Just a year after opening her first location in Edmonton, St. Albert-raised entrepreneur Sophie Gray is bringing her journaling -app-turned-therapy-practice DiveThru to her hometown.
Set to open in March in Jensen Lakes, DiveThru will be a five-person psychology clinic looking to offer locals a more accessible therapy option.
Gray launched DiveThru in 2019 as a guided journaling app, which then evolved over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic into a full-fledged therapy practice with a storefront location in Edmonton last year.
In an interview, Gray said she thinks what makes DiveThru stand out is its hybrid appointment options, its use of technology, and its consistent effort to reduce stigma.
“Number one is our hybrid approach,” Gray said. “You can take a session in person or you can go online, so when it's cold weather like this and you don't want to come in person you can easily put your appointments online.”
“We're really making sure that we're able to deliver services in a way that reflects the day-to-day lifestyle of our clientele, which is things are always changing.”
For technology, Gray pointed to DiveThru's online “matching tool,” which people looking for a new therapist can use to see if any of the clinic's staff would be a good match for the kind of help they're looking for.
“Our matching tool has definitely been a huge hit with our current clientele,” Gray said. “It takes five minutes. You can match based on the very strict things you're looking for... but then also more on the characteristics and approach you're looking for in your therapist.”
“Whatever it might be, we're really using our tech to make the experience of going to therapy smoother, from matching to managing appointments to between-session care.”
As the one-year anniversary of opening the DiveThru location in Edmonton nears, Gray said her approach seemed to resonate with many, hence the quick decision to open a second location.
“We thought it was a natural next step to expand,” she said. “There's clearly clientele that are really resonating with us.”
The connection, Gray thinks, is due to DiveThru's efforts to destigmate mental health and attending therapy.
“We're really making mental health something we're not ashamed of,” she said. “I think [we] really resonate with what we'd like to say is today's generation.”
“Anyone can relate to more of a — I don't want to say lighter — but more of an approachable and not kind of hush-hush approach.”
Gray did say one difference between DiveThru's Edmonton location, which is near Whyte Avenue, and the soon-to-open location in St. Albert is that St. Albert's location is being designed to accommodate more families, rather than individuals.
“We definitely made our room sizes larger as we do think we'll see more families and kids in St. Albert,” Gray said. “We're identifying from what we've seen in other practices in the area that family and children therapy is much more popular.”
DiveThru's St. Albert location is set to open in March, although Gray said her team hasn't determined an exact day yet.
The practice also offers a reduced rate for those who are eligible and offers direct billing for those whose health insurance plans cover psychological services.
