Therapist With Cancer Counsels Patients at His Nonprofit Agency

Three years ago, therapist Larry Brown was billing his time at $100 an hour, running a booming counseling practice with offices in Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley and Pasadena.

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In May, 1993, though, Brown found out he had cancer.

That, combined with changes in the health insurance industry, inspired Brown to swap his Acura for a rented Hyundai and convert his for-profit practice into a nonprofit agency.

Now, he trains those hoping to become licensed therapists, and he provides individual and group therapy for as little as $10 an hour--or even for a haircut.

“I’ve had to look at my life; I’ve had to make important changes,” Brown said. He cut his 60-hour workweek in half, he said, to accommodate the fatigue that came with two rounds of chemotherapy.

His patients have hardly noticed a difference.

John Hazelrigg credits Brown with saving his marriage. Lynda Ruyle says Brown saved her son. And Caroline Cui says Brown gave her “caring, unconditional love,” leaving a Christmas tree and ornaments anonymously on her front porch as she recovered from alcoholism that left her near death.

“He’s just a great shrink,” Ruyle said.

Brown lost much of his energy and most of his hair to the cancer treatment, and he is waiting to see whether he is eligible for a bone marrow transplant that would give him a 50% chance of being cured of the disease, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

He devotes what energy he has to his clients.

“He could not have been feeling well at all, and he never canceled on us,” said Ruyle, 51, a Camarillo single mother who visited Brown with her belligerent 13-year-old son for an hour every Friday afternoon for a year. “Even when he was really wiped out, he was always there for us.”

Brown, 45, who lives in Thousand Oaks with his wife and two stepchildren, grew up on a farm outside of Poughkeepsie, N.Y. In 1969, he followed his therapist to Santa Barbara.

“He was a good therapist and I was attached to him,” Brown said.

After years of working in Santa Barbara hotels and restaurants, Brown decided to become a therapist himself. He started a practice in Pasadena in 1984, then moved to Thousand Oaks in 1988--helping people with their relationships, with their children, with substance abuse, with “low self-esteem.”

Clients said that even before Brown was diagnosed with cancer and turned his practice nonprofit, he took patients who could not pay. Cui, a barber, said she has long had a barter arrangement: cutting Brown’s hair in return for therapy.

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A brochure for the nonprofit counseling center, known as ACT, or “A Center for Therapy,” promises “very affordable fees.”

“There is a market for $10, $20, $30, $40 cash-paying people,” Brown said.

He said many managed care health insurance plans do not cover therapy or only cover a limited number of sessions. The government mental health system serves those with more severe problems, but many people must pay for therapy out of their own pockets.

The changes have also made it tougher for licensed marriage, family, and child counselors like Brown to make money.

Despite advances in psychiatry, Brown said psychotherapy is still a worthwhile investment.

“Pills just can’t do it all. There’ll always be a place for talk therapy,” Brown said.

It worked for Hazelrigg, who said participating in Brown’s Simi Valley group therapy sessions helped him overcome his shyness and recover from two painful bouts with spinal meningitis.

“Larry’s just a regular guy,” Hazelrigg says. “He’s not good looking, he’s not tall and handsome, he’s not wealthy. He doesn’t seem particularly charismatic. But he knows his business.”