April 13, 2025 • 26 mins
Episode 6 –The Business of Mental Health Ezekiel Peebles of Keyy Counseling
In this episode, we sit down with Ezekiel Peebles, the founder of Keyy Counseling, to explore the intersection of mental health, community, and purpose-driven work. Ezekiel shares his journey into the world of counseling, the vision behind Keyy Counseling, and how he's working to break down stigma and make healing more accessible for everyone.
We talk about the importance of culturally competent therapy, what it means to hold space for others, and how personal experiences shape professional passion.
In this episode, we sit down with Ezekiel Peebles, the founder of Keyy Counseling, to explore the intersection of mental health, community, and purpose-driven work. Ezekiel shares his journey into the world of counseling, the vision behind Keyy Counseling, and how he's working to break down stigma and make healing more accessible for everyone.
We talk about the importance of culturally competent therapy, what it means to hold space for others, and how personal experiences shape professional passion.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning, get afternoon, Internet world. This is our podcast.
I'm your host, Marlon Anthony. Here for another exciting episode.
Today we are going to get right into mental health.
I've got my brother and I'll let him do his
own introduction. I'm gonna go ahead and prefest it for you.
But doctor Ezekiel Peebles, Zeke, welcome to the show. Tell
us about who you are, what you do, and just
(00:22):
give us a little insight on who you are as
a person.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Yeah, thank you for having me today. As you said,
I go by the name Zeke for short, probably the
most you know, second most important Zeke in the state
of Ohio after Ezekiel Elliott. But anyone that knows Ezekiel
Elliott at least pre Ezekiel Elliott, then they will be
talking about Ezekiel Peebles. But I'm originally from DC. Came
(00:49):
here in the late nineties and have been in Ohio
ever since. So when you give that intro of you know,
doctor Ezekiel Peebles, that's like so far fetched. I can't
and remember when that was even a thing.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
But yeah, it.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Came here to go to the Ohio State University. I
got my first degree in criminology, specifically drevenile delinquency, and
then stuck around, you know, met my lady here, got
married and hitched, went back to school to the University
of Dayton, keeping it all in Ohio, had my master's
(01:25):
in clinical counseling, and then I'm a bit of a
glutton for educational punishment. So as he's talking about, you know,
doctor Peebles, I'm in the last few stages of my
PhD program back at the Ohio State University and Council Education.
So really excited about that. Mary got one son, an
(01:45):
only child, but been in Ohio for twenty plus years
and enjoying it. So I guess I should say I'm
in Ohio in for real, for real.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah, you at the same stage I'm an I'm from Cleveland.
People always, man, I thought you was from here. I
was like, no, I just be here for so long
and I have so many relationships that people think I'm
from here, but I'm from Cleveland. I'm at that same
point where it's like I'm at the halfway point in
my life where I spent yeah, more than half of
my you know, living existing on this earth here in Columbus.
(02:14):
So I'm gonna still say Cleveland, but that's that's neither
here nor there. Yeah, tell me a little bit more
about how you got into the mental health space. You know,
being from DC coming to OSU the late nineties mid nineties,
mental health wasn't really a thing that people just pop
it up and saying this is what I'm going to
specialize in for my career.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah, yeah, no, that's real. It's real interesting when you
say that, because again, I didn't even know that I
wanted to be a counselor or that I, you know,
was going to dabble in the mental health space. For
all those in my generation, I was on my theo
Huxtable in the sense that I'm just going to drive
a bus and be like regular people, maybe you know,
(02:56):
do to the mailman thing or whatever. But I'm from
generation so nobody in my family has had at the time,
graduated from high school. So I was the first to
do that. And then you all heard about the educational things,
so you can just check those boxes. But it was
really after I got my first degree in doing criminology work,
(03:19):
but again specifically around juvenile delinquency. I was working with
young kids that were involved in the court system, you know,
caught up and you know, doing a lot of administrative
things providing support for students. But the one thing that
stuck out to me was when I would get in
conversation with them and really help them to figure out
and how to get unstuck on certain things. And it
(03:42):
was very wild to me because you know, they would
find me later in life, you know, sometimes right in
the downtown or eastern area, and they would say, oh,
mister Peebles, mister Peebles man, the things that you told me,
the way that you supported me, you know, and that
made me feel great, And I thought to myself, maybe
there's something more to conversation and the idea of talking
(04:04):
with folks. And so that led me to look into
counseling as an occupation, and so I chose the University
of Dayton for a number of reasons. And so like
three years later after that, I got my degree in
mental health and clinical counseling and started my own practice,
Key Counseling and Consultation. So it's been a ride of
(04:24):
fourteen years and still going strong.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
So the funny party is, and I'm not sure if
you remember this, so Zeke and I are a member
of the same fraternity. We're office really the only attorney.
But we'll get to that, you know, another day. And
you know, a big part of being in the brotherhood
is you get mentorship, either directly or indirectly. And that's
right the time. You know, I look back at back
on it now being in college, and there were some
(04:48):
things that were being mentored to me that I kind
of looked at as like kind of discipline, so you
kind of fight it. And then when you see brothers
around and you see how successful they are, you see
how they are as as professionals and being in the
classroom and you know, being scholars, being family men. I
remember seeing Zeke the university of the dating program that
(05:08):
you were at was housed at Capital University, that's correct.
So that's where I went to school. So I would
be leaving I went to class, y'all for the most part,
but I would be leaving class or i'd be doing
programming in the evenings and I would see ze coming
up the stairs over in the Rough Learning Center and
he's getting out of class, and I'm like, yeah, this
dude is a full adult, got other things going on,
you know, and he's still taking care of business side.
(05:29):
That's always been of admiration for me and just something
I always think about when you talk about, you know,
getting your master's degree. Key Counseling and the reason I
want you to want promotion. Were always going to promote
our black businesses on here, but specifically mental health. It's
kind of like a very much a minority feel. There's
very few black or minority mental health professionals. There's very
(05:50):
few black men. There's even fewer black men who own
their own counseling agency. Tell us about Key Counseling kind
of how that came to be.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Yeah, you know, Key counsel is named after my late brother,
Kishawn d Lerk, who passed away way before there was
universal health care under President Obama at the time. He
passed away from cancer. And so we you know, grew
up together all these different things. And so when I
(06:18):
was in the last few semesters at University of Dayton
net Capital, I started thinking, what is it that I'm
going to do after this? You know, I want to
do some type of supplemental thing, have some additional income
because I was working, you know actually at Ohio State
full time. And so the more I was thinking about it,
(06:39):
I said, well, I think I want to start this practice.
Trying to figure out the name everybody knew, you know,
Keishawn is Key and everything, and I said, you know,
I want to do something to pay homage to my brother,
and so I named the Key Counseling. But really, I
will tell you this. I had an arrogant professor who
was like, you know, any of you walk can get
out here, started private practice. It's not going to be hard.
(07:02):
You know, it's gonna be a great investment for you,
and all these things. I really did not like this professor,
like I felt like they were such a prick or whatever.
But he spoke the truth about a lot of things.
And so I remember just doing my homework, you know,
looking at the State of Ohio. Do I want to go?
You know LLC Do I want to go? Group? Like,
doing all the work that I had to do. And
(07:23):
so it was funny, you know, I'll say this as
a testimony, and not a lot of people know this.
So in the last semester, you know, I had sat
for my license, which is what a lot of students
don't do. They wait till if they graduate and then
they you know, sit for their license. But I asked
the chair of the program, could I sit for the
license exam? He said sure, so he wrote my letter,
(07:45):
I sat down and I passed right. And so I
was the only person, or one of the few that
was graduating with a degree and license pending. And so
I had went on the interview track, went to a
few places, you know, even the place that I intern y'all,
and none of them gave me an opportunity for a
(08:05):
part time position, none of them. And so it was
like three four interviews, and I said to myself, you know,
I can hear that professor again. What am I waiting on?
Let me just do it myself or whatever. So I
launched all the paperwork, did everything I needed to do,
so graduated at December. Key Counseling was born in February. So, yeah,
(08:26):
you're talking about like a short period of time and
a lot of it. Like most entrepreneurs, you know, I'm
you know, hustling, trying to figure out, okay, how do
I make this work? How do I make that work?
And so it was a real true hustle in the beginning.
But it just started out as me and it got
as big as about sixteen therapists right now we have six,
(08:48):
you know, because we want to We're doing some things
a little bit different, but it's been a dream fourteen
years and going. So I'm excited. I'm delighted because anytime
people run into me, it's typically Key Counseling is synonymous
with Zeke, and so folks just put that connection together.
But I'm blessed, you know, beyond favor, I'm also blessed
(09:10):
in the sense that there were a lot of folks
who also have private practices out here that we need
to support who got this started Key Counseling, you know,
And so I mean, it's been great to see the
field grow. When you say that's not enough, you know,
black males, but not enough brown and black people in
general with private practices. But there's a lot more than
(09:30):
it was when I started over with fourteen years ago.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
That's good. I didn't know that story. I didn't know
you came right out the gate. And it's funny. You know,
My background partially is in health equity, and we work
with a lot of behavior health organizations and you are
seeing more and more just kind of pop up. Now
do I think they're all doing the right thing? That's
a different story for a different day. But I think
there was some truth to what your professor saying and
(09:53):
your testament to that that it can be done. It's
like it's really easy, yeah, but you can figure it out,
and fourteen years later you know that that's proven to
be true. Always I go to a black therapist. I
was actually just at my therapist yesterday. So I do
believe in, you know, finding who works for you, and
that's right. Necessarily have to be black, or they have
to be a man, or whatever it is, but somebody
(10:14):
that is going to align with you and what your
goals are and kind of help you work through yourself.
But let's let's tell me a little bit more about
like the practice of life therapy, because I think people
a lot of times assume you have to be in
crisis or wait till something happens and then you go
see a therapist. I'm a firm believer of therapy should
(10:34):
be almost like how you do preventative care, saying, way
you go to the dentist, saying, when you go to
the doctor, you know all that get your eyes checked.
Tell me about the preventative side of the proactive side.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Yeah, you just you know, hit the nail on the head.
You know, it's so key, and I think it's about
how we change the language and how we look at
the scope of what health in general is. But then
when we're talking about the mental health side, so when
you talk about dental you're going every six months to
get that routine cleaning, right, You got to keep your
(11:07):
teeth nice and sharp. You got to keep them clean.
You don't want to get anything with the gums and
stuff like that. Not necessarily my feel, but you know,
that's on the dental side. When you're talking about the
medical side, you're going to see hopefully your doctor. If
you don't have a doctor, y'all get yourselves a doctor,
primary care health physician. You got to go see them,
(11:27):
you know, once a year or so for your annual
checkups and stuff. Well, you're talking about mental health now,
you're talking about the psychological impact of things. What's going
on in the mind and the way that we wake
up in the morning is so much different than the
way that we go to bed at night most of
the time, and then there's everything in between. You need
a professional who can help you process those things. And
(11:49):
that's a daily thing. So if you are fortunate to
have insurance. Most of the times you can go see
your therapist or counselor once a week, you know, if
you need to sometimes twice week depending on how severe
you know, those things get. But the preventative side of
that of mental health is so important. So you know,
it depends on who you're connected with how frequently you
(12:11):
need to go. I always tell clients when they come
see me, I don't see crazy people. I don't have
anyone that's quote unquote crazy. I see people who are
going through daily life stressors. Sometimes it's not even the
stressful things of what's going on. Sometimes I see people
who have a lot of positive things going on and
they just want to outlet the way they can talk,
(12:32):
invent and things about things that's going on. So, you know,
we need to do more of that. We need to
spell the myths and the rumors and stuff of you
know that you got to have something wrong with you
to have a therapist or a counselor. That could be
no further from the truth, you know. So I encourage
everyone to know participate in and seek out therapy so
(12:53):
it can start with your insurance. There's some places out
here that you can go that don't accept insurance, but
just know that, like you say earlier, you have to
find the right fit for you. So it may be
somebody looks like you, it may not. It may be
someone in the same gender as you. It may be
someone that's versed in the treatment style that you're looking for.
So it just depends on that person and what they're
(13:14):
looking for.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Yeah, I definitely agree, And I think that's the piece
that we talk about, is one getting help and how
important it is, and just talking about the preventative piece.
Last year, I made this kind of commitment where I
wanted to get fifty black men into therapy. We're at
like four right now, okay, which is I was like,
that's still for people.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
The biggest thing that's come back to me is I,
when you finally get somebody who's ready to get help
or ready to you know, to partake in that journey,
how do I find somebody, you know, my insurance? Just
kind of navigating that connection to care space is a
little bit difficult. Do you have any insight or any
tips or any suggestions on how somebody could go about
(13:59):
finding a correct mental health professional work there.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Yeah, Yeah, that's a great question. So if you have insurance.
One of the easiest ways to do it is to
contact your insurance provider. You know, so if you're with Anthem,
Blue Cross, Blue Shields, Signa or something like that, typically
they have what's called a directory. It may be publicized
on their website, it may not. You may have to
call the number on the back, you may have to
(14:25):
ask them to email you. They'll do all those things
because when those of us that are in the mental
health space, we get credentialed or paneled by those insurance
providers they access for us in our information and sometimes
they'll say that we no longer can it take additional
providers because they'll say an area is saturated. So they
(14:46):
may say, you know, hey, if you're in a zip
code four three, two, one five, you know, there's x
amount of therapists that are already in that area, so
it's it's saturated. So they have a list of people,
and they have us by demographic, they have us by specialty,
all those different things. So I tell clients or prospective
clients always check your insurance provider first. If you can
(15:09):
do that. You know, not social media, but you can
find the social media. The Internet is your friend. It
can be so places like Google, you know is not bad.
But Psychology today is a website that a lot of
people need to go check out because you can search
for a counselor, by the ethnicity, by a lot of
different things. Now I'll tell you this, key counselor is
(15:29):
not on Psychology today. No shame in Psychology today. But
when you've been around doing this for fourteen years, we
got our starting Psychology today, and it's probably been maybe
seven years. I have not had to do any kind
of advertising to that, like, because people know who Key
Counseling is and so we get calls emails every day
(15:50):
every week for folks wanting to get in. And again
that's not to say that we're the best, but I'm
not going to stop anybody that believes that we're the
best either. So you have to find who works for you. Now,
you can also do this through the good old word
of mouth. So pay attention to those things. If your
friends social media, the barbershop, the salon, they're talking about
(16:12):
those because we get a lot of referrals that way too.
Now I got to give this this this part to
it as well, because unfortunately those of us in this space,
we hear this all the time, y'all. Please understand, if
someone gives you a referral, even your doctor. You can
go to your doctor that gives your referral. It's just
that it's a referral. That does not mean because they
(16:34):
will get on my head so much why I was
referred here. Yes, you were referred here, but we don't
have any openings right now, or you have to be
on the list and everything. So a referral doesn't give you,
you know, cop blanche, you know, as it pertains to
mental health. But there's so many different places that you
can go. My dentist keeps my marketing cards and stuff still,
(16:55):
so you just got to look and pay attention because
you know, there's a lot of different places that can
refer you or give you information on how to get counseling.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Yeah, and that's one of the main resources I use.
I refer my counselor, if you know, my therapist sometimes
if it makes sense. But I don't want every black
man in Columbus like you going to my therapist is
the way. It may not be a good fit. And two,
you know, I do want to kind of keep maintaining
some space sometimes in those different things. My personal therapists
as opposed to everybody having the same therapist. But they're
(17:27):
probably not going to give us a paid advertisement for this.
But Psychology Today really is good. That is actually how
I found my therapist. And like Zeke was saying, you
can search by whatever your concern is. You can search
by gender, you can search by religious affiliation, you can
search by you know, ethnicity, ethnicity or if you want
(17:49):
a spiritual practice, or if you want a holistic like
all those different things like and it's a great website,
Psychology Today. Go there. It will tell you which forms
of insurance are that's accepted. But like Zeke said that
I didn't I didn't really even think about that. Just
calling your insurance company and seeing you know, who's in
network that's right, is a great thing. And a lot
(18:09):
of us have insurance. We're not using it. That's a
good thing to use it for. I'm gonna start to
close this out. Give me a couple of things that
you would say, you know, for the person that is
considering or contemplating or kind of like in the middle ground.
I'm gonna say this particularly for black men, because that's
really what my focus is is helping black men get
(18:30):
connected to the therapy, you know, for the person that's
a brother that's thinking about it, give them a couple
things to think about or suggestions on what they can
do to kind of jump off that ledge.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Yeah, you know, I'm right there with you in that
space black men men in general. As I go back
a little bit to my PhD, it's specifically around men's issues,
and I see quite a bit of men on the
counseling aspect too, So you're not going to find you know,
(19:02):
we can fight for this two better champions of men
for men's issues and things of that nature. So when
we think about mental health and counseling for men, it
really is a bit more taboo for them because it
is a situation of I'm not going to open up
and share my innermost details, thoughts, ambitions to somebody else
(19:27):
that I don't know, and even if I do know you,
I don't know what you're going to do with it.
So there's a part of the masculinity which we will
hear so much about. Right. So, masculinity doesn't have to
be a bad word, right, but when we put toxic
masculinity in it, then it becomes something different. So you'll
see some men that are really concerned and they have
(19:47):
to maintain this level of I can't show feeling, I
can't show emotion because people will use that against me.
And there may have been a history of those things.
So it's a myriad of things that tend to get
in the way of you know, men not wanting to
do counseling in general. But if we're thinking about men
(20:07):
that are on the ledge, or not on the ledge,
but on the cusp of like, well, maybe I should
try counseling. What I would encourage them to do is
definitely give it a chance. You know, see, you know
who is the best person for you. It may be
another male. More times than not. That seems to work
very well for the counselors that have come through key
(20:27):
counseling that are male. We see quite a bit of
male clientele. So I think that connection definitely has a
lot to say, and we can have another conversation about that.
But there's something about the homosociality of men and men
together and wanting to have a deeper relationship and connection,
(20:49):
and so when you find a therapist, you're going to
develop that Hopefully you're going to develop a deeper connection
with someone that you think provides really good feedback and information.
So you're going to make sure that you want to
keep that and you want to maintain that. So I
think for those on the CUSP, see if you can
find you a mail that probably will lean you know
in your favor better than anything else. Another piece that
(21:11):
I mentioned a second ago was about the insurance piece.
You said someone that's in network. Not everyone is going
to be in your network. So and you have to
do your due diligence because the practices are going to
do their due diligence in terms of verifying your information.
So they're going to ask you for insurance if you
have it. An insurance doesn't have to be a bad
(21:33):
thing either. So if you have insurance and they verify,
they can tell you, yes, you're in network. And there's
two things right as I give education that I'm for you.
All copay is what you will pay ahead of time.
So if there's a copay, they'll let you know, like, hey,
you have a ten dollar copay, twenty dollars copay, thirty
dollars copay. Now I tell all my clients when they
(21:55):
come through the door in that very first session. I
can't tell you the frequency in which we're going to
see each other, but you know as we share it
because we want to decide on it together. Unless there's
some severe issues that I think, yeah, you need to
be seen weekly. So but that means that's an investment.
So are you going to be able to pay your
twenty dollars co pay each time you come? And if
you're coming weekly, you're looking at eighty dollars, So yeah,
(22:17):
that's a utility bills for some people. But how important
is your mental health? You know? Again I shared it
is how you think, how you feel, how you act
on a daily basis, and some people need to be
seen weekly. Some people need to have that outlet in
order to be their most effective self. And the grand
scheme of that eighty dollars doesn't seem like a whole lot.
(22:39):
So you do need to know about your in network
versus your out of network, and really quick quick. If
it's out of network, it's going to be out of
pocket fee, or you need to look at your your benefits.
That's why you know, again we're all adults or where
you're coming adults, and so when your insurances say hey
it's time to make decisions if you want to keep
the same plan for next year or not. You got
(23:01):
to look at all those things. You got to look
at all your benefits and see, you know, what's what,
because some of us may be really healthy and it's like,
you know what I may can deal with, you know,
a higher premium, you know, a deductible this year going
around because I haven't gone to the doctor very much,
but as I get older now I have to change
the deductible and what that looks like. Those all seem
(23:22):
to be really scary thoughts and scary words and stuff.
But we're adults and we have to be immersed in
those things because if we don't, we're going to find
ourselves laws. So you need to know who's in work
in network versus who's out of network. So those are
a couple things.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Whatever.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
We could say so much more about you know what
people need to be thinking about, but I think ideally
to say one more time, it's about your fit and
really quick. For me, I had to go through a
few primary care physicians before I found the primary care
physician for me. I started off with a black mail
and that was okay until it wasn't okay. I went
(23:58):
to an Asian male doctor. He was ok until he
started getting too peel happy with different things. And then
I found myself with a white male doctor. Didn't really
work out well. And then I got with you know,
a black sister and it's been dreamed ever since. So
I've been with her for ten plus years. She has
me right. You know, she's a background in sports management.
(24:18):
I won't give her information out, but I say all that,
y'all to say, it takes time, it takes patience, and
you just got to find the right fit. And so
you got to be open to that.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
I think that's gang.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
That's gang.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
That was good. You let right untibody. You answer my
last question well not even having to answer. So tell
the people where they can find you websites. Drops. This
is your time to promote yourself your bus people.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Man, listen. I appreciate that. I just appreciate the time
that you have had with me today. I think a
lot of people know who we are. Not to be
arrogant at.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
All like that.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
We are appreciative of all the publication and all the
feedback we get and hits and stuff like that. But
I website is keycounseling dot org. You know k E
Y C O U N S E l I n
G dot org. We are on the social media platforms.
You can find us on on Instagram, Facebook, I'm not
(25:13):
really sure if we're on X or whatever, but we
could be myself Ezekiel Peeples, I'm on all different platforms
as well. Definitely look me up on LinkedIn. That were
probably the best way to connect with me. But again
we're excited. Fourteen years really great counselors and I always
do this too, so even if we can't help you,
(25:35):
I have about a quick five other black therapists practices
that I send people to because that's how the network
grows and stuff. So again, key counseling isn't for everyone.
I should also say that we are exclusively virtual right now.
We started off brick and mortar, but after the pandemic,
it taught us a whole lot and so we no
(25:56):
longer do in person sessions at all, mainly because the
folks didn't want the in person sessions with us. And
so I was paying rent for a space and I
had just renewed my lease for five years, and so
that lease expired last May, and I said, you know what,
looking at the totality, let's just stay virtual, and so
there wasn't no need to continue to have the break
(26:17):
in mortar. So for us, we're exclusively virtual, but there
are some places that are still in person as well,
so but yeah, you can catch us in all those
medium platforms. Email is great work with us if you
get If you call and we don't call you back,
we do ask for forty eight hours or so. So
it's just a whole lot out there. But yeah, it's
(26:38):
been great to be here with you. Thank you, Zeke.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
That's it. That's all. Catch us on YouTube, catch us
on Instagram, everything ours media, our podcast, We are out
Good morning, get afternoon, Internet world. This is our podcast.
I'm your host, Marlon Anthony. Here for another exciting episode.
Today we are going to get right into mental health.
I've got my brother and I'll let him do his
own introduction. I'm gonna go ahead and prefest it for you.
But doctor Ezekiel Peebles, Zeke, welcome to the show. Tell
us about who you are, what you do, and just
(00:22):
give us a little insight on who you are as
a person.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Yeah, thank you for having me today. As you said,
I go by the name Zeke for short, probably the
most you know, second most important Zeke in the state
of Ohio after Ezekiel Elliott. But anyone that knows Ezekiel
Elliott at least pre Ezekiel Elliott, then they will be
talking about Ezekiel Peebles. But I'm originally from DC. Came
(00:49):
here in the late nineties and have been in Ohio
ever since. So when you give that intro of you know,
doctor Ezekiel Peebles, that's like so far fetched. I can't
and remember when that was even a thing.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
But yeah, it.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Came here to go to the Ohio State University. I
got my first degree in criminology, specifically drevenile delinquency, and
then stuck around, you know, met my lady here, got
married and hitched, went back to school to the University
of Dayton, keeping it all in Ohio, had my master's
(01:25):
in clinical counseling, and then I'm a bit of a
glutton for educational punishment. So as he's talking about, you know,
doctor Peebles, I'm in the last few stages of my
PhD program back at the Ohio State University and Council Education.
So really excited about that. Mary got one son, an
(01:45):
only child, but been in Ohio for twenty plus years
and enjoying it. So I guess I should say I'm
in Ohio in for real, for real.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah, you at the same stage I'm an I'm from Cleveland.
People always, man, I thought you was from here. I
was like, no, I just be here for so long
and I have so many relationships that people think I'm
from here, but I'm from Cleveland. I'm at that same
point where it's like I'm at the halfway point in
my life where I spent yeah, more than half of
my you know, living existing on this earth here in Columbus.
(02:14):
So I'm gonna still say Cleveland, but that's that's neither
here nor there. Yeah, tell me a little bit more
about how you got into the mental health space. You know,
being from DC coming to OSU the late nineties mid nineties,
mental health wasn't really a thing that people just pop
it up and saying this is what I'm going to
specialize in for my career.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah, yeah, no, that's real. It's real interesting when you
say that, because again, I didn't even know that I
wanted to be a counselor or that I, you know,
was going to dabble in the mental health space. For
all those in my generation, I was on my theo
Huxtable in the sense that I'm just going to drive
a bus and be like regular people, maybe you know,
(02:56):
do to the mailman thing or whatever. But I'm from
generation so nobody in my family has had at the time,
graduated from high school. So I was the first to
do that. And then you all heard about the educational things,
so you can just check those boxes. But it was
really after I got my first degree in doing criminology work,
(03:19):
but again specifically around juvenile delinquency. I was working with
young kids that were involved in the court system, you know,
caught up and you know, doing a lot of administrative
things providing support for students. But the one thing that
stuck out to me was when I would get in
conversation with them and really help them to figure out
and how to get unstuck on certain things. And it
(03:42):
was very wild to me because you know, they would
find me later in life, you know, sometimes right in
the downtown or eastern area, and they would say, oh,
mister Peebles, mister Peebles man, the things that you told me,
the way that you supported me, you know, and that
made me feel great, And I thought to myself, maybe
there's something more to conversation and the idea of talking
(04:04):
with folks. And so that led me to look into
counseling as an occupation, and so I chose the University
of Dayton for a number of reasons. And so like
three years later after that, I got my degree in
mental health and clinical counseling and started my own practice,
Key Counseling and Consultation. So it's been a ride of
(04:24):
fourteen years and still going strong.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
So the funny party is, and I'm not sure if
you remember this, so Zeke and I are a member
of the same fraternity. We're office really the only attorney.
But we'll get to that, you know, another day. And
you know, a big part of being in the brotherhood
is you get mentorship, either directly or indirectly. And that's
right the time. You know, I look back at back
on it now being in college, and there were some
(04:48):
things that were being mentored to me that I kind
of looked at as like kind of discipline, so you
kind of fight it. And then when you see brothers
around and you see how successful they are, you see
how they are as as professionals and being in the
classroom and you know, being scholars, being family men. I
remember seeing Zeke the university of the dating program that
(05:08):
you were at was housed at Capital University, that's correct.
So that's where I went to school. So I would
be leaving I went to class, y'all for the most part,
but I would be leaving class or i'd be doing
programming in the evenings and I would see ze coming
up the stairs over in the Rough Learning Center and
he's getting out of class, and I'm like, yeah, this
dude is a full adult, got other things going on,
you know, and he's still taking care of business side.
(05:29):
That's always been of admiration for me and just something
I always think about when you talk about, you know,
getting your master's degree. Key Counseling and the reason I
want you to want promotion. Were always going to promote
our black businesses on here, but specifically mental health. It's
kind of like a very much a minority feel. There's
very few black or minority mental health professionals. There's very
(05:50):
few black men. There's even fewer black men who own
their own counseling agency. Tell us about Key Counseling kind
of how that came to be.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Yeah, you know, Key counsel is named after my late brother,
Kishawn d Lerk, who passed away way before there was
universal health care under President Obama at the time. He
passed away from cancer. And so we you know, grew
up together all these different things. And so when I
(06:18):
was in the last few semesters at University of Dayton
net Capital, I started thinking, what is it that I'm
going to do after this? You know, I want to
do some type of supplemental thing, have some additional income
because I was working, you know actually at Ohio State
full time. And so the more I was thinking about it,
(06:39):
I said, well, I think I want to start this practice.
Trying to figure out the name everybody knew, you know,
Keishawn is Key and everything, and I said, you know,
I want to do something to pay homage to my brother,
and so I named the Key Counseling. But really, I
will tell you this. I had an arrogant professor who
was like, you know, any of you walk can get
out here, started private practice. It's not going to be hard.
(07:02):
You know, it's gonna be a great investment for you,
and all these things. I really did not like this professor,
like I felt like they were such a prick or whatever.
But he spoke the truth about a lot of things.
And so I remember just doing my homework, you know,
looking at the State of Ohio. Do I want to go?
You know LLC Do I want to go? Group? Like,
doing all the work that I had to do. And
(07:23):
so it was funny, you know, I'll say this as
a testimony, and not a lot of people know this.
So in the last semester, you know, I had sat
for my license, which is what a lot of students
don't do. They wait till if they graduate and then
they you know, sit for their license. But I asked
the chair of the program, could I sit for the
license exam? He said sure, so he wrote my letter,
(07:45):
I sat down and I passed right. And so I
was the only person, or one of the few that
was graduating with a degree and license pending. And so
I had went on the interview track, went to a
few places, you know, even the place that I intern y'all,
and none of them gave me an opportunity for a
(08:05):
part time position, none of them. And so it was
like three four interviews, and I said to myself, you know,
I can hear that professor again. What am I waiting on?
Let me just do it myself or whatever. So I
launched all the paperwork, did everything I needed to do,
so graduated at December. Key Counseling was born in February. So, yeah,
(08:26):
you're talking about like a short period of time and
a lot of it. Like most entrepreneurs, you know, I'm
you know, hustling, trying to figure out, okay, how do
I make this work? How do I make that work?
And so it was a real true hustle in the beginning.
But it just started out as me and it got
as big as about sixteen therapists right now we have six,
(08:48):
you know, because we want to We're doing some things
a little bit different, but it's been a dream fourteen
years and going. So I'm excited. I'm delighted because anytime
people run into me, it's typically Key Counseling is synonymous
with Zeke, and so folks just put that connection together.
But I'm blessed, you know, beyond favor, I'm also blessed
(09:10):
in the sense that there were a lot of folks
who also have private practices out here that we need
to support who got this started Key Counseling, you know,
And so I mean, it's been great to see the
field grow. When you say that's not enough, you know,
black males, but not enough brown and black people in
general with private practices. But there's a lot more than
(09:30):
it was when I started over with fourteen years ago.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
That's good. I didn't know that story. I didn't know
you came right out the gate. And it's funny. You know,
My background partially is in health equity, and we work
with a lot of behavior health organizations and you are
seeing more and more just kind of pop up. Now
do I think they're all doing the right thing? That's
a different story for a different day. But I think
there was some truth to what your professor saying and
(09:53):
your testament to that that it can be done. It's
like it's really easy, yeah, but you can figure it out,
and fourteen years later you know that that's proven to
be true. Always I go to a black therapist. I
was actually just at my therapist yesterday. So I do
believe in, you know, finding who works for you, and
that's right. Necessarily have to be black, or they have
to be a man, or whatever it is, but somebody
(10:14):
that is going to align with you and what your
goals are and kind of help you work through yourself.
But let's let's tell me a little bit more about
like the practice of life therapy, because I think people
a lot of times assume you have to be in
crisis or wait till something happens and then you go
see a therapist. I'm a firm believer of therapy should
(10:34):
be almost like how you do preventative care, saying, way
you go to the dentist, saying, when you go to
the doctor, you know all that get your eyes checked.
Tell me about the preventative side of the proactive side.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Yeah, you just you know, hit the nail on the head.
You know, it's so key, and I think it's about
how we change the language and how we look at
the scope of what health in general is. But then
when we're talking about the mental health side, so when
you talk about dental you're going every six months to
get that routine cleaning, right, You got to keep your
(11:07):
teeth nice and sharp. You got to keep them clean.
You don't want to get anything with the gums and
stuff like that. Not necessarily my feel, but you know,
that's on the dental side. When you're talking about the
medical side, you're going to see hopefully your doctor. If
you don't have a doctor, y'all get yourselves a doctor,
primary care health physician. You got to go see them,
(11:27):
you know, once a year or so for your annual
checkups and stuff. Well, you're talking about mental health now,
you're talking about the psychological impact of things. What's going
on in the mind and the way that we wake
up in the morning is so much different than the
way that we go to bed at night most of
the time, and then there's everything in between. You need
a professional who can help you process those things. And
(11:49):
that's a daily thing. So if you are fortunate to
have insurance. Most of the times you can go see
your therapist or counselor once a week, you know, if
you need to sometimes twice week depending on how severe
you know, those things get. But the preventative side of
that of mental health is so important. So you know,
it depends on who you're connected with how frequently you
(12:11):
need to go. I always tell clients when they come
see me, I don't see crazy people. I don't have
anyone that's quote unquote crazy. I see people who are
going through daily life stressors. Sometimes it's not even the
stressful things of what's going on. Sometimes I see people
who have a lot of positive things going on and
they just want to outlet the way they can talk,
(12:32):
invent and things about things that's going on. So, you know,
we need to do more of that. We need to
spell the myths and the rumors and stuff of you
know that you got to have something wrong with you
to have a therapist or a counselor. That could be
no further from the truth, you know. So I encourage
everyone to know participate in and seek out therapy so
(12:53):
it can start with your insurance. There's some places out
here that you can go that don't accept insurance, but
just know that, like you say earlier, you have to
find the right fit for you. So it may be
somebody looks like you, it may not. It may be
someone in the same gender as you. It may be
someone that's versed in the treatment style that you're looking for.
So it just depends on that person and what they're
(13:14):
looking for.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Yeah, I definitely agree, And I think that's the piece
that we talk about, is one getting help and how
important it is, and just talking about the preventative piece.
Last year, I made this kind of commitment where I
wanted to get fifty black men into therapy. We're at
like four right now, okay, which is I was like,
that's still for people.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
The biggest thing that's come back to me is I,
when you finally get somebody who's ready to get help
or ready to you know, to partake in that journey,
how do I find somebody, you know, my insurance? Just
kind of navigating that connection to care space is a
little bit difficult. Do you have any insight or any
tips or any suggestions on how somebody could go about
(13:59):
finding a correct mental health professional work there.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Yeah, Yeah, that's a great question. So if you have insurance.
One of the easiest ways to do it is to
contact your insurance provider. You know, so if you're with Anthem,
Blue Cross, Blue Shields, Signa or something like that, typically
they have what's called a directory. It may be publicized
on their website, it may not. You may have to
call the number on the back, you may have to
(14:25):
ask them to email you. They'll do all those things
because when those of us that are in the mental
health space, we get credentialed or paneled by those insurance
providers they access for us in our information and sometimes
they'll say that we no longer can it take additional
providers because they'll say an area is saturated. So they
(14:46):
may say, you know, hey, if you're in a zip
code four three, two, one five, you know, there's x
amount of therapists that are already in that area, so
it's it's saturated. So they have a list of people,
and they have us by demographic, they have us by specialty,
all those different things. So I tell clients or prospective
clients always check your insurance provider first. If you can
(15:09):
do that. You know, not social media, but you can
find the social media. The Internet is your friend. It
can be so places like Google, you know is not bad.
But Psychology today is a website that a lot of
people need to go check out because you can search
for a counselor, by the ethnicity, by a lot of
different things. Now I'll tell you this, key counselor is
(15:29):
not on Psychology today. No shame in Psychology today. But
when you've been around doing this for fourteen years, we
got our starting Psychology today, and it's probably been maybe
seven years. I have not had to do any kind
of advertising to that, like, because people know who Key
Counseling is and so we get calls emails every day
(15:50):
every week for folks wanting to get in. And again
that's not to say that we're the best, but I'm
not going to stop anybody that believes that we're the
best either. So you have to find who works for you. Now,
you can also do this through the good old word
of mouth. So pay attention to those things. If your
friends social media, the barbershop, the salon, they're talking about
(16:12):
those because we get a lot of referrals that way too.
Now I got to give this this this part to
it as well, because unfortunately those of us in this space,
we hear this all the time, y'all. Please understand, if
someone gives you a referral, even your doctor. You can
go to your doctor that gives your referral. It's just
that it's a referral. That does not mean because they
(16:34):
will get on my head so much why I was
referred here. Yes, you were referred here, but we don't
have any openings right now, or you have to be
on the list and everything. So a referral doesn't give you,
you know, cop blanche, you know, as it pertains to
mental health. But there's so many different places that you
can go. My dentist keeps my marketing cards and stuff still,
(16:55):
so you just got to look and pay attention because
you know, there's a lot of different places that can
refer you or give you information on how to get counseling.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Yeah, and that's one of the main resources I use.
I refer my counselor, if you know, my therapist sometimes
if it makes sense. But I don't want every black
man in Columbus like you going to my therapist is
the way. It may not be a good fit. And two,
you know, I do want to kind of keep maintaining
some space sometimes in those different things. My personal therapists
as opposed to everybody having the same therapist. But they're
(17:27):
probably not going to give us a paid advertisement for this.
But Psychology Today really is good. That is actually how
I found my therapist. And like Zeke was saying, you
can search by whatever your concern is. You can search
by gender, you can search by religious affiliation, you can
search by you know, ethnicity, ethnicity or if you want
(17:49):
a spiritual practice, or if you want a holistic like
all those different things like and it's a great website,
Psychology Today. Go there. It will tell you which forms
of insurance are that's accepted. But like Zeke said that
I didn't I didn't really even think about that. Just
calling your insurance company and seeing you know, who's in
network that's right, is a great thing. And a lot
(18:09):
of us have insurance. We're not using it. That's a
good thing to use it for. I'm gonna start to
close this out. Give me a couple of things that
you would say, you know, for the person that is
considering or contemplating or kind of like in the middle ground.
I'm gonna say this particularly for black men, because that's
really what my focus is is helping black men get
(18:30):
connected to the therapy, you know, for the person that's
a brother that's thinking about it, give them a couple
things to think about or suggestions on what they can
do to kind of jump off that ledge.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Yeah, you know, I'm right there with you in that
space black men men in general. As I go back
a little bit to my PhD, it's specifically around men's issues,
and I see quite a bit of men on the
counseling aspect too, So you're not going to find you know,
(19:02):
we can fight for this two better champions of men
for men's issues and things of that nature. So when
we think about mental health and counseling for men, it
really is a bit more taboo for them because it
is a situation of I'm not going to open up
and share my innermost details, thoughts, ambitions to somebody else
(19:27):
that I don't know, and even if I do know you,
I don't know what you're going to do with it.
So there's a part of the masculinity which we will
hear so much about. Right. So, masculinity doesn't have to
be a bad word, right, but when we put toxic
masculinity in it, then it becomes something different. So you'll
see some men that are really concerned and they have
(19:47):
to maintain this level of I can't show feeling, I
can't show emotion because people will use that against me.
And there may have been a history of those things.
So it's a myriad of things that tend to get
in the way of you know, men not wanting to
do counseling in general. But if we're thinking about men
(20:07):
that are on the ledge, or not on the ledge,
but on the cusp of like, well, maybe I should
try counseling. What I would encourage them to do is
definitely give it a chance. You know, see, you know
who is the best person for you. It may be
another male. More times than not. That seems to work
very well for the counselors that have come through key
(20:27):
counseling that are male. We see quite a bit of
male clientele. So I think that connection definitely has a
lot to say, and we can have another conversation about that.
But there's something about the homosociality of men and men
together and wanting to have a deeper relationship and connection,
(20:49):
and so when you find a therapist, you're going to
develop that Hopefully you're going to develop a deeper connection
with someone that you think provides really good feedback and information.
So you're going to make sure that you want to
keep that and you want to maintain that. So I
think for those on the CUSP, see if you can
find you a mail that probably will lean you know
in your favor better than anything else. Another piece that
(21:11):
I mentioned a second ago was about the insurance piece.
You said someone that's in network. Not everyone is going
to be in your network. So and you have to
do your due diligence because the practices are going to
do their due diligence in terms of verifying your information.
So they're going to ask you for insurance if you
have it. An insurance doesn't have to be a bad
(21:33):
thing either. So if you have insurance and they verify,
they can tell you, yes, you're in network. And there's
two things right as I give education that I'm for you.
All copay is what you will pay ahead of time.
So if there's a copay, they'll let you know, like, hey,
you have a ten dollar copay, twenty dollars copay, thirty
dollars copay. Now I tell all my clients when they
(21:55):
come through the door in that very first session. I
can't tell you the frequency in which we're going to
see each other, but you know as we share it
because we want to decide on it together. Unless there's
some severe issues that I think, yeah, you need to
be seen weekly. So but that means that's an investment.
So are you going to be able to pay your
twenty dollars co pay each time you come? And if
you're coming weekly, you're looking at eighty dollars, So yeah,
(22:17):
that's a utility bills for some people. But how important
is your mental health? You know? Again I shared it
is how you think, how you feel, how you act
on a daily basis, and some people need to be
seen weekly. Some people need to have that outlet in
order to be their most effective self. And the grand
scheme of that eighty dollars doesn't seem like a whole lot.
(22:39):
So you do need to know about your in network
versus your out of network, and really quick quick. If
it's out of network, it's going to be out of
pocket fee, or you need to look at your your benefits.
That's why you know, again we're all adults or where
you're coming adults, and so when your insurances say hey
it's time to make decisions if you want to keep
the same plan for next year or not. You got
(23:01):
to look at all those things. You got to look
at all your benefits and see, you know, what's what,
because some of us may be really healthy and it's like,
you know what I may can deal with, you know,
a higher premium, you know, a deductible this year going
around because I haven't gone to the doctor very much,
but as I get older now I have to change
the deductible and what that looks like. Those all seem
(23:22):
to be really scary thoughts and scary words and stuff.
But we're adults and we have to be immersed in
those things because if we don't, we're going to find
ourselves laws. So you need to know who's in work
in network versus who's out of network. So those are
a couple things.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Whatever.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
We could say so much more about you know what
people need to be thinking about, but I think ideally
to say one more time, it's about your fit and
really quick. For me, I had to go through a
few primary care physicians before I found the primary care
physician for me. I started off with a black mail
and that was okay until it wasn't okay. I went
(23:58):
to an Asian male doctor. He was ok until he
started getting too peel happy with different things. And then
I found myself with a white male doctor. Didn't really
work out well. And then I got with you know,
a black sister and it's been dreamed ever since. So
I've been with her for ten plus years. She has
me right. You know, she's a background in sports management.
(24:18):
I won't give her information out, but I say all that,
y'all to say, it takes time, it takes patience, and
you just got to find the right fit. And so
you got to be open to that.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
I think that's gang.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
That's gang.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
That was good. You let right untibody. You answer my
last question well not even having to answer. So tell
the people where they can find you websites. Drops. This
is your time to promote yourself your bus people.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Man, listen. I appreciate that. I just appreciate the time
that you have had with me today. I think a
lot of people know who we are. Not to be
arrogant at.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
All like that.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
We are appreciative of all the publication and all the
feedback we get and hits and stuff like that. But
I website is keycounseling dot org. You know k E
Y C O U N S E l I n
G dot org. We are on the social media platforms.
You can find us on on Instagram, Facebook, I'm not
(25:13):
really sure if we're on X or whatever, but we
could be myself Ezekiel Peeples, I'm on all different platforms
as well. Definitely look me up on LinkedIn. That were
probably the best way to connect with me. But again
we're excited. Fourteen years really great counselors and I always
do this too, so even if we can't help you,
(25:35):
I have about a quick five other black therapists practices
that I send people to because that's how the network
grows and stuff. So again, key counseling isn't for everyone.
I should also say that we are exclusively virtual right now.
We started off brick and mortar, but after the pandemic,
it taught us a whole lot and so we no
(25:56):
longer do in person sessions at all, mainly because the
folks didn't want the in person sessions with us. And
so I was paying rent for a space and I
had just renewed my lease for five years, and so
that lease expired last May, and I said, you know what,
looking at the totality, let's just stay virtual, and so
there wasn't no need to continue to have the break
(26:17):
in mortar. So for us, we're exclusively virtual, but there
are some places that are still in person as well,
so but yeah, you can catch us in all those
medium platforms. Email is great work with us if you
get If you call and we don't call you back,
we do ask for forty eight hours or so. So
it's just a whole lot out there. But yeah, it's
(26:38):
been great to be here with you. Thank you, Zeke.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
That's it. That's all. Catch us on YouTube, catch us
on Instagram, everything ours media, our podcast, We are out
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