Professional Mission Statement

Clinical Psychology is my second career after spending 34 years as a junior high school teacher. Having a second career, to me, does not mean Clinical Psychology is a second tier choice. It is perfectly in line with my beliefs in being a life long learner, seeking challenges that match my passions and interests, and believing, as human beings, we all need to serve one another in some way.

While I have been a teacher for 34 years, my decision to enter the field of psychology is no fanciful choice. First, my choosing The Adler School of Professional Psychology was very purposeful. When I was finishing my teacher certification courses at De Paul University in 1971, one of my professors of Educational Psychology, Dr. Edward Ignas, introduced me to Adlerian thought and provided opportunities to attend some Adlerian workshops. I subsequently employed Adlerian ideas on discipline and working with adolescents throughout my teaching career. When I decided that I wanted to pursue a doctorate, The Adler School came to mind. The seed of being a psychologist had been planted thirty years before.

The second factor affecting my decision was the idea that, as I felt I wanted to have a second career after retirement, psychology was a perfect choice. I have always taught my classes from a psychological view. I have always received positive feedback from students, colleagues, and friends about my abilities to listen and to offer compassionate suggestions, and I believe that the role of a psychologist is that of a very special kind of teacher. The psychologist looks for the beliefs of the client, finds what beliefs are working for him or her, and what are not, and guides the client to make choices that will help them cope with the challenges of life in a way that allows them to feel encouraged and competent. When necessary, the psychologist may guide the client to look at new ways of viewing their concerns. In both these activities, the psychologist and the teacher have a great deal in common.

At this stage of my training, and as I attempt to look five years into the future, I see myself involved in three areas of specialty: family and adolescent therapy, including an additional emphasis in problems relating to families and schools; health psychology; and geriatric psychology.

Working with families and adolescents is a simple first choice. I have enjoyed doing that for my entire career as a teacher, and I look forward to continuing that in a new way. As a teacher I was always aware that when a student had problems in the school there were always two potential sources, often interacting. The student either had a problem that generated at school, and brought it home, or the student had a problem that generated at home, and brought it to school. As a teacher all I could do is to deal with the first situation, while only peripherally being able to address the second. As a psychologist, I will have an opportunity to deal more directly with the second situation.

I don’t foresee working only with school related family and adolescent issues. I can also envision working with families with children and families with no children on the full gamut of problems and issues that spring from living together

I see working with families and adolescents as a gateway specialty, something that is very familiar, and something with which I already have a number of skills. My second area of interest, though, is health psychology. Until ten years ago, I would have never thought much about it as a specialty, but my own health crisis gave me an opportunity fully appreciate this area. I had a serious heart attack at the age of 45. As much as my heart was affected, my entire view of myself and the world was also affected. I experienced a great deal of personal discomfort, fear, and anxiety, as a result of the heart attack. I did not have a clue how to cope with it. I worked with an excellent therapist, and came to an understanding of how important it was to have, for patients with serious medical conditions, a whole team of professionals who can help a person physically, mentally, socially, and spiritually. I formed a much more holistic view of health, and of the human experience. I feel I can bring a special understanding to that area of helping people, not just after the fact, but helping people proactively in concert with community psychologists as well.

The third specialty I am interested in pursuing is in the area of gerontology. This too, comes from a personal experience that so many of my generation are encountering now, that is of parenting one’s own parents. I saw the steady decline and deaths of my parents, who lived long and productive lives. My mother in particular could have benefited from trained, geriatrically specific, therapy. It was very hard to find. I feel that most deaths in the elderly, that could be prevented, can ultimately be traced to geriatric depressions and self-neglect due to inadequate preparation and support for the encounter of this phase of life. I feel a great deal can be done proactively in working with healthy seniors, to give them strategies for staying healthy and active for as long as possible, and strategies of how to deal with the inevitable issues of death, separation, grief, and the steady decline of one’s body. I see a tie-in with my interest in health psychology with this population that seems not only logical, but necessary.

I have another interest in geriatric psychology, as well, and this is perhaps even more of a need. It is that of working with the families of the elderly to help them cope with the stresses and burdens of caring for aging parents, friends, and relatives. I know in the experience I had, neither my sister nor I could find specialists who could help with the unique needs of families as they have to deal with a myriad of problems, both personal (grief, stress, anger, etc.) and practical; who to call, where to get different social services, what kind of supports to get for loved ones and the like. While social workers are largely given this area of care, it was evident that even more specially trained health care professionals were needed.

In addition to the psychological interests I have, there are practical considerations in having a second career. I will be receiving my teacher’s pension, but these days that is not a very comfortable guarantee against the rising costs of housing and medical care. I see myself working at first with a group or institution to learn the basics of my new profession, most likely working full time. After a couple of years, I plan on building a private practice. I envision a practice that would not be completely full time, but would serve as a healthy second income. I would seek to control my client load to allow for both the satisfaction of work, but also for the pursuit of other interests, particularly writing. Certainly economics will determine that, but my goal is to have the opportunity to do both well.

I have one other interest that I would like to incorporate into my practice and that is the use of the arts and literacy in therapy. I have a natural inclination toward bibliotherapy, but even for clients who don’t have well developed literacy skills or interests, the use of film or music interests me, whether it is “classic” culture or “popular” culture. I am also interested in using narrative therapy techniques when they match a client’s abilities and / or interests.

I believe I am a compassionate person who is good at both observation and intuition when it comes people. I believe I am a good listener, an empathetic listener, who can not only offer observations, but also make unique connections that might lead to a different way of seeing things, and different opportunities for working with life’s challenges. I am positive about the potentials of life without being naïve, passionate, but fairly cool under pressure. I have a good sense of humor about myself and life, and I enjoy encouraging people to see the good in themselves. I feel I have a passion for trying to help people ease the suffering in their lives, while at the same time helping them to recognize opportunities to experience joy. I believe I successfully balance the creative with the practical, that I am risk averse enough not to be foolish, but passionate enough to be an advocate for people or issues. I am gentle, but I am also a no-nonsense kind of person, with a healthy amount of physical and mental toughness. I am curious, reflective, meditative, and persistent. Lest this be a paragraph about Mother Theresa, I often do not know when it is time to quit. I do not let go easily. I am capable of anger, particularly when I see the strong exploiting the weak, and, as the old saying goes, “I do not suffer fools gladly,” particularly when it comes to professional issues of competency, currency, and compassion.

I have, I believe, developed a somewhat existential view of life. I once heard a discussion of professional philosophers and theologians discussing the most important human questions. There were many, but one that stood out for me was, “Is the world / universe a safe / friendly place?” I think I have experienced a slow personal evolution on that question. I honestly must say I lived much of my life feeling it was not a safe place. Gradually, over this last decade I have felt that it would be equally foolish to assume the world was perfectly safe or friendly, but that the world is, well, just the world, neither friendly nor unfriendly, neither safe nor unsafe. The world just is, with all of its joys and sorrows, advantages and disadvantages, fairnesses and unfairnesses. The ultimate question is, “O.K., these are your givens, what are you going to do with it?”

In Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, Meg, the main character becomes depressed and disillusioned about her abilities. She feels she is not good enough to match her own high expectations of herself as well as those she feels others have for her. She encounters a “good witch” who gives her sound advice. The witch tells her people are like sonnets. They have a proscribed set of lines, meter, rhythm, and form, yet in that small form, there are an infinite amount of possibilities. As it is with people, so it is with the world.

I have already touched upon my feelings about others. The metaphor of the sonnet holds true for me, so does the Buddhist understanding that we all suffer. It is the basic human condition, but that it has a way of being alleviated. Ultimately that way is through mindful understanding of the ideas we refuse to give up that are keeping us trapped, which turn out to be all of our ideas, if we insist on holding on to them long after they have served their purpose.

Other people are mirrors of our own suffering, our own illusions. Those we tend to like are those who show us the good in us, either by what they do with and for us, or what we can do with and for them. We tend to dislike those who show us the darkness in us, either by what they do to us, or by what we end up doing to them. It is hard to remember the biblical wisdom that we are truly all brothers and sisters. We are all trying to find a place in this universe and among ourselves. Some of us have been luckier than others in having had enough positives in our lives, enough fortunate timing, that we have found a place, though it may be tenuous and rocky. Others, those who are lost, or those who have given up and rejected the idea of finding a place, are as important to our own well being, as we are to theirs.

As I pointed to before, the world is neither fair, nor unfair. Not everyone can be “saved.” I’m not unrealistic. I am want to think of three things. First, it is not the destination that counts, but the path we walk. Second, the idea of being deserving is an illusion. No one deserves suffering or joy. No one deserves success or failure. No one deserves damnation or salvation. These are things that arise because of our human condition, and our place in a universe that is constantly in a state of change, so that the destruction of one is the creation of another.

The third thing I am thinking about is a story that, I believe, has often been told and retold in various versions. A woman dies and is taken to the threshold of eternity by the Angel of Death. She asks if it is Heaven or Hell. The angel tells her she can have a free look, so she crosses the threshold.

The woman sees two rooms. She enters the first and there, cast in eternity are billions of people in an ever-stretching dining room. There is a sumptuous feast on all the tables, all you can eat for eternity, every favorite food of every person, no one can get fat, or have indigestion. She is astounded to hear wailing, and crying, and the gnashing of teeth, and she notices that all the eating utensils are ten feet long, and no one can get the food into their mouths. Their arms aren’t long enough, so for eternity they are starving and frustrated. She walks into the second room, and it is identical to the first, the same banquets, the same utensils, but his time, she does not hear wailing and the gnashing of teeth, she hears the satisfied “Mmmmms” of billions of people. She looks more closely and notices that although everything is the same as the previous room, there is one difference. Each person has taken their utensil and used it to feed the other person.

The woman returns to the Angel of Death and asks which is her room. The angel looks her square in the eye and says, “You decide.”

All of these thoughts about myself, the world, and others have guided me along my path. Some have been with me all my life, others have evolved slowly, and still others are new friends. They have all played a role in shaping my professional life decisions, the first, to be a teacher, and the second, now on the threshold of a new career, to be a psychologist.