How The Orchard Got it’s Name
One thing they don’t prepare you for when you are training to become a therapist is how to pick a business name for if or when you want to open a private practice. And as someone who always hated the name generation stage of group projects or teams in PE/gym class, I would have been pretty happy to have some preparation for this.
Which is to say it was a bit of a challenge for me to come up with a therapy practice name.
It can be common for therapists to open a practice under their own name, but after some deliberation, I decided I wanted to protect my name and not incorporate it for a couple reasons. One, it just didn’t feel right and I’m a big fan of trusting my gut. Second, I started some mental health adjacent projects during my PhD and published some of my doctoral research prior to opening The Orchard and I want those to have their own space and room to grow in relationship to my career outside of my therapy practice.
Once I made that decision, you could find me scribbling in journals, scouring the internet for beautiful lost words, flipping through my grad school notes for quotes I loved, and mind mapping for weeks trying to decide on a name. I didn’t want something too cliche or confusing or devoid of any connection to me.
I was looking at the variations of therapy practice names related to growth, roots, blooms, shedding - not just because I love my house plants but because they evoke stages of therapy & mental health care, and as a sentimental person, I’ve always infused meaning into names in my writing of characters. Naming this practice felt as though it should be no different.
In that phrase of plant related words is when I came to the word orchard.
Looking up what orchard meant “a place with fruit trees” got me thinking what is required for a living thing to be so nourished and nurtured to be able to flower. Definitions included words like intentional and cultivation and system or collection or group.
It reminded me of what my PhD research on collective trauma brought to light - things are both individual and collective at the same time. One person impacts the world around them and the world impacts them right back; it’s always dual.
Then I went digging into the symbolism of an orchard and again the duality was present “abundance, renewal” and “productivity, growth”. There is work and there is bounty. An aspect of sustainability for the wellbeing of the environment or landscape. Even sometimes symbolizing a sanctuary (otherwise called a place of refuge and protection).
Remember that gut feeling I mentioned loving following? It was an immediate yes once I spent time with the meanings, symbols, and stories related to an orchard.
So while we will have one-to-one virtual therapy sessions here at The Orchard, growing or nurturing or pruning or harvesting the tree of you (stick with me in the metaphor here, please), I wanted the name to acknowledge that the work we do together goes back out into the world too. In the metaphor this can be understood as your nearest trees in the rows (your immediate relationships, your community, your ecosystem).
All of these rows are also part of an even larger orchard because you and I both have entire communities, pasts, historical and relational impacts that will be present with us too. After my doctoral research, that was incredibly important to honor in a practice name, especially with the state of the world today. We are both log onto our session coming from all this * waves vaguely at everything * and there is space for that impact.
Thank you for sticking with me in that symbolizing and metaphor to understand how and why The Orchard became The Orchard 🌳🌳🌳🌳
See you in there,
Dr. S