I came to this profession not from science, spirituality, or the fine arts, but from the humanities. I’m passionate about community, culture, emotion, and care.
The most important action therapists can offer, in my view, is being focused on you as you discover or express what has been fragile or unacknowledged in you and your story: while simultaneously holding the revelation or discovery with strength and sensitivity. In other words: we need someone to witness our ways of being, offer kindness to them, and not be blown away by them. You then have the opportunity to see yourself through someone who’s giving their undivided attention without asking you to be any way other than how you already are. The parts of you that need more kindness, care, or attention will be easier to detect, under these conditions, and it will be easier to know how to meet those parts’ needs. A liberating self-understanding and self-compassion can then arise.
In my youth, I completed an Honours BA and a PhD in linguistic anthropology, the cross-cultural study of language and culture. I lived for over a year in highland Cameroon doing the fieldwork for my doctoral research on music, money, and moral values there. After that, I taught at the post-secondary level, interned on an organic farm, and freelanced in academic publishing. For years I was a stay-at-home parent. Shortly before the pandemic started, I began working in domestic abuse response co-facilitating discussion groups with men with abuse-related criminal charges. This work led to my interest in psychotherapy and I went back to school in mid-life.