great admirations

I just got home from one of my last classes of this semester, and I feel so loved. My professor adjourned class by reading us students a prayer of Thanksgiving...appropriate as we approach the holiday. She prefaced her reading by saying that she searched long and hard (OK, googled...but still) for a Thanksgiving wish from a professor to a student...but couldn't find one. Most were letters of thanks or sentiments from students to teachers. What she read instead was a Bible passage from Eugene Peterson's translation "The Message." I go to a Christian University...we can do that there:

Philippians 1

3-6 Every time you cross my mind, I break out in exclamations of thanks to God. Each exclamation is a trigger to prayer. I find myself praying for you with a glad heart. I am so pleased that you have continued on in this with us, believing and proclaiming God's Message, from the day you heard it right up to the present. There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears.

9-11 So this is my prayer: that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much but well. Learn to love appropriately. You need to use your head and test your feelings so that your love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush. Live a lover's life, circumspect and exemplary, a life Jesus will be proud of: bountiful in fruits from the soul, making Jesus Christ attractive to all, getting everyone involved in the glory and praise of God."

Like I said, this really warmed my heart...not only the passage, but the way my professor read it to us. She is one of the kindest individuals I've ever met. I might gush right now...but I don't think it'll be purely sentimental. So here I go.

While my time in grad school and in this field has been trying, I have had the pleasure of learning from and being amongst some of the most intelligent, admirable, integritous (you know, full of integrity...is there a word for that?), and just plain cool professors and clinicians on the face of the earth. It's true. My internship professor always lectures for the first half hour of class on topics like "containing our clients' emotions", "grieving defenses", and my favorite "evil, the view of self, and Christian thought." Then we have a few moments of silence to reflect on it and ourselves. At times, I think I can hear my soul. No lie. My favorite professor sometimes joins me and my peers for beers after class (we call it Peers, Beers, and Professor Jeers...actually, we don't. I just made that up) where he regales us with stories about old clients and quips about his own personality style. And then there's my research professor (who is Chinese) who constantly talks about Kung Foo Panda and Dutch Apple Pie. You got me why he does, but that's what makes him great and why I keep taking classes with him.

Some might not realize the importance of these moments, but I see them (and my professors) as a gift. They care about us and for us so that we can care for others. It's like the gift that keeps on giving, really.

While I'm incredibly nervous to graduate and give up this culture I've grown to appreciate and love, I kind of expect that I'll get this once I'm out "on my own." I know it won't look the same...Peers, Beers, and Professor Jeers won't happen...I won't always have people reading me inspirational Bible passages...and I'll probably have to beg people to massage both my ego and my funny bone (ehhh...you catch my drift, right?). But little experiences here and there have provided me with a ray of hope. I can see my academic crushes (yes, I have crushes on all of them) making way for professional crushes. My current internship supervisors are incredible and I enjoy supervision more than I ever have before. I read books and articles by authors in the field that enlighten me far beyond what a text could. And in attending a lecture last week on the Paranoid Personality, and I now think I'm in love with the presenter.

I think we need people to admire, to look up to, to strive to be like. We need to look longingly at them and their attributes. We need to follow their lead so that we can one day lead. And I do want to lead someday.

Am I willing to accept this?

I'm totally dressed like a therapist today. And I know you know what I mean.

dream interpretations

Last night, as I was falling asleep, I was thinking about what my next blog topic should be. As I was slipping out of consciousness, I recall having spectacular ideas. No... they were GENIUS. I said to myself..."you gotta remember this one, Emily...it's a gem. Remember ...remember ... remem...zzzzzzzzz. " Needless to say, all of those good ideas are now trapped in some dream (hypnosis will be a future topic, to be sure). I'm convinced that I'm most creative when I'm half asleep. Or maybe I just think I am...I'll have to start digitally recording my pillow musings.

So while doing dream interpretations SOUNDS dramatic and exotic and film-noir-esque (maybe? just a little?), they're actually none of those things. Like a lot of people, I kind of just projected what dream interpretation would be like in therapy. You know, the patient bursts into the room, riddled with anxiety. Arms flailing above his head. "Doc! You gotta hear this! I had the most amazingly bizarre dream! Tell me what it means! It's like a I can see the FUTURE or something!" He flops on the couch and recounts his dream, which is filled with rainbow slides, talking refrigerators, and aliens...who land on earth in gothic mansions and abduct younger siblings at gun point (oh, wait... that's just MY recurring nightmare). The therapist extracts some mystical meaning about unicorns and his dad from the incoherence. And the patient leaves having figured out his core trust issues. Well, I can't say this with MUCH much authority, since I've only had one client who has recalled a poignant dream during session. But I don't think it's really like that. My first deep psychological dream interpretation went surprisingly well. Upon examination, what s/he reported was a slightly unrealistic reflection of what s/he experiences in reality. As I tracked and reflected it (points for good technique!), parallels between it and her/his life patterns emerged. The dream turned out to be less mystical/bizarre and more enlightening. I believe that most of our dreams are creative composites of our anxieties, wishes, fears, and past experiences. Maybe throw some unconscious material in there. And you got yourself a dream.

Smarter, more experienced and psychologically educated professionals might disagree. Or maybe just fine-tune this conjecture. However, I'll stick to my elementary (and cunningly vague) explanation of these fascinating occurrences. I am, after all, a newbie.

I'll close with this. Before you, the reader, go bursting in to your best friend's, or roommate's, or lover's room requesting that s/he listen to and interpret your dream....think about the fact that while dreams are AMAZING experiences for the person involved..."it's never THAT fun to listen to people's dreams, Emily." Save it for your therapist. We're paid to listen to you.

(quote courtesy of my friend and dream confidant Bonnie B.)

so many musings, so little time

So this is my very first blog. I know that blogging has been a part of the e-world for quite some time, but it has always taken me a bit longer to really be sold on something. Note, I'm not quite sold yet, but I'm a try-er...a do-er, if you will... just ask my family.

Now that I've established my role as a Do-er, I'll now speak on my ever-developing role as a therapist. In September 2006, I embarked on a three year journey into therapist-hood by enrolling as a full-time student in Eastern University's Masters in Counseling program. It's now 2008, so my graduation is rapidly approaching. May 2009 is right around the corner. Literally. It kind of freaks me out...but is thoroughly exciting at the same time. One thing I've learned in these two and a half years is that I can have two feelings at the same time!! Simultaneously!! There's my first musing for you.

Being two and a half years in, and approaching the end of my training experience, I've had a lot of thoughts, musings, epiphanies, and the lot about being a therapist. First off, it's a weird profession. Therapists are trained to become experts in how individuals live their lives. We exist to help people know themselves better. Instead of being their magic mirror, we're their reality mirror. I witness something quite profound in my quiet and eerily intimate counseling room. My clients are seeing their reflections... and those reflections are becoming clearer and clearer with each session. This is not always a comfortable experience. Who am I kidding, it's really painful. And there I am...with them in their clarity and their pain. It's a wonderfully awful experience for me.

That is my world right now in a nutshell, as I'm in the internship phase of my program. I'm meeting with 8 clients per week. And actually looking forward to it. I kind of wish I would have started this blog two years ago. You, the reader, would have read about my unbridled excitement upon entering the academic world, my debilitating distress as I moved through writing papers (some of which were about myself....YIKES!), and my oft felt complete disillusionment with the profession. Not to worry, reader. It's all still there...somewhere. But I'm happy to annouce that I am in the "awe" phase of my training. What a great place to be.