Co-Founder Spotlight | Angela Picot Derrick, PhD, CEDS-C, CYT

Written by: Angela Derrick, Ph.D. & Susan McClanahan, Ph.D.

Date Posted: February 19, 2025 8:59 am

Co-Founder Spotlight | Angela Picot Derrick, PhD, CEDS-C, CYT

Clinical Psychologist and Co-founder of SpringSource Psychological Center

Certified Eating Disorder Specialist and Consultant

Certified Yoga Teacher

Article by Edward T. McDougal

The roots of a transformative therapist’s journey often spring from unexpected sources. For Angela Derrick, PhD, that path began in a Detroit suburb, where she grew up with her parents and two younger brothers near the shores of Lake Huron, where academic achievement and intellectual curiosity would shape her future calling.

From her earliest years, Angela displayed an appetite for learning and achievement, encouraged by her parents’ emphasis on hard work, curiosity, and integrity. “I was a really involved kid,” she recalls, her voice brightening at the memory. “I liked to be included in things like the student council, honor society, Great Books, and Olympics of the Mind (now Odyssey of the Mind.). I’d enter every spelling bee and try to go as far as I could, for instance, and I wanted to pursue any kind of academic challenge available to me. I always tried to use my talents and interests to push myself and see how far I could go.”

Do you have a particular memory from those experiences that stands out?

“I’ve always loved reading, so I’d say that was a passion of mine when I was a child and it has continued to be into adulthood.”

Her voracious appetite started at an early age. In one particularly remarkable achievement, Angela read over 500 books for a March of Dimes fundraiser inside of a couple of weeks. “I just read and read and read as much as I could. Books and stories are very important to me and it was wonderful to read with a purpose,” Angela explains. Today, she belongs to several book clubs and has integrated this love of literature into her professional practice by establishing a book club at SpringSource. Currently, the group is reading “What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma” by Stephanie Foo. “It’s a look at what complex trauma is and how we define it and what the features are” Derrick explains. “It’s not currently an official diagnosis in the DSM, but it’s certainly a part of many of our clients’ lived experiences.”

Angela’s devotion to reading has supplied her with skills she puts to use in her psychology practice. Her ability to go deep into story and character in the books she’s read provides her with an ability to gain a deep, complex understanding of the clients she works with. This integration of her personal passions with her professional practice has become a hallmark of her career.

Can you tell us about the steps that led you to your chosen career and eventually to SpringSource?

“I knew right away going into college that my major would be psychology since I was so intrigued by people and their stories.”

Following in the footsteps of many family members (her father, grandfather, great aunt, uncle, and cousins), Angela enrolled at Michigan State University. However, she charted her own course from the start, entering with absolute certainty about her field of study.

Her academic journey continued at Georgia State University, where she pursued her PhD in clinical psychology under the tutelage of Lisa Lilenfeld, Ph.D., who guided Angela’s academic and clinical understanding of eating disorders. At this time, Angela also worked at the Atlanta Center for Eating Disorders in their IOP and PHP program, where she learned the craft of individual and group therapy with individuals with eating disorders. The next pivotal chapter began when she moved to Chicago for her clinical internship and postdoctoral fellowship at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

It was here that she met Susan McClanahan, founder of Insight and Eating Recovery Centers, who would eventually partner with her to found SpringSource Psychological Center.

In 2005, Susan invited Angela to join a new outpatient program as the first staff member of what would later become Insight Behavioral Health. This collaboration marked the beginning of a 15-year journey that would see Angela play an integral role in the organization’s evolution. “I’m really proud of having been at Insight for so long and helping turn it from an IOP [Intensive Outpatient Program] into a PHP [Partial Hospitalization Program]. “We were one of the first eating disorder and behavioral health treatment centers in the area and the foremost practice in downtown Chicago for many years.”

The foundation of SpringSource emerged during the pandemic, when both Angela and Susan stepped back from their roles at Insight/ERC. What began as a supervisor-supervisee relationship transformed into a partnership when Susan called with an unexpected proposition: “Hey, do you want to do something together?” This marked the beginning of SpringSource Psychological Center, a practice that will soon celebrate its fourth year of operation.

What contributed to the unique approaches you use with your patients?

“I’ve always been a good listener,” she explains. “I’m more interested in thinking and reflecting, and listening and absorbing, than doing all the talking myself. And I feel like I have a good temperament and good character for that.”

Angela’s therapeutic approach draws deeply from her lifelong love of literature and her natural inclination toward reflection and analysis. She compares her therapeutic process to analyzing poetry: “I can see a person or situation or experience almost like a poem. Like you take it in, sit with it, and then you make sense of things and see how it all fits together, and you offer out your interpretation to the client. I like making meaning of something that could be seen in many ways. We’re trying to find a way to relate that offers a new and more adaptive understanding.”

This literary sensibility influences how she approaches human stories and relationships. “What I’ve always been interested in most about reading are people’s stories,” she explains. “I love reading the complex interaction and dynamics between people and the difference between what people might keep internally versus what they express externally. I’ve always been fascinated by character and interpersonal dynamics and how those get played out.”

Her orientation in relational and dynamic psychotherapy allows her to apply these insights practically. “I wanted to parlay my interest in people and relationships into something more applied. I wanted to help people articulate their interests and needs, notice their internal experience, and put words to the things that were hard to say and then from there help them express those inner thoughts and experiences in a way that benefits them.”

One of Angela’s most powerful attributes as a therapist is her ability to maintain hope for patients who may have lost it themselves. “People often come to us at their lowest point and they have very little hope that things will get better,” she explains. “You have to hold hope for them for a long time.” Having worked with many patients for 15-20 years, she has gained a unique perspective on the therapeutic journey and its potential for transformation.

“I can often see what the trajectory is going to bring,” she notes. “So even if it’s like, ‘Oh, these next few years are going to be hard as you grow and confront things and make changes,’ I can see the arc of this. And I have a sense where things could go and how they develop.” This long-view perspective allows her to guide clients through difficult periods with confidence and compassion.

A cornerstone of her practice is validation and understanding. “One of the things people want to hear the most is ‘that makes sense,'” she explains. “They need to tell me their experience and have it validated instead of questioned, which they often experience from others in their lives.” This approach extends to understanding why certain behaviors, even maladaptive ones, might serve a purpose in a client’s life. “Even if something is painful or difficult or maladaptive for a client, it’s our job to understand. Okay, but what is beneficial about that for you? Why is this making sense for you in your life right now?”

Has your work with an individual ever grown to involve other family members in therapy sessions?

“If we see a 20 or 30-year-old in our office, sometimes we’re learning that the whole family system could benefit from therapy,” she explains. “We have a few cases actually where we’ve brought in mom and dad to do some work or then maybe the whole family, we learn that somebody needs their own individual therapist.”

A particular focus of Angela’s current work is with parents in their 40s who are trying to help their own children develop healthy relationships with food and their bodies while potentially still struggling with their own eating disorders. “You can’t just assume that the mom grows up and now she’s nurturing the little one. She’s still got a lot of work to do on herself oftentimes,” Angela observes. “People really are more motivated to take care of themselves when they have children and want to give their children a different experience growing up than they had.”

What dreams do you have for the future in your work with SpringSource?

“There’s still a lot of ageism in our society and discrimination against folks as they get older. Not a lot of therapy centers take Medicare,” Angela notes. This gap in services has become a focal point for SpringSource’s future development. Recently, Angela and Susan have noticed a significant trend in their practice: an increasing number of older adults and mid-life clients seeking therapy. This observation has sparked a new passion and direction for their work at SpringSource. Their commitment to addressing this need has led to exciting opportunities. Angela, Susan, and a colleague are preparing to present at a conference in Palm Desert on eating disorders in mid-life and later life stages, combining Angela’s longstanding expertise in eating disorders with this emerging focus on older adults. The prevalence of eating disorders among older adults is more significant than many realize. Derrick cites statistics from the Renfrew Center showing that over a recent decade, approximately 25% of their new admits were individuals over 35 or 40 years old.

“Many people have had an eating disorder growing up and they still have it, or they made progress but never completely got rid of it, or it got reactivated as they got older,” she explains. This understanding has led to a more nuanced approach to treatment that considers the unique challenges and experiences of older adults. As she notes, “Some professionals look at older adults that come in for care and say, if you’re losing weight, it must be because you’re just aging or it’s medication or depression or they find other reasons to excuse it away. The fact is that many older people have eating disorders that require specialized treatment.”

Looking to the future, Angela envisions SpringSource becoming known for its specialized work with mid-life and later life adults. “I think we’re filling a need in the community right now,” she says. Her goals extend beyond just providing therapy – she and Susan are committed to nurturing new staff and creating a supportive work environment that fosters professional growth. “I like this idea of ten years down the road SpringSource being known for our good work with mid-life and later life adults and being a place clinicians want to work.

Finally, is there a particular quote from someone that inspires you?

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Anaïs Nin’s famous quote about personal growth resonates deeply with Angela’s understanding of the therapeutic process. “Our work is with folks who are in that really stuck, frightened state. And the role of the therapist is, in some ways, to help them develop the tension around that. Eventually, they’re ready to say, ‘I’ve got to change. I’ve got to do something differently; this is no longer working for me. I’ve got to grow.”

Outside of her professional life, Angela maintains an active family life on Chicago’s North Shore with her husband, their 13-year-old daughter in eighth grade, their 10-year-old son in fourth grade, and their golden retriever Willa. The family takes full advantage of their lakeside community, spending time on the beach and at local parks, pools, and gardens. Angela and her husband regularly play paddle tennis together, embodying their commitment to a healthy relationship and an active, balanced lifestyle.

For Angela, being a therapist is more than just a profession – it’s an honor and a responsibility. “We are trusted with really intimate details of a person’s life, and it is a huge responsibility to use that trust to work toward a patient’s healing,” she reflects. As SpringSource approaches its fourth anniversary, Angela continues to build on this foundation of trust, helping clients navigate their journeys of growth and healing while expanding the practice’s reach to serve an increasingly diverse range of clients.