By Donna DeLong
Special to the Aroostook Republican
Deborah Gray, an Aroostook County raised professional therapist and CEO, has opened a fourth location for the mental health and substance abuse treatment rehabilitation center called Life by Design. She started in Presque Isle with another counselor and a receptionist who had started out as an interior design specialist hired by Gray that just seemed to end up behind a desk. Gray opened her second location in Houlton and she shared her time between locations, handling management duties, but staying focused on her patients. Gray later opened the third location in Fort Kent.
Contributed photo
Attending Life by Design’s Ribbon Cutting at the Caribou office included, from left, first row: Jenny Coon, Kellie Moody, Deborah Gray, Dale Saucier and Peter Edgecomb. Second row: Sherry Pelletier, Carolyn Morrison, Stacey Frost, Jeff Landeen, Peggy Smith and Blair McCartney. Third row: Marla Raymond, Maria Dubois, Gail Donovan and Diane Dickinson.
Life By Design’s most recent location is Caribou on Bird’s Eye Ave. Gray purchased an existing mental health and substance abuse center in 2009. The previous year, she worked at the existing business to get to know the business, employees and the services that they offered. She wanted a smooth transition for the employees and the patients.
The Caribou location, which was originally the Bird’s Eye processing plant office building, has been gutted and completely renovated when the property was acquired. This location employs five clinicians, three adult case managers and a receptionist. Gray is busy overseeing the four locations that she owns, but keeps her time available for her passion of helping others.
When asked what area of social work that she concentrates on, she responded that each location has people who specialize in a wide variety of areas such as: grief, sexual assault, addiction, children and others to handle the needs of the people of Aroostook County.
Gray described her three goals for any client she has. The first is that the relationship between patient and therapist has to be a good fit for the patient. She would like a client to start with a clinician, but if that is not comfortable for the client then she strongly recommends that they tell the receptionist to switch to a different therapist at the center. The relationship is crucial in starting the process back to a healthy person. The second is to work on the goals of the patient and not on someone else’s goals such as an outside agency that has referred the patient. The third is to mold therapy that fits the patient. Each person is unique and treatment needs reflect that.
Gray is not finished in reaching her goal to fulfill the therapeutic needs of Aroostook County citizens. Her next venture is to start a nonprofit organization that will help fill in the gaps for patients that do not qualify under income guidelines to receive the services that they need as well as starting a transition house. This is still in the planning stages, but it is apparent where her loyalties lie and that is with her strong desire to help people with the challenges that life throws at them.
Even with all this, Gray will be attending college to receive her doctorate. With her quiet and unassuming demeanor, Gray has definitely found her calling. Others would describe her as trustworthy and caring as she is very involved and dedicated to her patients.
One unnamed patient described her as a friend and completely trusts her to help with the issues that she deals with no matter how difficult and that she never feels judged.
When asked how she came up with her name of her business, Gray said that she had been listening to tapes from Dr. Phil before he had started his own show. He had mentioned designing your own life. That had stayed with her and when it came to starting her first business she thought that described what she wanted to help people do.
“People are here to live their own life by design,” she said.
