Therapeutic Self-Centeredness

Perhaps this one will be a true "musing"...

If you've read my most recent posts (though not terribly recent, I'm sorry to observe), then you're likely aware of my position as a psychology intern and therapist extraordinaire at a local hospital. I've enjoyed my unique (read: lonely) perspective as a Christian psychologist, poised to catch those moments in which psychology and faith intersect. Usually, the crossroads are sublime. Sometimes they are not. This is a musing about the latter.

Therapy is sort of an individual thing. Even in group therapy, the focus is on improving yourself, building your coping and interpersonal skills, learning how to overcome your depression/anxiety/self-pity/mass media-induced neurosis. Accordingly, self-esteem is paramount. Therapists exhort clients ad nauseum to use positive self-talk, make a list of positive qualities about themselves, identify strengths and successes, disregard the opinions and past abuses of others. And there is merit to this, in the sense that no person was intended to be a doormat, nor deeply and permanently depressed.

But the opposite of, and cure for, self-loathing is not self-worship. I don't believe the answer to low self-esteem is to build a shrine to self and lie there prostrate. How I want to scream this to my clients, even as I listen to my co-therapist encourage a group of used, abused, weepy-eyed, self-flagellating women (we had a gender-homogeneous group today) to put themselves first. These women roll out their laundry lists of thankless tasks: cleaning, cooking, caring for the kids, putting up with a sour (at best) relationship, enduring emotional havoc from aging parents. They pour themselves out daily for others and are realizing that this is draining, impossible to sustain indefinitely.

As I listen, I hear much of what is biblical about femininity: nurturing, caring, raising children, having a sensitivity to the emotions and behaviors of others. To an extreme, perhaps, and many of these women do not know how to set boundaries or to say no when it might be appropriate. I also hear much that is biblical concerning the human experience: it stinks sometimes to live in a fallen world among fallen people. And sometimes we feel ugly in our own skin.

I agree with secular psychology on one point: the answer requires a drastic re-aligning of priorities. But it is not a re-aligning that places the self in the top position. Far from it! Fulfillment will never - not EVER - come from selfishness, even well-intentioned selfishness designed to salve a wounded ego.

Rather, the answer is in reorienting ourselves so that our primary and ultimate allegiance is to the One who created us to be women (and men) bearing His image. My spirit resonates with the struggles of these women: I, too, feel the pressures of balancing a home and work, of pushing myself to sort the laundry when I don't feel like it, of cooking meals when I'm tired, of cleaning things that I'll never be thanked for. But I do believe that many of these tasks are at the heart of what it is to be a woman: a suitable help-mate for a man. I do not find the strength to do these things through scheduling regular bubble baths and pedicures (though those are nice when they happen), nor by washing my own clothes and dishes and letting the rest of the house go to pot (that was an actual suggestion today, to show the rest of the family what an important job she does). I find the strength to do these things through worshipping my God and believing His word that He created me to serve and to nurture. I find fulfillment in the thankless because I do all to the glory of God, not to the glory of me or my husband. I feel worthwhile because charm is deceptive and beauty fades, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

I wonder if our therapies are rendered less effective because we emphasize the self so heavily, to the exclusion of considering other, higher priorities. Ironically, our therapeutically self-centered culture is making us all the more neurotic because we can never raise our self-esteem high enough - until it is too high, and then we have a whole different set of pathologies.

Yes, we are to see value in ourselves and in our work. But that value is to flow from the ultimate worth-ship of our Creator, who created us in His image and declared that, behold, we are very good. And we are to always remember that our value is only because He has made it so: apart from His grace, we are in a state of abject wretchedness. The women in my therapy group are only feeling the reality of their condition! When my self-esteem is low, I return to the truths of Scripture and believe, even when my heart doesn't feel like it. I believe that God is God, and I am not. I believe that I ought to esteem myself lowly. And I believe that by His good pleasure and grace, He has placed me a little lower than the angels, nay, has clothed me in the righteousness of His Son and adopted me as a co-heir of heaven.

How could listing my positive qualities, filthy rags such as they are, possibly compare with the inestimable riches and beauty of the crown of life? What positive self-talk could I possibly craft to encourage me more than to say I am a daughter of El-Shaddai? When my spirit groans in this fallen world, may I not yield to therapeutic self-centeredness, but may the Lord help me to cast my eyes heavenward, to cry "Come quickly, Lord Jesus!" and to be faithful by His grace until He does.

God and Psychotherapy, Part the Second

I'm not sure I have the energy to make this post quite as eloquent as the one about angel-guy and reality, but as I witness the ongoing intersection between therapy and faith, I feel compelled to share.

Actually, this post will be more of a musing than a story (thus perfectly befitting the title of my blog, for perhaps the first time? do I often muse? how can one tell?) (I might not muse, but I certainly digress). ANYWAY...

I've noticed that clients seem reluctant to talk about their faith in session. I've had several who, just in passing, have mentioned something about God or religious beliefs, or some Christian song that they enjoy singing. Because I love Jesus and was trained at Regent University, I'm usually on that like a hawk. "Oh, are your beliefs about God important to you?" "Oh, do you enjoy singing Christian songs? What are your beliefs about that?" It is glorious when this occurs, like a sudden, unexpected beam of light shining down onto my therapy couch.

I'm always amazed when my clients seem surprised that I should ask. Those who have opened this door have turned out to identify as Christians, and to report that their beliefs are of core importance to them. How could such a person claim to desire healing without incorporating such a central component of their humanity? It blows the mind, really. Have we, as a field, professed so much hostility toward religion that our clients, the very ones for whom we exist, feel afraid to mention their love for the Lord?

One feels inspired to cuss. Or would, perhaps, if one weren't such a thoroughly sanctified girl.

I have one client in particular, whose name is startlingly appropriate to this story (we'll call her Faith, not her real name). She has been struggling with overwhelming guilt and shame related to her daughter's experience of abuse in the past. Faith has been stuck in a very deep depression for over a year, and to make matters worse, is somaticizing her distress as physical pain throughout her body. She feels little relief from her pain, even with medication and a sporadic exercise regimen. It is difficult for her to function from day to day because of the staggering weight of her guilt and sorrow.

I was trying to help her identify activities that lift her mood, even a little. She mentioned reading, and I asked what she enjoys reading. Her reading material of choice includes books about God, love, and becoming a better person. Choosing to believe that she was not referring to anything Olsteen-related, I asked about her interest in God. Does she have a relationship with God? Is this important to her? How has she experienced God since she learned of her daughter's abuse? Has she felt a disconnect between what she knows about God, and the way she feels her relationship with him is now?

Well oh my stars. If this woman didn't just light up at the mention of her God. We didn't solve world hunger, or even permanently do away with her depression, but we had such a conversation as has rarely graced a therapy room. It turns out she has felt very distant from God lately, and this is very distressing for her. She believes in Jesus, but it is incredibly difficult for her to let go of the guilt that comes from blaming herself for her daughter's abuse.

Does this not change everything about the way we will move forward in therapy??

In fifteen minutes we moved from a cold, stuck, barren place in which Faith has little hope for ever improving, to a warm, beautiful, living place in which Faith remembers her love for God, her passion for beauty, and her gift for writing poetry. Next time I see Faith, she will bring her old writings and we will speak of the only thing that is really True. Before she left that day, she smiled for at least five minutes and complimented my hair.

And all I did was agree with her that God exists, and He gives us good things, and that sometimes what we know about Him is very different from the way we experience Him. I gave her permission to speak about that which is Real in a way that her guilt and depression never will be. All I did was spot an unlocked door, and nudge it open enough for us to peer through together. And I do believe we'll be walking through it in the near future: the door to forgiveness and hope.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. With depression as significant as Faith is experiencing, progress tends to be slow and recovery is not always complete - i.e. some symptoms and/or some tendency to relapse will always remain. I blame the genetic component of mood disorders. But if we can reduce the heavy burden of guilt, I would imagine that we will see some level of improvement.

You know, it's interesting. That morning, as I laid in bed struggling to wake up and leave my warm (canoe-shaped...but that's a different post...) cocoon, I said a prayer for the clients I would see that day. Wednesdays are my full days, and I am there roughly 11.5 hours, so it takes a fairly strong kick in the pants to get me going. I find that it helps to minimize my stress and fear of exhaustion if I pray over that day's workload (go figure). And I prayed for Faith, who previously had been a bit of a frustration to me because of her stuck-ness. And lo and behold, the Lord saw fit to enter into the healing process that very morning.

I love my job.

[editor's note: I guess this turned out to be both a musing and a story. I have such a gift for smooth transitions and combining literary genres.]

The Fictions of Our Healing

I spent today on the partial unit because they were short-staffed due to something about a state inspection. Hopefully they only reviewed charts that I have not yet touched, because I doubt that my paperwork wherewithall is on par with state regs at this point.

And also, it's a "partial hospitalization" unit, not half a hospital wing. It can be a bit confusing when we healthcare professionals toss around the medical jargon, I know. Basically, the patients come in for a day of structure and group therapy and return home around 2:00. They need more support than just weekly outpatient therapy, but don't require the constant supervision of inpatient care. Anyways.

My brain and schedule have been so full lately that I fear I have not been on the lookout for "bloggable moments" as much as, say, mid-July, when my life was to file my nails, eat bon-bons, and pine for my husband. How things have changed! Now I get up at dawn, eat cafeteria food, and pine for my husband.

So I was thankful when, just this morning, a bloggable moment basically smacked me in the face. It's my honor to bring it to you, and hope you find some worth in its reading.


Picture a room, large enough for two long tables pushed together on one side (for lunch, therapeutic recreation, and psychoeducation group) and a circle of a dozen or so chairs on the other. A noisy air conditioner in each of two windows stands silent, abandoned in favor of audible therapy. The air hangs heavy with the remnants of this morning's muddy coffee and the closeness of fellow sojourners about to bare their souls. There is one empty chair in the circle, and a girl jokes that her hallucinations have a place to sit today. This is a place where the lines between reality and non-reality tend to shift around a bit, and are sometimes ignored altogether.

Reality. For one weathered man, reality is a foreclosure, an abusive wife, and a suicide attempt two weeks ago. For the new girl, it's somehow picking up the pieces and her baby girl and moving on from the suicide of her live-in boyfriend. The quiet lady in the corner is "down" today; yesterday she was "up" and couldn't stop fidgeting, drawing, talking, drinking coffee. The other therapist and I value reality and work so that our patients are in touch with it; our patients, on the other hand, would sooner spit on it than live it. And they tell us so.

This is a tough crowd. A cynical bunch. What does a white-bread little girl know about reality? They want to know. I'm a no-fat double latte to their whiskey on the rocks. Oh they're kind, they let me sit in their circle and ask polite questions about their troubles, offer bland suggestions about deep breathing and challenging negative thoughts.

As though I'd be coping just fine with the things they carry in those dark, tattered corners of their souls.

Enter a man with the name of an angel. He's fat, and he has a mustache and the kind of voice you'd pair with Steve Urkel if you didn't know better. He came to us for the first time yesterday from inpatient, after a brief stint in the regular hospital. Angel-guy has chronic health issues and attempted suicide by altering his meds. He's not cool by a long shot, and he hasn't been here long enough to know that the only people who talk about God are the schizophrenics with "religious preoccupations".

We had just begun morning process group, and it was one of those days when, in the words of my co-therapist, you just know you're going to haul out your crowbar and start playing dentist. Like pulling teeth, I chimed in, clarifying his allusion so that the more easily frightened in the bunch wouldn't be sent into full-blown panic attack mode. That's not a joke. You never know whose meds were adjusted by the doc yesterday.

Bless his heart, angel-guy stepped into the void of going first in group. His voice was shaky because he struggles with social anxiety (in this group, who doesn't?), but angel-guy took a deep breath and talked to us about God.

Nobody else noticed anything amiss. The other group members probably (barring auditory hallucinations) heard a guy saying, among stutters and stops, that he knows God is still there, but it's hard to feel connected with him right now because he's so depressed. My co-therapist probably heard delusions teeming with maladaptive thoughts, a sick man so intent on connecting with a mythical deity that he won't be able to discard his unhelpful beliefs and focus on his own health.

Me? I watched the paradox of reality shattering un-reality before my very eyes. In this room, where supposedly the sane lead the insane, the craziest thing of all was happening. Suddenly the fictions of our healing were fatally wounded by the Truth. We were children offering each other jellybeans for our ills while one simple, pathetic man spoke of the Bread of Life, a sovereign God who has spoken peace once and for all if we would only take and eat. He knew that reality, true reality, was somewhere just beyond his grasp, if only it would find him again.

It was a moment that loses something in the translation. But in that moment I wondered what we were doing. In that moment, my soul wept bitterly, and even now mourns, for the lost who believe they are found by cognitive therapies and relaxation techniques. Our healing is dressing mortal wounds in pretty colors if we do not offer the balm of Gilead. Our foolish reality, ignorant of the eternal God, is a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing.

Oh, there is a place for our pretty colors and positive thoughts. I feel no less called to offer compassion and help to those who suffer in the prison of the mind. If we can liberate our patients from the chains of depression, anxiety, and psychosis, so much the better. But let us not delude ourselves into believing we have saved them from anything particularly important. Indeed, perhaps it is those with chronic and persistent mental illnesses (and other chronic health problems, certainly) who are not "cured" by our treatments and believe themselves to be beyond hope in this world, who are the nearest to understanding their true plight. And it is up to us to offer hope that is beyond this world.

Father, God, show me how you would have me serve as a psychologist for Your kingdom.
Make me an instrument of the peace that passes all understanding.
Where there is hatred, let me model unconditional love.
Where there is injury, may I speak of true pardon.
Where there is doubt, help me to show that there is Truth worthy of our faith.
Where there is despair, may hope be evident in my ministering.
Where there is darkness, go before me as the light that defeats all shadow.
And where there is sadness, may I demonstrate the joy that lies deeper than circumstance.

Lord, I encounter pain on a daily basis. It seems my caseload consists of Job after Job. Grant that I would not seek merely to treat superficial problems of thought and feeling, but that I would also seek open doors to conversations about Your reality, which is our true reality. Even while I am constrained by law and ethics, sharpen my intellect with discernment and poise my tongue to speak the truth whenever possible. Help me to remember that to love is to point to you.

And Father, when I am weak of heart, remind me of this man who was not afraid to speak your name into the darkness.

The Brand New Marriage Resource!

Like I said to my sister-in-law this morning, it's amazing what any idiot with an internet connection can do!

I'd like to present a new website for your viewing and marriage-enhancing pleasure:
www.themarriageresource.synthasite.com

I hope to have it up and running with its own domain within the next few days at www.themarriageresource.com - but I'll keep you posted on that!

What are my goals for the site? I hope to build a collection of tools and resources both for people in marriages, and for people who like to help marriages. Spouses and clinicians can peruse helpful marriage tools and current research. Knowledge is power, and I hope to equip my little corner of the interweb with lots of marriage muscle!

Watch for content, and tell your friends. I hope to gain a respectable following and perhaps one day contribute to my own client base (when I'm licensed and settled in a practice, of course).

Oh, and there's an option on the website to email me with questions and feedback. If you have thoughts about what would be helpful to include, or issues to address, I welcome your suggestions!

On Brokenness and Healing

I think I am finally recovered enough to write about my ride-along on an overnight Medical Transport shift Sunday night.

Recovered from staying up all night, that is. It wasn't really very traumatic or emergency-ish. The worst that happened was watching Trish start an IV on a lady who was in bad shape and needed transport from her nursing home to an ER. Mostly the partners on my truck were moving people from dialysis to home, or from an ER to a bed or ER in another hospital. No emergencies for me to witness, which is actually ok with me. And here's a picture of where the magic happened:















During my 13 hours with Mitch and Trish, however, I had plenty of time for introspection regarding the medical/emergency field and the vastly differing perspectives one can have, from hospital staff to medical transport to patient to family member. Being in and out of hospitals, ERs, and dialysis centers allowed me to catch a glimpse of each of these kinds of people, and since I am not a "seasoned" medical professional my heart and mind remained open enough to consider each perspective and observe them in relation to one another.

From the perspective of medical personnel, each patient who comes through is viewed very objectively - and necessarily so. Of course there is the (hopefully) compassionate bedside manner to be managed, but the doctor, nurse, or EMT views the patient as a case and quickly analyzes the series of goals to be met and the steps required to move the patient along through each of these. Wes, a friend's husband who arranged the ride-along for his wife and me, explained that this is a vital part of their training (he is trained as an EMT and works for the medical transport company we rode along with). Too much emotion would be debilitating for the medical worker who must remain objective enough to function quickly and effectively and be able to cope with both success and failure. To one trained as a psychologist, these medical personnel sometimes came across as brusque or detached, but Wes emphasized that the role of medical staff is not to provide counseling. While they aim to provide compassionate care, their primary objective is to provide physical, not emotional, help.

More intriguing than the medical professionals themselves was the interaction between them and the patients. Perhaps the most memorable was a girl being wheeled into an ER on a stretcher, head and neck immobilized by a neck brace and strap across her forehead. Her male counterpart (husband? boyfriend?) was trotting beside the stretcher, holding her and and attempting to reassure her. They both seemed relatively calm considering the apparent situation, but I thought about the very different reactions between these lay people and the staff who assisted them. To the ER personnel, this was just another case....not in a cold or harsh way, but there was no panic or anxiety or realization that life might be drastically different from now on.

And that's what it comes down to, isn't it? For the ER staff, this is business as usual. To the girl lying on a stretcher, this is a huge, life-altering experience. Her life will never be the same, either because of lasting medical issues or due simply (simply?) to the emotional and potentially traumatizing effects of an emergency hospital visit. I couldn't imagine being in her shoes...or neck brace, as it were. To be lying flat on my back, unable to move, alone with my thoughts but for the attempted comforts of my husband. Would his words soothe my heart or calm my mind? Or would my insides be racing, crashing all over each other at the panic of possible paralysis?

A hospital is a place of great healing, but also often a place of great tragedy. The ER is the beginning of a very different life for some people. My heart broke for those I saw waiting in hospital beds for doctors to deliver a prognosis - for some, full of hope; for others, carrying the weight of an altered way of life. I hope I never harden to the great drama that happens in people's lives every single day...I am grateful for the opportunity to witness firsthand what goes on behind the scenes, even the small taste that it was. It was so helpful to watch and listen, to observe people's demeanors and reactions, to imagine the psychological effects of such an experience and to reflect on how I might be able to help these people approach emotional healing when I see them in my office one day.

We live in a fallen world, and life doesn't always give you good news. I thank the Lord for calling me to a profession in which I am privileged to come alongside people who are often experiencing the very brokenness of human existence. I pray that I will be strong enough to share the burden of pain, and wise enough to guide toward hope. I am only one person, but by God's grace I will call upon Him to help me help His children.

Dealing with Depression?

Something I wrote for my hermeneutics class and thought I'd pass along...

Psalm 42
As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God, with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng
Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.
My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon – from Mount Mizar. Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.
By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is within me – a prayer to the God of my life.
I say to God my Rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?” My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.

Theme: A thirst for God, a longing after Him in the midst of melancholy and depression
Author: Most likely David
Background: David had been driven from the sanctuary of the Lord and prevented from waiting upon Him in public religious services, possibly because of Saul’s persecution or Absalom’s rebellion.

To Think About:
• Is it okay for me to be honest with God about the way I feel? David pours out his feelings in this psalm of great anguish. He is open and broken before the Lord, confessing his melancholy and depression. He even questions why the Lord has forgotten Him! How often are you tempted to do this in the midst of your depression? It is not wrong to question God’s purposes, if the response that follows is one of faith and trust that He remains sovereign.
• Does my depression mean that I lack faith, or that I don’t love the Lord enough? It is easy to travel down this road of doubt, particularly in the midst of emotional struggles. Many times, well-meaning Christians tell depressed believers that they would not be depressed if they had enough faith in God. However, be comforted by the knowledge that if God has wrought in you a sincere and earnest desire toward him, then longing after Him in dark times is as sure a sign that you love Him as is your delight during joyful times. If your soul is panting for Him and wishing to be in His presence again, be assured that your faith is intact. Throughout the psalms we watch the psalmist experience a wide variety of feelings and struggles, and we can follow his example of trusting God in the midst of suffering.
• Where is my God? The psalmist is tormented by the words of other men, who view his distress as evidence that God has forsaken him. Yet the psalmist goes on to place his hope in the Lord and praise him in the midst of suffering. Your God is with you, even when it does not “feel” true. Turn to other Scriptures that provide assurance of God’s promises, such as Psalm 18, Psalm 40, Romans 8:28. God is with you, and has already rescued you from death!
• How can I get out from under these feelings of depression? When we are depressed, we often find negative thoughts washing over us, one after another, like the waves and breakers mentioned by the psalmist. How does he counteract this? By repeating a refrain of faith: “Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.” The psalmist knows that if he rehearses the promises of God and repeats words of faith, eventually they will stick and take root, and turn the tide of his depression. The light of morning always follows the darkness of night!

To Remember:
Observe and follow the psalmist’s example as you struggle with emotional pain. He lays himself bare before the Lord, pouring out his anguish and even his questions regarding the Lord’s purposes. Yet he reminds himself to put his trust in the Lord, and recalls that God is his Rock and Savior. We know from the tone of the psalm that he is in the midst of great melancholy, yet he intentionally puts into words the truths of God. Even when you do not feel like being joyful or praising God, even when His presence seems a distant memory, repeat to yourself statements of trust and remind yourself of His promises. Battle your negative thoughts by turning to positive declarations of truth. You might not feel that they are true at first, but praise God that our faith is one based on fact rather than on feelings! The facts of Christ’s salvation and of God’s promises remain true regardless of where our emotions run. Cling to what is true and your heart will eventually follow. You might not be able to calm this storm, but you know the One who can.

Almost Famous...Sort Of

I'm famous!

You know how you feel super-cool when you have up-close, personal contact with someone who actually IS famous, and you bask in their reflected glory for, like, way longer than is probably appropriate? It's like that...

So I've been doing all this research for my dissertation on "Efficacy Expectations as a Mediating Variable in Marital Conflict Resolution" (or something like that). Amongst my, oh, fifteen thousand articles that I have gathered in my review of the literature, about 80% have had the names "Fincham" and/or "Bradbury" in the author spot. And 99% have these gentlemen at least cited somewhere in their discussion.

So as I am gathering measures to use in my dissertation, it comes as no surprise that I'm interested in the Relationship Attribution Measure, developed by none other than our dear Fincham, and an expectancy questionnaire designed by, you guessed it, the fair Dr. Bradbury.

So now for the part where I got famous.

I emailed these two really hugely famous researchers, at least one of whom was a Rhodes Scholar and is now a Big Important Honored Professor at Oxford. Me, this piddly little doctoral student, tugging at the sleeve of these Great Men, asking if I can use their Brilliantly Designed Measures.

And I got an email back!!!

Dr. Fincham the Unfathomably Intelligent sent me a response within, oh, five minutes. And it was TWO WHOLE LINES. They went something like this:

You are most welcome. I am so glad that you find it helpful.

Good luck with your research.

Obviously, my research will indeed be blessed with sweet favor.

I can't wait to see what the Fair Bradbury has to say!!

Please Respect Your Therapist

If you have an appointment with a therapist, for therapy or for testing, please KEEP IT or call ahead to cancel.

Unless you want your therapist to wind up as crazy as you.

Thank you.


*Edit:
Ok, I feel I should qualify this post with an explanation and disclaimer. It's already tough enough to get and keep clients, what with the stigma that is still at least loosely attached to seeking help. No need to alienate all my (many) readers from ever setting foot in a psychologist's office.

First, let me say that I love my work. I do. I love meeting new people and hearing their stories. I love the privilege of entering into new worlds and coming alongside my clients for a great journey of healing. I love the great honor of being the first to hear a painful memory and of witnessing the heartrending confession of one lover to another. Words fail to convey the significance of those moments behind closed doors when the heart breaks and then is lifted anew through the sharing of thoughts and feelings. My heart, that is.

Don't underestimate the healing that the healer herself gains from caring for the wounded.

But seriously, don't play games with my schedule.

For two Tuesdays in a row I have been up bright and early, at school by 8:30 to pick up testing supplies, and down at Covenant no later than 8:55 in eager anticipation of a 9:00 appointment. Who never showed up. Two different clients, people. What gives?

I mean, I realize I'm at the very bottom of the totem pole when it comes to mental health care providers. I'm not licensed, I have no doctoral (YET!) degree, and I work in whichever office is available. But from the bottom of my heart, please, if I care enough to be punctual and prepared for your appointment, the least you can do is roll in on time...at all...heck, give me ten, fifteen minutes late. But don't make me sit for half an hour before I decide you're not coming, and finally have our lovely office manager leave a message when you don't answer the phone and ask whether you'll be attending this morning's appointment (like we don't know the answer to that one) and if not, when would you like to reschedule?

Because I'd love the opportunity to not see you again tomorrow morning.

Love,
Me