Andorra Turner, LPC

From a young age, Andorra Turner had early exposure to mental health care. Her mother was a speech pathologist who worked with children with disabilities and after seeing the benefits of her mother’s work, Andorra’s interest grew toward mental healthcare. After graduating from UNC-Asheville with a degree in Psychology, Andorra went into the Peace Corps where she taught English to children in Indonesia for two years.

While in Indonesia, Andorra learned a lot about people, including how to continually find ways to relate to others. The culture may have been different in Indonesia and daily activities such as saying hello may have made it challenging to connect at first, she enjoyed the challenge of finding things in common with others.

Andorra enjoyed getting to know people who are different from her, learn from their experiences and recognize that while every person is different, we all experience the same things: happiness, sadness, anxiety, stress and trauma. After Indonesia, Andorra knew she wanted to work one on one with others.

After moving to Colorado, Andorra began working as a caregiver in a group home for adults struggling with developmental disabilities. While she had secured a degree in psychology, it was time to further her education by learning outside the classroom and in a real-world setting. On the path toward continuous improvement, Andorra is also enrolled in an online graduate program.

Counseling grew as a career opportunity for Andorra while working at the group home. Especially after seeing the benefits of counseling with her group home clients, she knew that counseling would be a good career choice. 

Andorra is excited to learn and grow at WellMinded Counseling, which will help her decide the direction to go in counseling such as CBT, EMDR or other types of therapy. By helping provide community access to counseling, Andorra is confident the team at WellMinded Counseling is making a difference. 

When Andorra isn’t working or studying for school, you can find her hiking, camping or enjoying the company of her two golden doodles

Interview

Stephanie: Hi I am Stephanie Konter-O’Hara licensed professional counselor and owner of WellMinded Counseling and I have here with me today Andorra Turner licensed professional counselor candidate, if you could please introduce yourself to everyone and that would be great. 
Andorra: hi, my name is Andorra so I graduated from Adam State University with my Master's in counseling in the summer of 2021 and I've been practicing since then with Stephanie typically work with adults of 18 and up who we're dealing with anxiety depression and ADHD is also one of my specialties but I work with a number of other issues too such as substance use I like existential counseling as well. A little bit about me I was before I was a caregiver in a group home for adults with developmental disabilities and before that, I was in Peace Corps teaching English in Indonesia for two years.

Stephanie: okay great thank you so much, so I’m just going to start with asking questions, Why did you become a therapist? 

Andorra: I've always had a passionate interest in helping people, listening to people, I love hearing about different people's life experiences and how that has shaped them to be who they are and therapy is just a good way to turn that passion into making a difference in people's lives. 

Stephanie: Great, what is your general philosophy and approach to helping others are you more directive or guiding?

Andorra: you know sometimes people need a mix of both I think guiding is best helping people come to their own conclusions but sometimes people come in needing a direction to go and so maybe directive it first and then go into guidance is that make sense. 

Stephanie: what do you think is a strain that makes you different from other therapists?

Andorra: I think the life experiences I've had that have led me to meet such a huge variety of different people and cultures just let me be very open-minded when meeting new people especially those who may come from different backgrounds and me and I think I can more easily tailor the way I do counseling for clients needs. 

Stephanie: what makes you passionate about helping people through their issues? 

Andorra: I'm passionate about helping people because it brings me fulfillment and happiness in my own life and so I the more I help people the more I help myself and I think I bring that out in counseling. 

Stephanie: okay great, thank you so much for participating in our interview today, and hopefully, everyone learned a little bit more about you and what you reaching out to you.

Andorra: alright, thank you.