Today we’d like to introduce you to Brooke Andregic.
Hi Brooke, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
It all started in a land far away, in south central Pennsylvania in the late 80s, where an (eldest) daughter was born to expectant middle-class parents. “Like Taylor Swift?” several of my swiftie clients have asked in the first few moments of rapport-building. Yes, but the story ended far less remarkably, although I certainly have nothing to complain about! Every day, I am able to live the double dream of being a therapist and a business owner. My name is Brooke Andregic, I’m a licensed clinical social worker and founder of Tiger Counseling, a cozy and casual counseling practice in rural Liberty SC (right outside of Clemson SC). Not many people get to achieve one lifelong dream, let alone two, so I try to never take even the hardest days running a solo practice for granted. My teacher father and nurse mother emphasized the importance and value of education and I knew I wanted a career of which I could be proud, beyond that I had no idea what to pursue. Of all my childhood influences, it was my 2nd generation Italian grandmother whose position I really envied in that she was The Boss. She owned and operated her own dress shoppe back in the day when being a female entrepreneur was far less common, decades before #girlboss. She called the shots, she operated on her schedule, and she was solely responsible for her success or failure, depending on her own ideas and own hustle. She had to sell the shoppe and retire before I was of age to even consider her business as part of my future, and there was no random money rolling around left over for a start-up business of any kind for some other endeavor, so I let that ambition hibernate for a decade or two as I pursued a college degree which surely felt like the straighter path. My dad generously drove me down for a visit to my favorite literary town upon me finding out there was as college there, and my love at first sight affair with Charleston began on April 7, 2005. One trip to Chile, one trip to Mexico, and many to Folly beach later, my college years went by in the blink of an eye. In 2009,fresh out of College of Charleston, with a Bachelor’s degree in Spanish and Latin American Studies and no real skill set other than being able to say, “ I don’t have a job” in two languages flawlessly, I was hired as a client service coordinator at a domestic violence shelter. There I sat in on my first ever group therapy session; I can still remember my exuberant self talk on my drive home at midnight (cruel hours, 4 day weeks), “This is a thing!?” How can I be a part of this on a better paid basis?! It was months (that added up to about three years) of hesitation and vacillation before I decided to purse the degree in the most economically viable option. While working odds jobs like waitressing and babysitting (several of the moms of the kids were therapists!) I was able to focus on earning my Master’s in Social Work from University of South Carolina through their part time program at the Lowcountry Graduate Center (MSW Student of the Year 2016). But while I was busy growing so was my adopted home city of Charleston. A place that felt like home to me from day one was now turning into a real metropolis and losing all of its small town charm and quaintness. I developed fatigue with living in the urban environment where I had completed challenging internships in child abuse non-profits and homeless shelters. I was ready for the cool fresh rural air of the mountains, or at least as close as I could get with my state license. I scanned for jobs in the rural areas of the state and happened upon the warm- sounding ‘golden corner’ of the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. So my significant other and I packed up everything we owned up in a (too small unfortunately) Uhaul and for the first time in a decade I left the peninsula and drove diagonally, literally to the edge of the state and seemingly civilization, Long Creek SC. I love the reaction I get when I flex on this with local clients, who look at my incredulously and gasp, eyes-wide, “You lived in LONG CREEK?!” For several difficult months, indeed, this city girl and her beau survived by the skin of their teeth. I got my first position as a licensed social worker at a therapeutic boarding school in the backwoods where I envisioned cool night breezes and a tree-canopied office , zero traffic commute, and a tidy, small case load. But as fate would have it, the school was sold to a different owner almost immediately upon me being given the position as lead clinician, as the new owner had new staff and new visions for the future of the school, of which I was very misaligned. Thinking I had really crashed the car of my life, and would have to return to Charleston head in hand, tail between legs, I traveled down the mountain to look for a supervisor and some advice on what to do, having no experience with a brand new license and knowing no one in town, it was pretty nerve-wracking. However, as one ship was dumping me back into the harbor of life another was sailing by and swooped me up as if my magic. A therapist who had just opened up a small practice part time in Seneca gave me the chance of a lifetime by offering to supervise me while I started my social work career in private practice. “This is a joke” I thought as I stared at her in disbelief. To put this in understandable terms, it would be like showing up to try-outs and getting offered the position of quarter back. I was stunned. I had assumed it would take me much longer, if ever, to ascend to the lofty heights of being a non-institutionally affiliated clinical social worker in her own office, with her own name on the door, I was on cloud nine. I took to practicing therapy like a fish in water, and the rest is history! After four and half years of a beautifully mutually beneficial relationship, my supervisor and boss saw me through several more years of obtaining my terminal clinical license, guiding me as a novice therapist while I helped grow her young practice. I left during the pandemic in early 2021, as the rural and outdoor expanse of the four acre old fixer upper farm house property I had just purchased in Pickens County made more sense in the Covid days, when therapist-client distance and al frescoe counseling became a necessary adaptation. Plus, then clients could meet the orphan who came along with the property as a bonus (a common occurrence in the upstate), a calico-torty stub-tail kitten I named Marbles (cause I thought she was lost, initially). Turns out she was just showing me that I was in the exact right place.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It was definitely challenging to get up the confidence to move out into the unknown away from the herd (group practice, actual city) and take the chance that people would come see me in my shabby fixer-upper ,basically in the middle of nowhere. I’m quite sure I never would have done it without two influences, the constant encouragement of my significant other (of almost 15 years) Billy, and also my solo-preneurship mentor, a licensed esthetician for several decades, Patricia Howerter Verbeeck of (Electrolysis by Patricia in Townville SC). She helped encourage me along every step of the set up and gave tons of kudos and practical advice about running a one woman-show out of your own dwelling, while Billy is and always was a tireless optimist and cheerleader, cutting through a loud and persistent chorus of what-ifs and dooms and doubts and quit-cooties on my end. Working on your own can be isolating, so having a right hand man and left hand woman to reach out to whenever has made all the difference in the world! I can’t emphasize that enough to those thinking about going out on their own, find your people who believe in you enough that they won’t let you give up on your dream. Speaking of making the dream happen, I can’t forget how necessary it is to partner with others who can do the part of your business that you can’t or won’t so that your clients still get the benefit.
Probably the very biggest bump on the business road was trying to get the money flowing consistently from the sessions I was working. I was drowning in insurance jargon and had the amazing luck to catch Stacey Lambert (Carolina Billing, Pickens SC) on a random friday at 4:55pm in April 2021, choking back tears, dialing up every reimbursement company listening to swarmy after swarmy voicemail of billing companies whose rates I could not pay, spiraling into thoughts of how I made a huge mistake and what would I do now, when she returned my call exactly three minutes after I left a message with her secretary. Stacey assured me that all I had to do was practice therapy and she would chase down all the money from the insurance companies and clients and act as the go between in the event there are issues (there are often issues:) and that she could start Monday. I could hardly believe my ears. Five years later, she is just as responsive and competent as she was then, and I trust that I would never have the space to practice therapy as well as I can without her taking the main burden I can’t and don’t want to handle off of my plate. These three are quite literally my dream team! Since then things have basically run quite smoothly, although Hurricane Helene really knocked us down for a spell. Helene modified my property in that now there are far less shade options for those afternoon outdoor sessions. Many trees went down, but our practice (and thankfully house) are still standing. It was heartening how many clients reached out to see if I was okay in the days following the chaos, and some also wanted to continue sessions, albeit remotely, while we cleaned up the weeks-long mess. That’s when I embraced utilizing zoom to do virtual sessions, but on a limited and on a case by case basis. Being versatile and flexible can smooth out the roughest situations while they sort themselves out, a key ingredient in the success equation.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
We offer psychotherapy sessions for individuals, kids, teens, and couples. I’m proud to announce that we just added limited group therapy here on site for special populations (womens’ issues, grief, narcissistic abuse, etc). I wanted to offer something different to potential therapy seekers by having a loud and vibrant color scheme and an actual logo, so I took the typical pastel therapy office zen green and turned it up to chartreuse and added a deep purple vs the standard therapy office lavender. Many therapy offices use pastel colors to indicate calm and serene, we are vivid to indicate exertion and joy. Expect your healing journey to be brighter and more defined. With Marbles as an obvious mascot, choosing a name was easy! But since cat counseling sounds impossible, I chose a tiger; I had heard tale that people in the Clemson area have quite the affinity for this large mammal. If you were born in the chinese zodiac year of the tiger such as myself, you might already know this beloved animal is a modern and ancient symbol of courage, strength, and independence. I’d say the most distinct thing that sets Tiger Counseling apart from other therapy practices is that it’s not emphasizing a “safe space” and tigers are not commonly associated with safety or serenity. Those are wonderful, but they are on the other side of the rainbow, on this side we are doing a lot of challenging limiting or unhelpful beliefs or actions or thoughts. There is no growth without risk, and it seems like most modern therapists don’t emphasize how challenging good psychotherapy can be. We expect that going to the gym is hard, but we hope for almost guaranteed results with consistency. Well unfortunately the reality is that going to counseling is different, nothing is guaranteed, you have to do almost all of the work outside of session. As a therapy client myself, I didn’t need a safe space, I needed a non-intimidating person to listen to me in a ,hopefully, inspiring and creative space so that I could rise to the occasion of my own life by acquiring new information or skills or insights, ie I needed a gentle kick in the behind with someone who seemed warm and competent. I tried to create the space that I would have wanted on my first day of being a therapy client myself. Clients often say they feel the vibe is laid back and comfortable, I’d call it shabby chic (I rehab a lot of thrift furniture). We might kick off our shoes on a nice afternoon and sit outside under the pines with the birds as our background music, feasting our eyes on my vast collection of red canna lily gardens , letting butterflies and hummingbirds in on our session. Or we might spend the session utilizing the vast miniature collection in the sand tray. My days as a Montessori preschool assistant taught me to always follow the child, adapted to the therapy venue it’s always the client’s choice how we approach that day’s session, as the home setting gives us so much flexibility in a cozy atmosphere that couldn’t feel less like a sterile doctor’s office setting. I’ll never forget the day a lady showed up with horse in tow…asking if I minded if she left her horse outside during our session. I glanced back at my doorway and replied ‘Well I don’t think he’ll fit, so yeah, I guess just leave him out there!’
Can you share something surprising about yourself?
Most people are surprised when I mention that my current cat is my first pet, ever. Due to a combination of allergies and disinterest, I never had a family pet growing up (fish and gerbils don’t count, mom and dad) so upon getting adopted by Marbles in the Fall of 2019, I was floored by how different my own pet cat was from what I had been told all my life about this animal. I had literally never even picked up a cat before, so the learning curve I went through with my first kitty was an eye-opening and enlightening as people who become a first time parent without ever having changed a diaper. My Marbles is a cooperative and friendly little emotionally-complex angel, so at 39 I gush about her like I’m nine and that is exactly how it feels! I share this so that you can realize that one, yes some people don’t ever hold a kitten until their 30s and more importantly it is never too late to let life make your childhood dreams come true by just showing up at the right place at the right time and recalling what they even were (I recommend therapy as a helpful process for this endeavor). Enamored with my little angel and sure she would bring me luck in my business endeavor (calico cats are the japanese “money cats”) I went to the shelter and picked her out a sister (Peaches, a fiesty tabby calico) whom she still to this day does not get along with (I’m not a pet therapist folks) and long story short I am now obsessed with rescuing strays. While people in the upstate share a love of animals the animal birth control is pretty poor and there are sick, malnourished strays just about everywhere so unfortunately it’s doubtful I will run out of opportunities for cat rescue any time soon. In the past year alone I have encountered two tiny orphans, who both got formally adopted by client families, Rocco and Emmy. So who knows, you might come for a therapy session and leave with a free kitten. Crazier things have happened. But regardless of whether you are coming or going, you’ll see a tiny plastic calico cat waving you on from the porch, in honor of our queens and the luck they continue to bring us, as we celebrate our fifth year with a Business Rate “Best of 2025” award to grace the waiting porch, dedicated to the clients who made it happen with their awesomeness! Go Tigers!
Pricing:
- Sliding scale $80-$120
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