Choosing Congruence Over Conditioning
Candice Coughenour, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and founder of Congruent Soul Therapy in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: helping overthinking, people-pleasing women finally consider themselves.
Candice launched her private practice on November 11, 2025.
A date that felt intentional.
Aligned.
Symbolic of stepping into something new.
After years of education, clinical training and leadership in group practice, she knew how to hold space.
She knew the research.
The modalities.
The ethics.
She had served as Clinical Director at an award-winning practice in Peachtree City, Georgia, mentoring new therapists, guiding them through licensure, documentation, and client care.
She loved teaching.
Loved building systems.
Loved helping others grow.
But slowly, the mental load grew too.
The responsibility.
The pressure.
The quiet erosion of balance.
Part of it was the role itself.
Part of it was her own boundaries.
As a self-identified overthinker and recovering people pleaser, she had spent years defining herself through responsibility to others.
Stepping down from a secure, prestigious position felt terrifying.
But looking back, she knows it was the only choice that honored her needs.
Within weeks of stepping down, clarity accelerated.
Two months later, she left entirely and opened her own practice.
Congruent Soul Therapy was born from one central belief:
When we consider ourselves alongside others and context without judgment, we live more congruently.
Therapy for the Women Who Carry It All
Candice works with women who are mentally and emotionally exhausted.
Women who hold the invisible load in their relationships.
Who appear composed on the outside but feel tangled inside.
Overthinkers.
High achievers.
Perfectionists.
People pleasers.
Women who learned early that being needed was safer than being seen.
In the therapy room, she offers something radical:
Permission to relax.
And she means learn to relax.
Because when your identity has been built around responsibility, self-sacrifice, and managing everyone else’s emotions, relaxation doesn’t come from a few deep breaths.
It comes from unlearning.
From hard conversations.
From nervous system regulation.
From examining the beliefs that say your worth is tied to performance.
Candice practices what she teaches.
She invests in her own therapy.
Engages in reflection.
Navigates difficult conversations.
By the time she sits across from a client, she strives to be the most regulated and authentic version of herself possible.
Not perfect.
But congruent.
Her vision is expansive.
From free newsletters and downloadable worksheets to hybrid psychoeducational programs, therapy intensives, and traditional sessions across Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Florida.
Not everyone is ready for weekly therapy.
She wants to meet people where they are.
Offering multiple entry points into growth.
The Real Work: Getting Out of Her Own Way
If you ask Candice about her biggest challenge, she won’t say marketing.
Or Google suspending her business profile.
Or the slow build of a caseload.
She’ll say herself.
Her thoughts.
Her patterns.
The familiar whispers:
“What if no one likes it?”
“What if it’s not good enough?”
“What if this fails?”
Building a business is emotional work.
It requires visibility.
Vulnerability.
Consistency.
It asks her to challenge old beliefs daily.
To choose herself repeatedly.
To stop overcommitting.
To close the laptop and sit outside with her cat.
To read.
To daydream.
To live.
She left her director role to create balance and ease.
So she practices not recreating the same burnout in a different form.
And yes, building a caseload takes time.
The waiting can be scary.
The uncertainty loud.
But she trusts her ability.
She knows she is good at what she does.
She knows the women who need her are out there.
And every day, she works on getting out of her own way.
Because congruence isn’t about eliminating fear.
It’s about acting in alignment despite it.
At Reignelle, we celebrate women like Candice who choose alignment over approval, courage over conditioning, and create spaces where high-achieving women can finally exhale, soften, and come home to themselves.