Samaritan Center brings holistic approach to mental health in Dripping Springs

DRIPPING SPRINGS — The Samaritan Center has enhanced the mental health services it provides to individuals and families in the city of Dripping Springs.

The 501(c)(3) nonprofit agency has been serving children, adults and families in Central Texas — with offices in Austin, Georgetown, San Marcos, Dripping Springs and Wimberley — since 1974. Using a holistic approach, the team at the Samaritan Center believes there is a close relationship between the mind, body, spirit and community and that attention to all of these is essential in improving mental health. For optimum health, treatment includes counseling, integrative medicine, care management and peer support, as well as spiritual enrichment, based on an individual’s needs and beliefs.

While the Samaritan Center has been serving communities from its main office in Austin for 50 years, the Dripping Springs location did not open until 2022. This came on the heels of several residents emphasizing that there is a need for accessible healthcare, especially for children, in the area, according to director of development Anne Mullen.

“Our goal is to do accessible, high quality mental health services, but that means affordable to us. So, we have a sliding scale based on your income and we also take insurance, which is really a great thing as I’ve been in situations where I didn't have insurance and couldn't afford healthcare and I would have absolutely loved to know about the Samaritan Center then,” Mullen explained. “I think we want to provide those services and tailor to the needs of the individuals in Dripping Springs. With increasing mental health challenges, especially among the youth, we've been told in Dripping Springs that having a dedicated resource like the Samaritan Center can ensure families access essential support.”

Clinical Director Teresa Shigemasa said that it has become more challenging for Dripping Springs residents to travel to areas that have more accessible healthcare, so she is grateful that they were able to open a Samaritan Center location for those families.

“Dripping is such a growing community. I mean, it is huge. It keeps growing and the access to travel to other places besides Dripping is becoming more difficult as the south central area tends to keep growing,” she said. “It's a very large community and they need something that's accessible close by.”

There are several services offered through the Samaritan Center, including but not limited to: Hope for Heroes that supports healing and restores hope for veterans, military individuals, first responders and their spouses and children; individual therapy; couples and family counseling; various types of therapy for children (sandtray, play, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, etc); telehealth; and integrative medicine.

The Samaritan Center also recently received a $1,000 grant from The Lynch Awareness Fund of the Dripping Springs Community Foundation. This funding has been instrumental in broadening the scope of counseling treatment options and enhancing the quality of mental health care for local residents, according to Mullen.

The grant has facilitated the purchase of various therapeutic supplies to support play-based interventions — these tools are considered to be vital for helping children and adolescents express themselves and heal from trauma through play.

“It [allowed] us to purchase some new therapeutic supplies, like play therapy, figurines, art supplies, children's books and games essential for play-based interventions. It funded the acquisition of TouchPoint Essentials, a wellness device,” Mullen said.

With this support, Samaritan Center’s Dripping Springs-based therapist, Jan Venable, M.Ed., LPC-S, is participating in a professional development workshop titled, "IFS Immersion: Integrating Internal Family Systems (IFS) Across Clinical Applications." IFS is a powerful, evidence-based psychotherapy that helps individuals identify the roots of conflict within the context of their family systems, leading to greater well-being, according to the Samaritan Center. Integrating IFS into her practice will help Venable to provide more comprehensive care to children and adults in the community.

“[It] enhances the quality of care we give, which is really what we're always trying to do, just to provide the best care we can,” Mullen added. “That helps us continue to offer mental health services in this community.”

Along with advocating for mental health awareness overall, Mullen shared some goals that she has for the Samaritan Center — and specifically for the Dripping Springs location — as she looks toward the future.

“Expanding our range of therapeutic modalities to address the community's needs, so basically, making sure we are meeting the needs because everything changes so quickly … Then, also strengthening our partnership with local organizations, like Patriots’ Hall, to enhance our presence in the area; I'm the fundraising girl, so that's my big goal. But then [also to] increase accessibility through in-person and teletherapy options, so ensuring families can receive the mental health support they need,” she explained. “There’s a Dripping Springs committee forming out of the Samaritan Center, but really this year, [we are looking] to raise some capital, raise some money, so that we can expand our office in the area and the therapists that we have. That's very new, fresh in its early stages, but it's really exciting because we have some Dripping Springs go-getters on our committee, I think, that have been a pleasure to work with so far.”

Knowing that sometimes it can be difficult to take that initial step and ask for help, both Mullen and Shigemasa agreed that the outpatient counseling at the Samaritan Center can be a good option for people who don’t know where to start.

“Samaritan is considered an outpatient clinic. We're not a hospital. We're not a crisis center. Crises can come up and we have a protocol and procedure for dealing with those, but basically, pretty much just being human and dealing with life, there's stumbling blocks to that. And when we might want to go to a relative or a mom or a dad or someone really close to us, they're very emotionally invested, so they may come across with giving more advice than they are guidance. I like the difference in those words to just kind of get you to kind of figure some things out on your own,” Shigemasa said. “All of us have situational things that happen, right? There's times we have lost a loved one and we're grieving horribly or we've lost a job or it may not even be anything that significant. It could be just, I want to be able to communicate better with my husband, my wife [or] whatever, dealing with all kinds of things. But when you go to a really skilled therapist who has a lot of empathy, we like to hold a compassionate, safe space for people to explore and also to collaborate.”

To learn more about the Samaritan Center, visit www.samaritan-center.org or call 512-451-7337. The Dripping Springs office is located at 28465 RR 12; the Wimberley office is at 700 West Summit Drive.

For the Crisis Hotline, call 988.