Today we’d like to introduce you to Tyler Seabolt.
Hi Tyler, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
My journey to founding Bridge Family Therapy started long before I opened the doors in 2021. I’ve always been fascinated by how people think differently—how brains work in beautifully unique ways. When I earned my masters in social work and started working as a therapist, I kept encountering the same types of problems: the mental health system, as I experienced it, tended to pathologize difference rather than understand it.
When I talk about neurodivergence, I mean the natural variations in how human brains work—ADHD, autism, dyslexia, and yes, the neurological changes that come from trauma. These aren’t flaws to correct. They’re ways of being that deserve understanding, accommodation, and collaboration. But I kept seeing clients where talk therapy had never helped and who were often handed evaluation reports full of deficit-based language that made them feel broken. Meanwhile, I knew these weren’t broken people. They were people navigating a world that wasn’t designed for how their brains work.
I’m no different from the clients I see. Before I settled into being a therapist, I spent my teens, 20s, and 30s being an ADHD’er, soccer player, artist, carpenter, salesman, volunteer, husband, father, divorcee, and single parent. Then I became a husband and father again—this time in a blended family. Those experiences shaped everything about how I approach this work.
So in 2021, I established Bridge Family Therapy in Athens as a neurodiversity-affirmative group practice. The name “Bridge” is intentional—we’re bridging the gap between how people actually are and how the world expects them to be. But we do it by changing the conversation, not changing the person.
What started as a small practice has grown into a team of eight clinical professionals, all committed to a fundamentally different approach. And recently, I’ve been working alongside Anna McNeil Wallace of Revival Wellness and Massage to build something even bigger—Catalyst Healthcare Collective, an interdisciplinary model that puts clients at the center and connects them to a whole network of practitioners. Catalyst extends the same thinking that drives Bridge: reduce professional isolation, focus on comprehensive client care, and build something sustainable without exploiting the people doing the work. We’re still in the early stages, but watching it take shape alongside someone who shares that vision has been one of the most rewarding parts of this whole journey.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Smooth? Not even close.
Starting a group practice meant building systems from scratch while trying to maintain the values that made me want to do this in the first place. I’d seen how the industry typically works—practices taking 50% or more of clinician revenue, non-compete clauses that trap therapists, and business models that prioritize profit over people. I wanted to build something different, but “different” doesn’t come with a roadmap.
From day one, I committed to paying clinicians a living wage. Our model emphasizes mutual support over extraction. That means operating on tighter margins than practices that squeeze their clinicians, and it means constantly problem-solving to make the math work without compromising the mission.
The other challenge is more philosophical: how do you work within a medical-model insurance system when you fundamentally reject medical-model thinking? Every day, we’re translating between two languages—the deficit-focused language required by insurance, institutions, and traditional diagnostics, and the neurodiversity-affirmative language our clients deserve.
And honestly? The work itself is challenging. But that’s also what makes it meaningful.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Bridge Family Therapy is a neurodiversity-affirmative group practice serving Athens, Georgia and surrounding areas. We’re a team of eight clinical professionals committed to therapy that understands people rather than pathologizes them.
We offer a full range of services across the lifespan. For adults, we provide individual therapy addressing mood, health, relationships, and life transitions. Our couples and relationship therapy uses proven methods to improve communication and intimacy. Family therapy helps with everything from parenting challenges to co-parenting after divorce to healing generational patterns.
For children ages 3-11, we offer child therapy and play therapy, including AutPlay—a neurodiversity-affirming framework that meets kids where they are developmentally. For adolescents 12-18, we provide support through the unique challenges of growing up, building autonomy, and developing identity.
Our neurodiversity-affirmative therapy serves clients across all ages who are navigating ADHD, autism, trauma-adapted neurology, and other neurological differences. We focus on self-understanding, self-advocacy, accommodations, and building skills that actually fit how your brain works—not forcing you into a neurotypical mold.
What sets us apart is our foundational philosophy. Most therapy operates from a deficit model—what’s wrong with you that we need to fix? We flip that. The problem isn’t the person; it’s the mismatch between how someone’s brain works and what the environment demands. We help people understand themselves, advocate for accommodations, and build communication systems that work for their neurology. We also walk our talk on the business side. Our practice exists to serve both our clients and our clinicians—you can’t do one well without the other.
What I want people to know: If you’ve been through the therapy system and felt like something was off—like the therapist was trying to make you “normal” instead of understood—that’s exactly who we’re here for. We’re not interested in fixing you. We’re interested in understanding you and helping build a life that makes space for how your brain actually works.
What makes you happy?
Building things. That’s the thread that runs through everything.
I’ve always been someone who builds—literally and figuratively. I’ve built furniture as a carpenter. I’ve built a practice, a team, novel therapeutic techniques and programs, and now a collective alongside Anna and others who share this vision. There’s something deeply satisfying about taking raw materials—whether wood or ideas or therapeutic frameworks—and shaping them into something that serves people.
What makes me happiest in this work is witnessing the moment someone stops seeing themselves as broken. When a couple finally hears each other after years of talking past one another. When a kid in play therapy shows you something they couldn’t put into words. Those moments remind me why I do this.
And honestly? I love that we find something to laugh about in every session. Life can be hard, but humor is how we survive it. If therapy can’t hold space for both the heavy stuff and the absurd, something’s missing.
I’m also happy when I see the clinicians on my team thriving—building their practices, feeling supported rather than squeezed. I built Bridge to be different from the exploitative models I’d seen, and when that vision actually works, when therapists stay because they feel valued, that matters deeply.
On a personal level, my family is everything. My wife, my kids, our blended family chaos—it keeps me grounded. Life taught me early that families don’t always look the way you expect, and that’s okay. Sometimes the rebuilt version is stronger.
What I’ve learned is that the things that make me happy at work are the same things that make me happy at home—meaningful connection, built with intention. It’s why I became a therapist. It’s why I named my practice Bridge. And it’s why I proposed at one.
Pricing:
- 50 Minute Session – $130-$150
- 80 Minute Session – $160-$200
- Reduced rates available, and superbills provided for insurance reimbursement.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.bridgefamilytherapy.com
- Other: https://www.catalysthealth.care/
Image Credits
Sara Wooten
