Behind the Business: Christina Suarez Helps Clients Navigate Trauma, Grief and Life’s Hardest Moment

People do not usually seek out a mental health counselor because everything is going well.

They come after a loss. After trauma. In the middle of anxiety that has become difficult to manage. Sometimes they are carrying the effects of physical, emotional or sexual abuse. Other times, life has simply changed in a way they no longer know how to navigate on their own.

Those are the moments Christina Suarez has built her career around.

Christina Suarez, MA, LMHC, is the founder of Christina Suarez Counseling Services, LLC, an adult-focused counseling practice now based in Mount Dora. For more than a decade, she has worked with people facing trauma, grief and bereavement, anxiety, depression, major life transitions and other deeply personal challenges.

Her decision to establish her practice in Mount Dora was intentional.

Christina saw an opportunity to bring mental health services into an area where she believed greater access was needed.

“I wanted to access an area of Florida that does not have as much access to mental health services,” she said.

For Christina, that means being available not only for the everyday stresses of life, but for people dealing with experiences that can fundamentally change how they see themselves, their relationships and the world around them.

A Career Shaped by Difficult Conversations

Christina’s path into counseling was not built entirely from textbooks or professional training.

Her interest in the field was influenced by her own experience navigating difficult periods in life and discovering firsthand what it could mean to have professional support during those moments.

That experience eventually led her to earn a master’s degree in Mental Health Counseling from Rollins College and establish Christina Suarez Counseling Services in 2015.

Since then, some of her most significant work has centered on trauma and loss.

Her professional background includes serving as a bereavement counselor with Hospice of the Comforter, helping people cope with death, grief and the complicated emotions that can follow the loss of someone important.

That experience remains reflected in her practice today.

Grief does not always follow a predictable timeline, and it does not always look the same from one person to another. For some, it can affect relationships, identity, routines and the ability to move through everyday life. Christina’s role is to help clients make sense of those experiences without expecting them to simply “move on.”

Working With Trauma, Abuse and the Experiences People Carry

Christina also works extensively with people who have experienced trauma, including sexual, physical and emotional abuse.

It is one of the areas of her practice she believes people may not immediately realize is part of the work she does.

For someone who has experienced abuse or another traumatic event, the effects can continue long after the immediate danger or experience has passed. Trauma can affect relationships, confidence, emotional responses, sleep, anxiety and the way a person responds to situations that others may consider ordinary.

Christina is a Certified EMDR Therapist and incorporates Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing into her trauma work. EMDR is a therapeutic approach used to help people process distressing and traumatic experiences.

Her work may also draw from cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness, person-centered counseling and other approaches based on the individual needs of each client.

There is no single template for the people who walk into her office, and Christina does not approach counseling as though there should be.

The common thread is helping people better understand what they are carrying, develop healthier ways to cope and begin working through experiences that may have felt overwhelming for years.

She provides counseling in both English and Spanish and offers in-person services from her Mount Dora office as well as telehealth throughout Florida.

Creating Access to Help Closer to Home

Christina’s move into Mount Dora also speaks to a larger challenge in mental health care: finding help can be difficult even after someone has made the decision to seek it.

For Christina, building a presence here is one way to make that process a little easier for people in the area.

She is not beginning a new career in Mount Dora. She is bringing years of experience into a community where she wants to establish long-term roots.

Her goal for the coming year is straightforward: stability in the Mount Dora community.

That means developing relationships, strengthening referral networks and becoming a resource that local residents and professionals know is available when someone needs support.

The Business Behind a Counseling Practice

There is another side to Christina’s work that is less visible from the counseling room.

A private practice is still a small business.

And like many small-business owners, Christina has learned that being good at the work itself does not automatically mean people will know where to find you.

At one point, her referral base had slowed considerably.

Rather than simply hoping things would change, she invested in search engine optimization for her website so people actively looking for mental health services would have a better chance of finding her practice.

The strategy worked. She began receiving more calls from prospective clients.

That experience changed the way she thinks about running a business.

“To be visible, a business owner needs to interact with the community as often as possible,” Christina said.

For most businesses, visibility can mean more customers.

For a counseling practice, it can mean something more consequential: making sure someone looking for help at a difficult point in their life knows where that help exists.

It is one reason Christina has also begun building stronger connections through the Mount Dora Area Chamber of Commerce.

Her Chamber membership has helped her connect with other professionals in the community, something she sees as increasingly important as she establishes the practice locally.

Success Built on Trust

Christina’s definition of success has also changed over the years.

Today, she points to referrals.

In a profession built around highly personal and often painful conversations, a referral carries particular meaning. It means someone — whether a former client, another professional or someone familiar with her work — trusts the practice enough to recommend it when another person is looking for help.

That trust is difficult to measure on a spreadsheet.

But for Christina, it is one of the clearest signs that the work is making an impact.

After more than a decade in counseling, she is now focused on building that same trust in Mount Dora.

Not by trying to make difficult experiences sound simple.

But by making sure people facing trauma, grief, abuse, anxiety and some of life’s hardest moments know there is somewhere they can begin talking about them.

Quick Insights

Why Mount Dora:
Christina wanted to establish her practice in an area where she saw a need for greater access to mental health services.

The work people may not know she does:
Christina works with people who have experienced sexual, physical and emotional abuse and specializes in trauma-focused counseling.

Biggest business lesson:
Visibility matters. Christina has learned that business owners need to consistently engage with their communities and make it easier for people to find the services they provide.

A challenge she overcame:
When her referral base slowed, Christina invested in SEO for her website. The increased online visibility resulted in more calls from people searching for mental health services.

Definition of success:
Earning the kind of trust that leads people and professionals to refer others to her practice.

What she is building now:
A stable, long-term presence in the Mount Dora community.

Advice to other business owners:
Use multiple platforms to make your business visible rather than relying on a single way of reaching people.

Learn More

Christina Suarez Counseling Services, LLC is located at 1502 N. Donnelly St., Suite 110 in Mount Dora and offers in-person counseling as well as telehealth services throughout Florida.

Learn more at christinasuarezcounseling.com or connect with Christina Suarez Counseling Services on Facebook and Instagram.