Beehind the Scenes with Brooke Christenson

For Brooke Christenson, opening Phoenix Therapeutics was a way to close a gap in mental healthcare she first saw during her military service. While stationed in Bahrain with the U.S. Navy, she took part in medical evacuations for service members facing mental health challenges, and the limited access to therapy and ongoing support she saw there inspired a career helping others.

Today, she’s a licensed marriage and family therapist, Navy reservist, mother of two and founder of Phoenix Therapeutics, where she serves veterans, first responders and families in rural Northern Illinois.

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From military medicine to mental healthcare

Brooke’s time in the military shaped how she understands trauma, leadership and the transition back to civilian life. It also left her with a belief that meaningful treatment starts with understanding people’s experiences and giving them a safe place to feel heard, and that belief became the foundation of Phoenix Therapeutics.

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Bringing mental healthcare closer to home

Brooke grew up in Elgin, Illinois, with services close by, but she noticed that people living farther west often drove 20 to 30 minutes for an appointment. So when she founded Phoenix Therapeutics, she chose Hampshire, Illinois, to bring care to a community that needed it.

The name reflects the purpose behind her work. In ancient mythology, the phoenix rises from its own ashes as a symbol of renewal, transformation and hope, and for Brooke, that image captures the path to healing (finding strength after difficult experiences and the possibility of a new beginning).

What began as a solo practice built on about $500 has grown into a team of therapists, an intern and administrative support, all sharing Brooke’s mission of helping people move forward.

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Building a team around a shared mission

Brooke’s military leadership experience shapes how she supports her clinicians, and she treats the practice as a shared effort.

“This is not just Brooke’s show. This is our show. I can’t do it without you.”

She encourages shared ownership, talks openly about how the business runs and mentors future therapists through partnerships with Northern Illinois University and Wheaton College. Even if a clinician eventually opens their own practice, she sees sharing what she knows as an investment in the profession.

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Looking beyond traditional therapy

The same belief in resilience and transformation behind the practice’s name shapes how Brooke works with clients. Trained in EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and certified in trauma treatment, she pairs trauma-informed care with creative approaches to healing. As a Certified Therapeutic Game Master, she has used tabletop role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons to help clients work through difficult experiences.

During her training, she worked with a veteran whose fictional scenario brought up emotions tied to his military service, which gave him room to explore different choices and feelings. For Brooke, it reinforced that healing doesn’t always follow a traditional path, and sometimes a new way of telling a story can help someone start a new chapter.

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Balancing a growing practice

Running Phoenix Therapeutics means more than clinical care. Insurance requirements, Medicare and Medicaid credentialing, documentation and admin all need attention, and trauma therapy calls for a flexibility that insurance structures don’t always allow. Brooke manages all of it alongside her Navy Reserve service and homeschooling her two sons.

A military mentor once told her that some responsibilities are rubber balls that bounce back when dropped, while others are glass balls that break. For Brooke, client safety and her team’s welfare are always glass balls, so as the practice grew, reliable systems became essential.

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Why Brooke chose Zanda

When she opened her practice, Brooke needed affordable software that could grow with her. After using SimplePractice and TherapyNotes, she found Zanda through a Facebook recommendation that praised its customer service and how quickly the team responds to feedback, and her own experience has matched.

“I’ve had nothing but good experiences with Zanda’s customer service.”

She values accessible support, helpful resources and control over optional features. Most of all, she wanted software that makes running her practice simpler instead of adding to her workload.

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From eight hours of documentation to less than one

BizzyAI: Scribe has made one of the biggest differences to Brooke’s week. With about 20 to 25 appointments a week, she used to spend seven to eight hours on clinical notes, and she shared that having ADHD made documentation especially challenging. Now she uses Scribe to draft her notes, then reviews and edits them before signing off, and her weekly documentation takes less than an hour (a reduction of over 85%, by her estimate).

“Before BizzyAI: Scribe, it would take me about 7 to 8 hours a week to do notes, because I just struggled with them so hard. Now, [it takes] less than an hour.”

She’s since introduced Scribe to her therapists, too.

“The way that I see it is, hey, you’re getting time back for you.”

That time goes back into her clients, her team and her family.

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Making everyday communication easier

Phoenix Therapeutics added Zanda’s SMS messaging in 2026 after noticing that appointment emails sometimes went unread or landed in spam folders. Text messages reach clients more directly, and while Brooke hasn’t measured the exact change, she’s seen fewer missed appointments and more reliable communication across the practice.

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Brooke’s lessons for other practice owners

Brooke encourages other practitioners to keep learning, stay flexible and invest in their teams, and she recommends exploring trauma-informed perspectives from specialists like Gabor Maté and Bessel van der Kolk. Her biggest lesson is that a successful practice grows from sharing knowledge, supporting your clinicians and staying connected to the reason you entered the profession.

From military medicine to building a thriving therapy practice, Brooke’s journey has always centred on helping others move forward. With a supportive team and tools that reduce administrative work, she’s creating more space for the people and purpose behind Phoenix Therapeutics.

When it comes to choosing tools that make running a practice easier, her advice is simple.

“Try Zanda, because I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with how easy it is.”