Takoma Therapy: Building a Better Model for Mental Health Care

“I didn’t really set out to have a group practice this large,” Simone Jacobs explains. But when a psychiatrist unexpectedly retired, offering her the chance to take over the lease and sublet rooms to other clinicians, she stepped in. Today, Takoma Therapy is home to more than two dozen clinicians working across 14 rooms in a suite just off Carroll Avenue in Takoma Park. 

Perched in a brutalist-style high-rise that once housed Washington Adventist operations, the practice has become a trusted fixture in the Takoma Park-Silver Spring community—and a quietly radical experiment in how mental health care can be delivered with care, clarity, and ethics at the center. Over time, she realized she could create a practice where therapists could grow, rather than just clocking sessions. “We’re taught to fix people,” she says. “But here at Takoma Therapy we walk alongside our patients instead.”

 A Therapist Who Thinks Like a Systems Designer

Simone’s approach is rooted in compassion—and she is realistic. At most private practices, therapists are pressured to see 30 to 40 clients a week. That’s neither sustainable nor healthy, she argues. “I don’t think you can see 35 clients a week and stay sane.”

Instead, she’s built a model that both sets minimum client requirements and protects her clinicians from burnout. “We start with the assumption that clients don’t need to be fixed. They need to be heard, validated, and understood.” Depression, for example, might feel like a weighted blanket—but it often functions as a shield from more profound trauma, she says. “That perspective changes how we respond.”

Simone also trains her clinicians to use non-pathologizing language, encouraging each team member to bring their unique style while maintaining a trauma-informed, system-aware lens. Her goal is a “mental health environment that isn’t about labeling individuals. Let’s pathologize the system instead.”

Creating Space. Literally and Culturally.

From its physical setup to its hiring model Takoma Therapy has been developed with intention. Each therapy room is curated to feel distinct and comfortable, a far cry from sterile office vibes. “I don’t believe in ‘safe spaces’,” Simone says. “No one can tell another person what feels or doesn’t feel safe. But you can feel when someone cares enough to have designed a space with you in mind. Safety is co-created.”

That same philosophy extends to her hiring practices. The team embraces diversity not as a checkbox, but as a strength that reflects the multiple paths to healing. “Our therapists come from all kinds of places and backgrounds. There are many paths to healing. Each patient has to discover the one that fits.”

Doing Business Differently, Despite Insurance Struggles

While the practice accepts plans from several major insurers, Simone is candid about the financial and emotional toll of dealing with insurance companies. “It’s the most challenging part of the business,” she admits. From delayed payments to opaque denials, the model often undermines clinicians’ ability to focus on care. She still pays her therapists on time, even if insurance reimbursements are late – a practice that nearly cost the business during a clearinghouse data breach in 2024.

Responding to the need to build in resiliency, she’s exploring new revenue streams, including creating CEU (continued education) training for other mental health professionals. The program is called "Confidence in Practice" and will be available to other therapists in 2027. 

One course she’s developing will address racial trauma as an ‘active,’ not past, experience. “There’s no language in mental health for being inside the same trauma as your client,” she says. “But for Black therapists, that’s often the position we are in. We also need frameworks that name and address the shared experience of active racial trauma that can be affecting us as much as it does the client. Too often it's an unspoken narrative in the room that needs to be recognized and honored so we can heal together.”

Deep Roots, Wide Vision

Simone’s personal story is as rich and complex as the work she does. Born to a white British mother and a Black father from Oklahoma, she grew up in the U.K. Her father’s family has deep ties to the Creek Nation, where her ancestors were enslaved but later granted tribal citizenship.

She draws on this lineage in her community work, including talks and workshops that explore the connections between slavery, systemic racism, and modern-day mental health. One of her upcoming passion projects includes sharing her father’s photographs of Black life in 1960s and ’70s Oklahoma with survivors of domestic violence. “The point I am making with this approach is that too often, our responses to trauma are pathologized. But if you look more closely, you’ll see that they are actually intelligent and creative ways of surviving impossible situations,” she says. “That’s the thread I follow.”

The Takoma Therapy Growth Plan

Takoma Therapy continues to grow, with Simone seeking new clinicians who are aligned with the practice’s mission and approach. She’s also interested in connecting with funders, community organizations, and therapists eager to work in an environment that emphasizes learning, intention, and ethical practice.

In the past, the Maryland Women’s Business Center provided essential guidance. Events like the Montgomery County Black Collective Expo have helped Simone connect with others walking similar paths. “It’s only recently that I’ve said to myself, ‘Oh—I really am a business.’”

With that awareness comes new energy. “We’re always building,” she says. “Building better spaces. Building better models. And building something of enduring value to the people we have had the privilege to serve.”