How Mental Health Impacts Us – Brandi Garza, LPC

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) estimates that 16.2 million U.S. adults had at least one major depressive episode in 2016. This represents 6.7 percent of the U.S. adult population. Depression is most common in ages 18 to 25 (10.9 percent) and in individuals belonging to two or more races (10.5 percent). What are the primary factors that are contributing to the mental health issues and illness found in adults? Is there a link between too much social media use and an increased risk for mental health illness? Can counseling improve outcomes and our mental state? These are the questions we discuss with Brandi Garza, a Licensed Professional Counselor, who works a variety of individuals to help them overcome their daily struggles.

About Brandi Garza, LPC

At 11 years old, Brandi Garza declared therapy to be hers! As a person adopted at 13 years old, she has the unique lens of living on “both sides of the tracks”. Brandi lived an experience as a child of parents in poverty, with addiction, and severe mental illness. She attributed her very survival to those that leaned into their humanity to truly see her. Over the last 18 years in the mental health field, she can sum up her purpose in those three words. She is most joyous and at peace in her work when she has guided a human being to be seen. Parents “seeing” their children, peers, colleagues, siblings, scholars to staff, or in the most precious sessions to “see” the self. As a first-generation high school graduate, UTD college graduate, mother, adoptee, proud pan woman, Brandi has been given some unique perspectives that allow her as a therapist and employee to be an expert empathizer. Her work with shelters, juveniles, urban communities, the world of addiction and so much more has only strengthened her belief that we are all human beings have a human experience begging to be seen. 

Brandi truly believes that we all have our answer within ourselves. It is not a clinician that gives it to you but rather a counselor that unveils it with you through kindness, authenticity, and love. Those are not to be confused with timid or weak. It takes great strength in a relationship between client and counselor to charge through the barriers to one’s happiness. 

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