Happy Honeysuckle Healing Center is a small therapy practice run by Danielle Pientka, LCSW-C. The practice also sometimes has two interns, one at the bachelors level and another at the masters level. These interns provide Danielle with a co-facilitator for animal-assisted groups, family, and couples sessions to help ensure the safety of all participants.
Masters level interns can also accept individual therapy clients under the supervision of Danielle. The bachelors level interns help with administrative tasks, organization, and groups.
Therapists
Danielle Pientka, LCSW-C
Danielle Pientka, LCSW-C (she/her) received her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology in 2003, then her Masters of Science in Social Work in 2005. She has practiced in a variety of settings including foster care, juvenile services, schools, and private practice. She has experience working with children, adolescents, adults, couples and families, but is currently focusing on working with children and adolescents.
Read more about Danielle here.
Grant Voigt, 2nd Year Masters Intern
Grant Voigt (they/he) is a second year graduate student at the University of Tennessee, pursuing a Master of Science in Social Work and a certificate in Veterinary Social Work. They obtained their Bachelor of Science in Geography and Environmental systems from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in 2017.
Other Team Members
These are some of the people who may be involved or help out at the practice!
Emma Cole, Bachelors Intern
Emma Cole (she/her) will be helping with groups and doing some administrative tasks for the practice.
Radiance Romesberg, Virtual Assistant
Radiance Romesberg (she/her) is our virtual assistant and handles the Reimbursify billing for the practice.
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The Farm and Animals
The farm has a few different species of animals including horses, sheep, goats, guinea pigs, rabbits, chickens, and dogs. We discuss safety and animal temperament before working with a particular species.
Consent is an important part of the therapeutic process in animal assisted work, and it’s important that my animals consent and enjoy the work.
If the animal that the client is interested in is shy or scared to work with a client, we work on self regulating so that the animal feels more comfortable around them. But regardless, we accept the animals for who they are… different animals have different personalities, just like people- we don’t expect fish to fly or birds to swim. Most prey animals scare easily and we don’t teach them to not run away when they’re scared. It’s okay for them to be nervous!
I don’t believe that animals have magical healing powers.
Animals are like people: We are all just trying to do our best to survive and thrive in a world that can sometimes be traumatic and tough and sad and difficult to navigate. Our life experiences shape who we are, and trauma may it harder for us to trust. We all have needs like shelter, food and safety that we need to meet before we can focus on personal growth. And expecting our animals to be perfect, model citizens just doesn’t accept them for who they are… I don’t expect my animals to be perfect anymore than I expect myself, my children, my spouse, or my clients.
My favorite part of getting to know people or animals are the little things that make them uniquely them. If we all did the exact same ‘right’ thing all of the time, life would be pretty boring!
I believe that the animals bring a few qualities to the sessions that benefit clients:
- They’re sensitive body language and mood, often able to sense things like heart rate, muscle tension around the eyes or mouth, and other aspects that may indicate that the person may be dangerous or scared or happy.
- They are honest about their reactions to us. They don’t lie. They don’t try to hide their reactions.
- They have unique ways of interacting with each other, with other animals, and with us.
- They give us something to pet or look at while we’re talking about hard things. The action of petting the animal can help us self regulate (and we try to make sure they also enjoy the experience!).
- They force us to prioritize self regulating so that we don’t scare them!
- We all have different qualities that attract us to a particular animal or person. Being aware of that helps us find ‘our people’ when it comes to social situations.
Training animals using clicker training is something that I love to incorporate into the work. This is a great way to learn positive reinforcement (excellent if you want to work on parenting skills), work on encouraging others, learning consistency and planning, and it helps relationship-build with the animal.
Here are some photos of our farm friends.
