Next month, our CATHARSIS Nashville Substack will have a similar theme: we wish to highlight the stories of four people who may not be household names, but whose character, courage, and dedicated have had an out-sized impact on our community and beyond.

First, we’ll get to know a friend of mine from college, Harry Allen, whose career has included founding a bank to help creators and becoming CFO of his alma mater.

Then, we’ll hear firsthand from Liz Beatty about her and her husband Yarnell’s journey of international adoption, heartbreaking loss, and turning grief into advocacy.

Finally, we will learn about Michele Johnson, co-founder and Executive Director of the Tennessee Justice Center, whose work has resulted in better healthcare for 665,000 children in our state.

We are deeply inspired by these individuals’ contributions in making this world a better place, and we believe you will be, too!

p.s. Please save the date 11/30 for another Green Hills Grille community benefit dinner on “Giving Tuesday Eve” - more info to come as the date approaches.

After choosing CATHARSIS as the nonprofit recipient on your account, a percentage of Kroger transactions using your account number or Shopper’s Card will support CATHARSIS, at no added cost to you. It also will not affect your member benefits or gas points.

Simply log onto Kroger.com, go to this link: https://www.kroger.com/account/communityrewards/, and search for CATHARSIS Nashville.

You can also use the Kroger app on your phone, if you prefer. To do it that way, tap the three vertical lines in the upper right corner, then “Community Rewards” is under the Rewards menu.

Right now ten Kroger customers have CATHARSIS as their community nonprofit. We hope to double that engagement with support from our loyal Substack readers.

If you shop at Kroger, this is an essential, user-friendly program. So, make use of this feature to support your favorite nonprofit. Additionally, check to see if other stores you frequent give back to local nonprofits through similar programs.

In other CATHARSIS news, Dr. Kreiselmaier is leading an Intro to HSP Group in September. Learn more here or on CATHARSIS’s FaceBook page. Also, CATHARSIS is excited to announce that we will start regularly posting on our CATHARSIS Nashville Instagram account. Join us over there to to receive another perspective on CATHARSIS’s mission.

Thank you for supporting CATHARSIS and any local nonprofits.

Summer 2026 Newsletter

Nashville is actually one of the most well-resourced cities in terms of numbers: there are over 1,000 therapists practicing in the greater Metropolitan Nashville area, as well as more than 200 nonprofits in the mental health sector. Belmont, Lipscomb, Trevecca Nazarene, Tennessee State, and Vanderbilt Universities (among others) all have programs to train master’s- and doctoral-level clinicians. Unlike our rural neighbors in some parts of Tennessee, where patients may struggle even to find a therapist they can meet with in person, we have a plethora of options available.

So if the problem isn’t a lack of resources, why do Davidson County residents report an average of 5.3 poor mental health days every month?

I think there are at least three major reasons.

1 - There are structural, systemic, and sociocultural factors affecting everyone’s mental health, not just in Nashville. A Spring 2025 Johns Hopkins study revealed that 1 in 10 Americans report experiencing a mental health crisis in the past year, with the highest rate (15.1%) occurring in young adults ages 18-29.

Climate change, political tensions, loneliness, financial uncertainty, increasing family estrangements, the constant bombardment of “bad” news, and the nonstop pace of living in the Information & AI Age all contribute to rising levels of anxiety and depression. Because these factors stem from dysfunction in our very society, there is only so much that even the best therapists and most motivated clients can do to alleviate mental health struggles when their suffering is not just due to individual situations (life crises, genetic vulnerability, etc.).

2 - The economy of the “healthcare” industry works against effective healing and care. As I’ve written before, the unfortunate reality is that the U.S. medical model has become more about money than either “health” or “care.” While the law requiring insurance to provide mental health coverage on par with physical health coverage was an important step in the right direction, it can only go so far when most insurance companies pay mental health providers unsustainably low reimbursement rates (this also varies, somewhat arbitrarily, according to their type of license). Most therapists I know are not in-network with insurance because making a living that way would require seeing so many clients that we would quickly burn out altogether.

So, when we need therapy—and most of us do!—usually we end up having to pay out-of-pocket, which is not an affordable option for many people. And that’s just individual psychotherapy: if a person finds themselves needing to be hospitalized or receive intensive outpatient treatment, there are limited options that are affordable outside of really top-notch insurance coverage.

3 - Finally, I think the mental crisis continues because a key trait of 50% of people seeking therapy (i.e., SPS/HSP) is mostly being ignored. If research showed that half of all cardiology patients exhibited a particular factor, I’d like to think that the medical community would pay attention and adjust their treatment strategies accordingly. Yet about half of all therapy clients are Highly Sensitive Persons—arguably the world’s most common form of neurodivergence—and while many individual therapists know about HSPs and work to serve them skillfully, I have found zero mental health centers consciously and intentionally specializing in this trait.

This is where CATHARSIS comes in. We seek to provide “highly sensitive healing,” by HSPs and for HSPs, with the keen attention to environment, beauty and creativity, gentle approaches, continuity of care, integrated somatic and spiritual modalities, and access to nature that HSPs especially need (but from which most any patient would benefit!). And, with the help of generous community support, we aim to make it available to clients of any socioeconomic status.

While most of the factors contributing to mental health distress are far beyond what any one organization or approach can address, this significant gap—the lack of HSP-oriented care—is in our wheelhouse. We’d love to have you join us in this journey of bringing Clients And Therapist-Healers Activating Relational Synergy In Sanctuary (CATHARSIS) into being!

We wanted our subscribers to have access to this slide deck link because it is a great resource to send to someone new to CATHARSIS or just to gain greater understanding of our mission.

Thank you for helping us spread the word about what we are working to create!

However, beneath the surface of this quickly growing, dynamic city there is systemic inequality and a public health crisis that must be faced.

Recent studies show that Nashvillians’ mental health needs are much greater than similarly sized cities and it is impacting our ability to live. Adults in Nashville report 5.3 poor mental health days per month on average. This is significantly higher than both the Tennessee average of 4.5 days and the national average of 3.8 days, according to the Nashville Community Health and Well-being 2019 Survey from Nashville Health.

The average person in Davidson County is spending nearly a full week every month struggling with stress, depression, anxiety, and/or emotional distress. This unaddressed need impacts their ability to do their best work and thrive, impacting the efficiency and environment of the entire city.

The data about Nashville women is even more startling. Women reported 6.2 poor mental health days per month, compared to 4.3 days for men. Vulnerable populations are even more at risk. The days of mental distress are significantly higher for those without a high school diploma, for the unhoused, and those incarcerated.

Nationally, Tennessee ranks last for frequent mental distress among women. Also, a 2025 report from Mental Health America found that Tennessee came in 42nd for overall access to care.

While about one in five Nashville adults report being diagnosed with a depressive disorder, only 15% have ever received any professional help. The tens of thousands of people who have been diagnosed with a depressive disorder but are stuck behind barriers to receive mental health care need a better road to help. 70-90% of individuals with mental illness see improvement in their symptoms and quality of life after finding and participating in some form of treatment.

In a city filled with innovation, world renowned creativity, and beauty, the lack of appropriate care is a costly crisis. CATHARSIS Nashville hopes to be a vital part of the equation to ensure that Nashville is a city where all are proud to call our home. We are striving to change how mental healthcare happens and to bring care to those who the current model leaves out. CATHARSIS will be a space with affordable holistic care that addresses the urgent needs of Nashvillians so our city can succeed.

Read more about these stats:

https://www.nashvillehealth.org/wp-content/upload/2019/12/nash-health-mental-3.pdf

https://www.wkrn.com/news/local-news/nashville/study-reveals-stark-differences-in-mental-well-being-in-nashville-zip-codes/

https://www.americashealthrankings.org/explore/measures/mental_distress_women/TN

We are so grateful for your ongoing, faithful support of CATHARSIS Nashville.

p.s. We’ll be slowing our Substack posting schedule to every other week during the summer and perhaps beyond. Feel free to let us know if you have questions for us or topics you’d like to hear more about!

We are grateful to Eastwood Christian Church, Calvary UMC, the Center for Contemplative Justice, Glendale UMC, and Belmont UMC for your warm hospitality and willingness to host us in your beautiful spaces.

Here are a few favorite photos from the 2/22 event, taken by Lina Bravo:

We are also grateful to everyone who attended and made generous contributions!

Several of you have asked when our next concert will be. We are taking a pause on performing, even though we love it, because the details and promotion take such time to coordinate. If you love to plan events and would like to volunteer as a future concert coordinator, please let us know.

If you missed the last concert (or would like to revisit parts of it again), below is a link to our YouTube post with the video, which begins at the 13-minute mark. Thank you again to everyone who made our BUMC concert such a special and heartfelt time together!

• 5 current Board members & 3 past members

• $27,776 given during the past two years by

• over 72 donors

• After startup costs, 50 cents of every dollar donated goes directly into the sustainability fund (a.k.a. “baby endowment”), which now has over $13,270

• 5 benefit concerts given,

• 4 other events, plus

• 15 Board meetings & 2 Board retreats

• at least 28 conversations with potential community partners

• 128 subscribers to this weekly Substack, 85 followers on Facebook, and 98 on LinkedIn

• around 1500 hours that I’ve volunteered thus far, plus

• another 900? hours volunteered by our Board members & friends

• 80 to 400 people we anticipate CATHARSIS will serve each year, depending on size of staff and level of long-term therapy need

• $8,000,000 (est.) needed to launch CATHARSIS Nashville

• $22,000,000 eventual goal for our sustainability fund—then we start tithing!

And now I’ll share a few numbers from my private practice as a psychotherapist... I started practicing part-time in 2010, increased to full-time after finishing my PhD in 2016, and went back to part-time two years ago to work on starting CATHARSIS. During that time I’ve facilitated:

• 15 Intro to HSP Groups (4 meetings each)

• 4 ongoing HSP Therapy Groups (76 meetings total)

When I last calculated my hours in May 2025, I’d held:

• 5,836½ therapy hours working with 207 clients

Overall, that averaged out to 28.19 sessions per client. However, as I gradually came to specialize in HSPs, many of whom need and benefit from long-term therapy due to their (our!) depth of processing, I found that I’ve worked with my current clients for an average of 183.3 sessions.

I share this information because it may be helpful in understanding why it is difficult to anticipate exactly how many people CATHARSIS will be able to serve each year. Because our “Highly Sensitive Healing” approach values depth over breadth, quality over quantity, we will likely not serve as many clients as other centers, but they will have consistent, long-term relationships with experienced therapists for as long as they need.

Finally, between 2016-2025, David and I have given away over $205,685 in sliding scale and pro bono work.

We believe in this soul-healing vocation because we have seen so many lives changed by it (our own included), and we want to combine the best elements we know for holistic healing into a new kind of place that truly creates a win-for-all solution.

Award recipients in the department’s 2026 Emerging Excellence competition were announced at a recent “Connections” awards and celebrations event.

Winner in the Design Category was James Hill, for his Flyer for CATHARSIS Nashville. The judges complimented the flyer’s architectural design and strategy, noting that it demonstrated a clear understanding of the audience and the organization’s purpose.

James was also the Winner in the Writing Category, for his Organizational Feature for Tennessee Justice Center’s Community Outreach. The judges said that this feature excelled at grabbing readers’ attention immediately. They noted that it can be hard to blend strong storytelling with facts, and said this feature did so beautifully.

We feel very blessed to have James on our team and are so grateful for his design skills that are already helping us communicate the CATHARSIS mission and vision throughout our community.

Donating is also tax-deductible, and it helps us establish solid financial footing as we work hard behind the scenes to connect with potential “Angel Investors.” If you are willing and able to a make monthly donation (of any amount) to CATHARSIS, please click here to email us and we will set it up for you. Thank you so much for considering supporting us in this way.

Thanks to the generosity and spirit of everyone who attended, we surpassed our $750 goal by raising $900.57 for CATHARSIS. Their support showed us what a community can do together. The atmosphere of the dinner was filled with community, warmth, energy, connection, love, and generosity from 4:00 to 9:00.

Thank you to Green Hills Grille for being an excellent and accommodating host, the exceptional food, and even more exceptional generosity!

We appreciate each and every person that took time out of your day, showed up, made the night so memorable, and being part of our mission. Everyone’s support made a difference.

Our next event is our annual Thank-You Breakfast (for monthly donors) on May 23.

Come on by 2002 Richard Jones Road today, April 27th, from 4:00-9:00 pm, or if you are on a tight schedule, they offer takeout and delivery options. Use their website to order online, delivery, or check the menu: https://www.ghgrille.com/

There is plenty of parking, great food, hospitable atmosphere, and our board will be present. We would love to see you for dinner.

https://www.ghgrille.com/

· Psychological Disorders: Anxiety, shame, depression, social anxiety, and phobias paralyze those who need help from entering a potentially anxiety-producing new environment.

· The Environment: HSPs are very affected by their environment. Which means that clinical, crowded, stifling, or industrial environments lead to more stress, withdrawal, and sometimes trauma instead of healing.

· Lack of understanding: HSPs can have a difficult experience explaining with words how their minds works. Feeling alienated, misunderstood, judged or more alone is a great risk for HSP treated by non-HSP mental health providers.

· Too Clinical: An art based, bodywork, and/or spiritual holistic approach is required for many highly sensitive people.

· Cost: Potential clients do not seek care because they cannot afford quality care.

CATHARSIS Nashville exists to support those overcoming these hurdles to needed psychological healthcare. We’ll do this specifically being by and for HSPs. We will be set in a place that is cozy, gentle, creative, and vibrant with a focus on affordable, holistic care.

Spring 2026 Newsletter

After announcing at a few places that we were seeking an intern, I was delighted to hear from someone who not only has interest and skills in this area, but hopes to build a career in nonprofit PR (Public Relations). James Hill is a Belmont student, an Eagle Scout, and a violinist who intuitively “gets” the vision for CATHARSIS and is already adding value. He’ll be lending us his assistance in multiple areas through the end of the year, including authoring some of our future Substack posts.

Please read on to get to know James—we are deeply grateful for his help and delighted to welcome him to the CATHARSIS team!

Tell us a little about yourself . . .

I am a fifth generation Nashvillian, and I am a junior at Belmont University majoring in Public Relations. My hobbies include reading old books, spending time with animals, and volunteering. I hope to work in nonprofit public relations after graduation.

What excites you most about CATHARSIS?

I am a strong proponent of specialized mental care using music and art therapy. Traditional mental healthcare often can fall short by being overly clinical or ignoring marginalized communities. That’s why I find CATHARSIS’ mission of affordable holistic mental health critically important.

Why did you decide to serve as our intern?

I am thrilled to utilize my skills for such a worthy organization, and it will enable me to put all the lessons I am learning in the classroom into practice for an emerging organization.

What are you most looking forward to about our journey these next few months?

I am looking forward to using my skills to increase the number of people on the CATHARSIS journey. I know that if more people hear about the work and the mission of CATHARSIS, they will want to give what they can to bring the vision to life. I hope I can play a role in amplifying the mission of the organization.

The prompt was, “What is it like to come to my office?” The professor, an experienced psychoanalyst, was wanting us to engage in empathic imagination of what it would be like to be our own client arriving for the very first visit.

Coming to therapy is a vulnerable experience, especially at the beginning, and first impressions matter. Does the office feel inviting? Is it neutral and calming, home-like and cozy, colorful and creative? Is the couch (or chair) comfortable and at a Goldilocks-like distance (not too close, not too far) from where the therapist sits? How does your therapist greet you?

Before that, though, you have to be able to find the office.

Do the directions make sense? What’s the parking situation? Is there a keycode, a receptionist, some other way to get in and know you’re at the right place? For most therapists, appointment times are rather precise—your therapist isn’t likely to run late as medical doctors might, but that also means that they probably won’t be available to come meet you if you’re early (and heaven knows Nashville traffic can be tricky to estimate these days). So, there’s usually some sort of waiting area.

At my own office, like many private therapy practices, we use a keypad at the front door. Only therapists and our clients are given the code, so that the general public isn’t able to enter the building. Once inside, clients can make a cup of coffee or tea or grab a drink from the fridge, and there are places to sit and wait till their session time. I love that I get to work in what looks like a house rather than a corporate office park or clinical medical building.

Because HSPs make up about half of all therapy clients and are more affected by their environment than non-HSPs, the setting for CATHARSIS will be one of the key elements for “Highly Sensitive Healing.” What will it be like to come to our healing center?

Whether we repurpose a former church building or build a new structure, we want to make sure there is green space around it, some sort of garden, plenty of stress-free parking. It’s also an important priority to be located near a bus line so that we are accessible to clients who don’t own a car or are unable to drive.

My hope is that the café element will make it especially comfortable for people to come to our offices. I’m envisioning a hallway that leads from the public café into the private healing center, so that when someone walks that way it won’t be obvious whether they’re visiting the restroom, or using a keycode to enter the healing spaces. Then if they have time before their session(s), they might pause and meditate in the interfaith chapel, or play a song on the piano in the music room, or simply sit in a beautiful place and take a moment to breathe.

Another reason to love GHG is that they are very generous and involved in the community. Every Monday night, they partner with a Nashville nonprofit to which they donate 10% of their revenue. We reached out to them a while back, and on April 27 they’re going to do a “benefit dinner” for CATHARSIS!

Please mark your calendar to have dinner with our Board that evening at Green Hills Grille anytime from 4:00-9:00pm, and invite friends and neighbors to come out and join us. The more, the merrier!

We are so grateful to the GHG owners, manager, and staff for their generous hospitality and are looking forward to a wonderful evening together.

Address: 2002 Richard Jones Rd., Suite 104A - Nashville, TN 37215 (plenty of parking)

Since there’s only one of me, a handful of Board members, and a lot of work to be done to launch CATHARSIS, we are looking for volunteers to join us!

Here is our current wish list—please let us know if it would bring you joy to participate in one (or more!) of these ways:

• Plan, promote, and organize event(s) in the community. Types of events could include anything from another benefit concert, to a private dinner party, to a “lunch and learn” presentation about Highly Sensitive Personality. We currently have more ideas than we can implement, so we’re looking for someone who enjoys doing the planning and coordination.

• With our current Board members being ages 40 and up, we’d love to connect with someone who could help us do social media. It would also be great to have a few social media ambassadors to regularly “like” and “share” CATHARSIS posts to help spread our reach.

• If you enjoy writing, we’d welcome you to write guest columns for this Substack! Topics could include creativity and mental health, HSP and other types of neurodivergence, stories about holistic healing, why we need a place like CATHARSIS, or any other relevant subjects that are on your heart.

• Join the Angel Investor Questers (our fundraising committee)! We’ll train you on how to build relationships throughout the community, as well as when and how to “make the ask” for donations. We have a supportive team approach with lots of positivity and a desire to learn and grow this skill set together. We check in via Zoom for 15-20 minutes most Mondays at 5:00pm.

• If you are tech savvy, I’d love to have your help with updates and improvements for our website! It is hosted by IONOS and designed using Wordpress.

To let us know your interest in volunteering, please send us an email at CatharsisNashville@gmail.com. We’d be thrilled to hear from you!

Thank you so much for considering joining our work and spreading the word to people in your circles. As our Board Chair Linda Kosack says, “We have a serious mission and we have a lot of fun together.”

p.s. The photo linked with today’s post is from a recent Young Leaders Council nonprofit networking event. Many thanks to Kristy Cuskelly for joining me in hosting the CATHARSIS table!