Angela specializes in the psychotherapeutic treatment and guidance for women of all ages working to overcome eating disorders, self-injury and compulsive shopping. Her expertise lies in the emotional and personal development of each person she works with.

Angela helps individuals to identify underlying feelings and emotions, and to express them with out needing to harm themselves. She assists her clients in achieving lives free from destructive tendencies.

We talked with Angela to learn more about getting started in business as well as how she created an environment to support her work.

Angela always knew from a very early age that she wanted to be her own boss. Being raised by an entrepreneurial father, she felt she just had the gene to carry out this legacy.

“I can never work for anybody, but also even as a young person I always imagined being a therapist and having my own little office, ” explains Angela. “I didn’t think it would end up being this cute – I’d find a cottage, but it just presented itself.”

After graduating from UCLA and Pepperdine, she wanted a private practice. She was working at a non-profit in Santa Barbara, but wasn’t particularly happy with the situation. She explained that the job was not bad, but because she really wanted to be seeing clients and doing her own thing.

She got her office and started getting clients. “I was one of those therapists that kind of ventured out and went online before a lot of other therapists did – probably because I’m young and I appeal to a young population and they find a lot of their services online,” explains Angela.

After being in business a few years, Angela decided it was time to rebrand her business to make it more authentic to who she was. After discovering a graphic artist through a women’s organization, the graphic artist worked with her to develop a brand.

“I actually took pictures of my office and sent them to her and told her what I liked and who I appeal to,” Angela details. “She really created more of a warmth and softness to my branding and we highlighted the color yellow because my office in San Luis Obispo is more yellow, brown and coral. In Santa Barbara, it’s more blue and brown. We incorporated all of those colors.”

In designing her office space, the idea for Angela was to have it more like a room in her house rather than a sterile environment. “I think more because I’m a therapist I think I would use the word sterile more than corporate just because I think when people think about going to therapy they think of like a couch – I mean obviously I have a couch but it’s a loveseat and my clients don’t have to lay down,” describes Angela.

Angela doesn’t like “matching, matching” decor but more of an eclectic design. Her inspiration for her space was the Anthropologie store. Included in her decor is her Thomas Paul stationery and little things that make it appealing and not like an office. Her file cabinet is more like a piece of furniture and not the typical metal file cabinet.

“If I see something that I think I could use in my office that would make it better, then I buy it. It could be at a vintage store, a thrift store, IKEA, Pottery Barn or wherever,” expresses Angela.

When further describing her office, she explained it’s personal, but neutral. She doesn’t have pictures of her family because she’s a therapist. Instead she has pictures of sunsets that she took while traveling.

Angela’s waiting room has a theme of birds because she discovered a display at Anthropologie that incorporated birds. When describing one quirky think that is in her office, she describes a sort of bird origami that hangs in the waiting room.

Because she lives in a small town and there’s height ordinance with no building over four stories high, most of the businesses have very unique signage.

Angela didn’t want to just have any sign that could be easily designed at somewhere like Staples so she found a wood carver who designed a unique sign for her. “I have three – two of them are in San Luis Obispo because one’s on my door there and one’s on the street. Then there’s one outside my cottage in Santa Barbara and he built it on a stand and it’s really special,” she describes.

As with all our interviewees, we always ask what is one piece of furniture, office equipment, technology, etc. they couldn’t live without to function in their office. We get a lot of people who say their computers but Angela was the opposite. She has an actual printed daily planner that she uses.

For this therapist, her space isn’t just about creating an environment that is representative to her but it is also about creating a supportive environment for her clients. “Being authentic to my clients with my space, helps my clients see me,” Angela shares.

To learn more about Angela, visit her on the web at, www.angelawurtzelmft.com.

You can also listen to Angela’s interview in the archived show on Sheic Space radio.