Jeannette therapist Sarah Ludwig is on a mission to improve mental health counselors’ working environment.
Ludwig, 36, has worked for various private therapy practices in her 12 years as a mental health counselor specializing in sexual violence cases. Though she finds the field rewarding, counselors often are burdened with high case loads and low pay as a result of rising mental health needs nationwide, Ludwig said.
Ludwig and her business partner Kayla DiPaolo, 30, of Murrysville opened a therapy collective in North Huntingdon last year with the goal of boosting local counselors’ working conditions.
“People, especially in our field, are really afraid to do this,” Ludwig said. “This is why you’re not going to find a lot of these situations. We are trying to empower and get other people to jump on board with doing this themselves — this therapy collective idea.”
The pair purchased last April a 28-sided building with 56 windows for their Mind & Body Collective, located along Clay Pike.
The business, which opened in July, now houses 14 mental health workers — including licensed professional counselors, licensed clinical social workers, a doctorate nurse practitioner, a behavior analyst and a speech pathologist. Five of them are trained in EMDR, or eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy — which is designed to help clients who have experienced trauma.
All of the collective’s office spaces have been filled since October, Ludwig said. And most of its counselors have full caseloads. Across the collective, mental health professionals meet with a combined 200 clients per week, she said.
Demand for mental health services on rise
Mental health has taken a national spotlight in recent years.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified a national mental health crisis, particularly among young people, prior to the covid-19 pandemic. But the issue has only worsened in recent years, according to a report released by the CDC in June.
About 62 million U.S. adults — 23% of the nation’s adult population — were identified as having a mental illness in 2024, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Nearly half of them — 48% — did not receive treatment.
The behavioral health workforce is limited in addressing those increased needs, particularly in rural areas, according to the Bureau of Health Workforce.
As of December, an estimated 137 million people nationwide live in geographic areas where there are not enough mental health professionals to meet the population’s needs, the bureau said.
The bureau expects the shortage of mental health professionals to worsen through the decade. It predicts the nation will be short 45% — nearly 100,000 — of the mental health counselors it needs to meet client demands in 2038, according to its online dashboard.
Collective aims to lessen burden on counselors
In Ludwig’s experience, the demand for mental health services can lead to overwhelming client loads — particularly for new therapists.
“You end up seeing all these people — doing eight, nine, 10 sessions a day — and you’re making $20 an hour,” Ludwig said. “The supervision isn’t great. Everybody quits. It’s just insane. And when you’re doing that and you’re making $39,000 a year, it’s really hard to justify that.”
There were 483,500 substance abuse, behavioral disorder and mental health counselor jobs in 2024, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The average annual salary for those positions was $59,000. From 2024 to 2034, employment in those jobs is expected to grow 17%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says.
Working in a collective can help counselors balance their caseloads and receive stronger supervision, Ludwig said. In previous private practices, about 50% of Ludwig’s pay might have gone toward the practice. Mind & Body Collective practitioners pay 10% of their earnings toward a rental fee for the space.
“I just feel like good therapists that aren’t burned out and depressed and anxious and worked up themselves … do much better work, do what they want and have a good work-life balance,” Ludwig said.
The Mind & Body Collective is located at 101 Clay Pike in North Huntingdon. Each counselor sets their own hours, Ludwig says. The collective can be reached at 724-755-3020 or mindbodycollective25@gmail.com.
This story is updated to reflect the correct spelling of Kayla DiPaolo’s name.