Love, abundance, and growth. These are just a few words that Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Syreeta Butler, lives by. Having been in practice for over 14 years, Syreeta began her mental health journey at a young age. Witnessing her own family’s struggle and dysfunction, she vowed to be the person to finally break the generational trauma her family was experiencing.
She recently launched a health & wellness program with LVRN record label. Syreeta has made this one-of-a-kind in-house program a new normal in the music and entertainment industry. Syreeta specializes in complex trauma, like gun-violence recovery, helping clients heal from childhood abuse (emotional, verbal, physical, sexual), neglect, post-traumatic stress disorder, heartbreak recovery, divorce issues, betrayal, affair recovery, anxiety, depression, grief, anger, emotional abandonment, physical abandonment, career issues, and racial trauma. She brings clarity to chaos in the culture. She spoke to Formidable Woman Magazine about her passion to help others and her new partnership with LRVN.
FWM: What led you to mental health consulting?
I was an accounting major for about two weeks and realized I had to do math and that was the end of my accounting career…lol. Honestly, I really wanted to understand and heal through my own childhood and family trauma. I was literally my first client. I realized the power of being supported and having a safe space to Just B., and I wanted to provide that type of care, empathy and compassion with others.
FWM: Tell us about Just B Consulting and how you are bringing clarity to the chaos in the culture.
I’ve had this idea since I was in graduate school more than a decade ago. There were four very prominent people in the business of music that either lost their lives to substance abuse or they died by suicide, and I just couldn’t understand how or why. It wasn’t like these people didn’t have financial resources or access to the best care. Something was happening and my thought was, these people have sacrificed so much to entertain us and bring smiles to our faces, the least we can do is make sure they are all emotionally, spiritually, mentally and physically strong, so that’s when I set out to create Just B. and bring clarity to the chaos that is the business of entertainment and then it grew into, fashion, tech, sports and beyond.
FWM: You have created a one-of-a-kind-house program. Share the inner workings of your program.
It was our goal at Just B Consulting to create a community that companies could reach out to and we did all the heavy lifting. Through my journey with making mental health and wellness services mainstream for all executives, staff and creatives, I learned in order to get the companies support they felt most comfortable with a “plug and play” model. Many businesses are already overwhelmed and stretched beyond capacity, most don’t want to put another project on their plate, we take care of all that for them. We ask HR to make the introduction to the executive and staff and Just B. does the rest.
FWM: What led you to the partnership with the owners of one of the top music labels – LVRN?
I met one of the founders at a music festival in 2019 and one of their artists was struggling. I shared with them what we did at Just B Consulting and he took my card. About a month later they asked me to come to New York and meet with this same artist. I went, we hit it off and started working together. At the beginning of 2020, they saw the level of support I was able to give to their artist and they asked us to come in and support their executive team with executive training and it was such a success that they decided to bring Just B or board to create and develop their mental health and wellness department (which had never been done by a record label until then). And then Covid happened, and we were able to support the whole team with having mental health support all through Covid which was a game-changer for the whole company and music culture as a whole. I am really grateful to LVRN for being such a forward-thinking collective.
FWM: How are you helping clients today?
With so much gratitude I am happy to say Just B Consulting is thriving. We have a great team that approaches wellness from a lens that really speaks to creatives, in all mediums. It is the goal for Just B. to be the leading voice in company provided mental health and wellness support. We understand at Just B. that we as a society, and in business, can privilege both people and profit at the same time, which can be a radical concept to many businesses, especially in the creative space. We continue to be the advocates for companies that are courageous in wanting to elevate their support to the people they work with and that work for them. Personally, I still have my private practice where I am able to continue to elevate and keep my tools sharpen with working with a diverse group of individuals, couples and families.
FWM: What will people notice when working with you?
I am so grateful to have the clients that I do. Some of the more surprising aspects of the work that I do is when the client wants to publicly thank you for being in their life. This is something that still takes some getting used to because a) you never know how you’re impacting someone’s life and b) because of confidentiality I’m not allowed to speak about any of my clients to the world, but when they talk about me or ask me to be on their record or do a speaking engagement with me, it does my heart a lot of joy. Also, just seeing the growth in many of our clients has been awe-inspiring. To know the private, and sometimes public, battles they’ve had to experience while their healing is also something that I don’t take lightly. Healing sucks, it’s ugly, it’s dark and often times if you’re doing it right it’s downright painful, and we still do it because the alternative has the potential to literally kill us.
FWM: Share your mission for Just B Consulting.
Just B. is a consulting brand designed to create in-house mental health and wellness departments for companies. We enhance the overall performance and productivity while also supporting staff, executives, and creatives with creating a sustainable lifestyle. We bring clarity to chaos in the culture.
