Although one can renew or join NPI for the first time at any point during the year, the NPI membership year runs from January 1st to December 31st. That means it is time to renew our dues! Current members should have received a dues invoice on January 3rd, 2012. There have been no changes in the membership categories or rates, and membership has many benefits. NPI members get reduced rates on three NPI continuing education workshops per year. There are also luncheons held each month (with the exception of the month of July) where a certificate docu-menting one CEU credit is provided. Most importantly, membership means your practice profile will be published in the annual NPI Membership Directory, a highly-valued resource to many clini-cians for referrals and consultation sources.

When you renew your membership, be sure to update your online profile. Go to the NPI website and click the LOGIN button in the upper right hand corner of the HOME page. If you have forgotten your password, you can click FORGOT PASSWORD and follow the prompts to create a new password. The Membership Directory will be gen-erated based upon information in your online profile, so it is important that everyone updates their online profiles. In order to be included in the 2012 Membership Directory, dues must be paid by March 1, 2012. We hope you will continue your mem-bership in this wonderful organization, and join us in connecting and collabo-rating.

Volume 2: Issue 2

Time to Renew Memberships and Update Online Directory Profiles

Winter 2012

Inside This Issue:

NPI REFLECTS

Nashvil le Psychotherapy Inst i tute Newsletter

It Makes No Sense

NPI REFLECTS

Chad A. Buck, Ph.D., Co-Editor

We so often speak of and celebrate “random acts of kindness” — the ones that we cherish and highlight be-cause it makes us feel good and helps us feel safe. We speak far less of ran-dom acts of devastation and death that we all share, that can shake the

core of our hearts and minds, bodies and spirits. Many of us, myself in-cluded despite having navigated deaths in my own immediate family, feel discomfort and fear in the face and unknowingness of death. I wrote this piece last April in the weeks im-

mediately after a sudden death of a dear, young friend of mine.

In the days and months after loss, we struggle to find or make meaning when often there is none or none that

(Continued on page 2)

By Karen Silian, Ph.D.

Renew Membership 1

It Makes No Sense 1

Cogito Ergo Sum 3

Readers Write 5

Tetan 6

Is This Normal? 8

Jewel Boxes 9

Training Review 9

Reel to Real 10

Credits 10 Renew Your Dues Today! www.nashvillepsychotherapyinstitute.org

Nashville Psychotherapy Institute Newsletter

Although one can renew or join NPI for the first time at any point during the year, the NPI membership year runs from January 1st to December 31st. That means it is time to renew our dues! Current members should have received a dues invoice on January 3rd, 2012. There have been no changes in the membership categories or rates, and membership has many benefits. NPI members get reduced rates on three NPI continuing education workshops per year. There are also luncheons held each month (with the exception of the month of July) where a certificate docu-menting one CEU credit is provided. Most importantly, membership means your practice profile will be published in the annual NPI Membership Directory, a highly-valued resource to many clini-cians for referrals and consultation sources.

When you renew your membership, be sure to update your online profile. Go to the NPI website and click the LOGIN button in the upper right hand corner of the HOME page. If you have forgotten your password, you can click FORGOT PASSWORD and follow the prompts to create a new password. The Membership Directory will be gen-erated based upon information in your online profile, so it is important that everyone updates their online profiles. In order to be included in the 2012 Membership Directory, dues must be paid by March 1, 2012. We hope you will continue your mem-bership in this wonderful organization, and join us in connecting and collabo-rating.

Volume 2: Issue 2

Time to Renew Memberships and Update Online Directory Profiles

Winter 2012

Inside This Issue:

NPI REFLECTS

Nashvil le Psychotherapy Inst i tute Newsletter

It Makes No Sense

NPI REFLECTS

Chad A. Buck, Ph.D., Co-Editor

We so often speak of and celebrate “random acts of kindness” — the ones that we cherish and highlight be-cause it makes us feel good and helps us feel safe. We speak far less of ran-dom acts of devastation and death that we all share, that can shake the

core of our hearts and minds, bodies and spirits. Many of us, myself in-cluded despite having navigated deaths in my own immediate family, feel discomfort and fear in the face and unknowingness of death. I wrote this piece last April in the weeks im-

mediately after a sudden death of a dear, young friend of mine.

In the days and months after loss, we struggle to find or make meaning when often there is none or none that

(Continued on page 2)

By Karen Silian, Ph.D.

Renew Membership 1

It Makes No Sense 1

Cogito Ergo Sum 3

Readers Write 5

Tetan 6

Is This Normal? 8

Jewel Boxes 9

Training Review 9

Reel to Real 10

Credits 10 Renew Your Dues Today! www.nashvillepsychotherapyinstitute.org

A Letter from the Editor 1

Beauty and Grandness in One Spirit 2

Horse Intuition: The Power of Equine As-sisted Psychotherapy

4

Armchair Deductions:Emotional Immunity 6

Editor Writes: Who I Used to Be 8

Not Your Story to Tell, a poem 10

Perennial Intimacy, a poem 11

NASHVILLEPSYCHOTHERAPYINSTITUTE

Volume 3: Issue 2 Spring 2013

A Letter from the Editor...By Editor Amanda Lucas, LCSW

I don’t know about you, but I feel inundated by training offers. I get them in the mail, in emails, in magazines I read, on websites I peruse, etc. I find almost all of them intriguing and would love to pursue many of them, if I didn’t have to work for a living. In private practice, the obstacle is not just the cost of the training, but the income we lose by not working that day. It is therefore awfully tempting to ignore opportunities provided by people with whose work we are not familiar.

Jean Hantman is our speaker for the NPI Spring Workshop on May 4, 2013. For those of you unfamiliar with Jean, she is a unique voice in our field. According to our colleague Jamie Kyne, “Jean Hantman’s thinking on psychotherapy and life is full of tension in the way that will blow your mind, refresh you, and wake you up. The essays and reflections she’s posted on her website are both brash and sober at the same time. She’s irreverent and reverent at the same time. She’s an iconoclast and a wise soul at the same time.” Her presentation promises to offer a road map as to what to do when what we are doing is not working. I think we can all benefit from a refresher on how to think outside-of-the-box, as it is easy to keep relying on our tried and true methods.

Please register as soon as possible for the workshop. Scholarships are available! For more information, check out the NPI website: http://www.nashvillepsychotherapyinstitute.org

1

ADVERTISE IN NPI REFLECTS!!Please email submissions to: alucaslcsw@gmail.com.

Full Page Ad: $200Half Page Ad: $125Quarter Page: $50

Business Card Size: $30

Classified Ads: $20 for the first 20 words,then $.20/each additional word.

Direct inquiries to NPI Executive Administrator Lisa Smith at: npinashville@bellsouth.net

Inside This Issue:

2

Beauty and Grandness in One Spiritby Paulette Jackson MA

“Do you ne’er think what wondrous beings these?Do you ne’er think who made them, and who taught

The dialect they speak, where melodiesAlone are the interpreters of thought?

Whose household words are songs in many keys,Sweeter than instrument of man e’er caught!”

~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Like many of you, I have a birdfeeder hanging from a beam on my back patio. Filled with tempting morsels, it is for the purpose of seducing feathered friends. It appears to be working because, with the arrival of spring, it has become an open aviary for a variety of ornithological wonders who have returned from their flights to warmer climates during the winter. And with their return, also came their inspiration. I love their beauty as they rest on the breath of the earth and transcend gravity. I love their song that rides on their wings and serenades creation with the purest expressions, reflecting the sacred as if in antiphonal response. They are truly a welcome gift.

The picture above is of the Red-Shouldered Hawk. Photographed by Lora Render of San Antonio, Texas and awarded First Place in the Audubon Society’s 2012 National Contest, she has captured the image reflecting mankind’s perception of the species for thousands of years; that of a magnificent, powerful spirit, boundless and free, full of grace and grandeur, inspiring the human soul.

Historically, all birds have held symbolic meaning, particularly as a symbol of freedom, the future, eternal life, renewed life and transition between life and death. Their ability to soar in the sky creates that same desire in mankind, who lacks their ability.

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The meaning of the hawk connotes three qualities; nobility, acute perception and quick discernment. Like the eagle and falcon companion, the hawk is also considered a messenger of the sky, symbolic of spiritual awareness and rejuvenation.

In 2011, the film The Big Year honored bird watchers everywhere. Starring Steve Martin, Jack Black and Owen Wilson, it is a narrative depicting the three men’s lives and loves through the lens of bird watching.

The movie also reveals a metaphor of Sternberg’s model of love. As we get a glimpse into both the humans and the bird world through the film, we have the opportunity to see the qualities of commitment, passion and intimacy connately expressed. We can also observe the human tendency to project our operating styles onto the non-human world, while in truth, it is we who often learn much insight from them, ironically, in regard to how we relate to life and others.

An easy- going and enjoyable film for everyone, you might anticipate after seeing it, to experience a sudden desire to wander the aisles of your local hardware store, either to buy additional birdseed, a new feeder, or house, for the purpose of attracting those winged creatures so you can both enjoy and be inspired, by the beauty of their presence and the grandness of their spirit…every day.

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Horse Intuition: The Power of Equine Assisted Psychotherapyby Paige Holliman, M.Ed., M.T.S., LPC/MHSP

I’ve seen some unbelievable things in my years as an equine assisted psychotherapist, but nothing compares to the day I watched a horse collapse in the midst of one man’s work.

I had tasked this man to get a horse to walk and then trot in a circle around him as he stood in the middle of a round pen (lunging, for all of you horse people). The key to doing this “successfully” is in the connection, or relationship, one has with the horse. Mind you, the horses that are used in this work do not belong to the client -- this is a new relationship for both horse and human. And as we as therapists know, in order for one to have a good relationship with an “other” one must have a good enough relationship to the self. Thus, equine psychotherapy is at its core about relationships.

Sam, as I will call him, had trouble with relationships. He was in his 50’s and had come to one of my equine groups to address what he described as an unfulfilling life—a job he felt indifferent about, few friends of significance, no hobbies, and little to no dating life.

As Sam tried to get the horse to circle around him, it became evident that his connection to the horse was lacking, revealing his own lack of connection to himself.

Watching this unfold over the course of 15 some odd minutes I began to realize that Sam had no point of reference for how to tap into his own emotional center, his life force, and offer it to the world. I was about to step into the round pen with him to do some breathing as a starting point for bringing him more fully into his body when all of a sudden the horse that he was working with dropped to the ground and lay there motionless; her eyes closed.

A therapist should never do this kind of work without a horse person in tandem, and I thanked my lucky stars that day for mine. She was quite calm as she assessed her horse’s condition but as minutes passed with no signs of life none of us were feeling very hopeful about the outcome. At one point I heard Sam ask the horse person whether or not he had done something to cause this. Almost as if the horse had heard his question and decided that she had gotten her point across, she slowly began to awaken out of her stupor. Crazy thing is -- no medical reason for her collapse was ever found.

In his book entitled Zen Mind, Zen Horse: The Science and Spirituality of Working with Horses, Allan J. Hamilton, MD, says, “Horses… offer us a unique opportunity to see ourselves in ‘divine mirrors,’ reflecting back the chi we give off in our own emotions, to show ourselves in the moment. Horses react to what lies in our hearts, not in our heads. They are not confused by the words we use to lie to ourselves or hide from others.”

Horses are uniquely equipped assistants in the psychotherapeutic process. Their sheer size alone renders us unable to force our will upon them, assuming of course that we are not abusing them. More importantly, however, is the fact that they are animals of prey with a herd identity.

Stable transformation

PsychotheraPy for PeoPle using horses

5

In other words, they are social beings whose survival depends upon their collective effort to identify and protect themselves from potential predators. Incidentally, humans are predators. It’s a marvel they let us anywhere near them. Horses also come in all different shapes, sizes, and personalities, which provide ample opportunity for transferences to arise in the therapeutic process.

The key to a horse’s survival is an exquisite attunement to the present moment. Horses are highly sensitized to the slightest shifts in their environment and can communicate these shifts to the members of their herd through a sophisticated set of non-verbal communication strategies. For an animal of prey there is no time to dwell on the past or worry about the future—that kind of distraction equals lunch for a tiger.

When we enter into a horse’s field of perception, which is quite large, a horse immediately begins to feel the energy we carry and to intuit whether we are safe or not, i.e. whether we are looking for a connection or for dinner. We may have only part or no awareness at all of the emotional energy we are holding, but the horse knows and will instantly respond based on its sense of us. This is Dr. Hamilton’s “divine mirror.”

And this is precisely what transpired with Sam that day. The horse was picking up on and responding to Sam’s anesthetized inner world. And this is where things get a little spiritual for me. I believe that this horse was doing an intervention on Sam, as if to say, “This is you. Now let’s together help you feel your way out of this.” This is the other beautiful thing about using horses in psychotherapy. They offer themselves as forgiving partners in the clumsy work of relational repair. Horses are not like us humans who get mired in old scripts and play them out ad naseum. For a horse, yesterday is gone and done (remember that survival thing?). This truth gives us a very patient partner who is ready and willing to help us learn a new way of being in the world. And this work doesn’t just help the human. I have seen many formerly abused or neglected horses find healing for themselves in this partnering. I have seen them trust more, play more, and have more confidence. I have learned that my main task is to get out of the way and let the horse and human unfold together.

So do I believe that Sam “did something to cause this?” Nah. But I do believe that she had his number.

Incidentally, if you’re like I was early on then you might be thinking right about now that this all sounds like a bunch of horseshit. I don’t blame you. But I challenge you to come out to one of my demo days that my company, Stable Transformation, offers free to therapists. We’ll talk afterwards.

For upcoming group dates and referral information about Stable Transformation, please visit our website at: www.stabletransformation.com

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PAGE 3 NPI REFLECTS VOLUME 2: I SSUE 2

ARMCHAIR DEDUCTIONS Cogito Ergo Sum?

By John Charles Danley, MA, Contributing Columnist

Taking a speculative approach to rudimentary neurosci-ence, the 17th Century French philosopher, Rene Des-cartes, hypothesized a definitive split between an individ-ual’s mind and body — including the proposition that the human mind represents a non-material entity interacting with the body at the intersection of the pineal gland. This notion, commonly referred to as Cartesian Dualism, has been challenged and commonly rejected by ongoing em-pirical discoveries in modern neuroscience and develop-mental biology. For example, the “mind” is almost univer-sally understood by scientists in the 21st Century to be a material manifestation of the brain that consists of bil-lions of pre-synaptic and post-synaptic neurons innervat-ed by an electrical storm of intracranial activity preced-ing the emergence of conscious thoughts via a complex process of protein synthesis and synaptic plasticity. But what does this mean concerning the notion of “self” or the concept of “I?” Are we a cohesive personality with an un-mitigated core self, or is the self a changing, fluid, and dynamic process subject to deterrence by mental illness, physical brain injuries, disease, trauma, and compro-mised cognitions? Another way of thinking about this is to visualize “choices” as being predicated by the options in one’s immediate environment while what feels like deci-sions are actually complicated biochemical processes sculpted by millions of years of evolution and primed by neuronal activity that precede conscious awareness. Simply put, one cannot think a thought until a thought arises. As if this information wasn’t grossly counterintui-tive and baffling enough, the idea of “self” must be re-evaluated based on various deterministic and contextual influences that challenge any preconceived notion of a true internal locus of control.

So how does all of this neurological verbosity affect the solution-based field of therapeutic psychology? Just ask the neuroscientist and New York Times bestselling au-thor David Eagleman who practices his empirical craft at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. In his re-cent book, In Cognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain, Ea-gleman asks us to examine the criminal justice system by exploring how genetics, neurological disorders, and envi-ronmental influences often determine human behavior in social contexts. As an example, Eagleman describes the life of Charles Joseph Whitman, the University of Texas at Austin student and former Marine who killed 16 peo-ple and wounded 32 others during a shooting rampage on and around the university's campus on August 1, 1966.

During an autopsy it was discovered that an aggressive brain tumor, along with other developmental traumas endured throughout his formative years, were affecting Whitman’s bizarre mental states. Eagleman employs par-allel examples of how neurological disorders can induce other criminal behaviors such as pedophilia, gambling, violence, and drug addiction. Can a lottery of bad genet-ics, bad upbringing, and bad luck demand that one is ac-countable for their actions? Throughout his book, Eagle-man emphasizes and argues for the significance of psychi-atric analysis and specialized approaches to criminal sen-tencing and rehabilitation while not diminishing the im-portance of keeping such individuals quarantined from social interactions within the general public pending a critical understanding of all causative factors (30 percent of incarcerated criminals suffer from some form of mental illness). Given this premise, one can immediately specu-late about the psychosocial implications concerning such maladies as Alzheimer’s disease, depression, chronic pain, PTSD, Dissociative Identity Disorder, etc. Does one “choose” to be clinically depressed or to be rendered inca-pacitated by trauma? Furthermore, is a person who hap-pens to be neurologically affected by deep depression the sole arbiter of their actions? If various parts of the brain are already competing for space in regard to causal be-havior, doesn’t the introduction of an unforeseen variable compromise personal accountability? Many will argue that this way of looking at the brain constitutes a slip-pery slope that inevitably leads to moral relativism or an avoidance of personal responsibility. However, it seems more obvious that an opportunity presents itself for un-covering neurobiological etiology in a profound way that could become a catalyst for paradigm changes in ap-proaches to counseling, understanding mental illness, and the teaching of abnormal psychology.

The following is an excerpt from Eagleman’s book: Brains are in the business of gathering information and steering behavior appropriately. It doesn't matter whether con-sciousness is involved in the decision making. And most of the time, it's not. Whether we're talking about dilated eyes, jealousy, attraction, the love of fatty foods, or the great idea you had last week, consciousness is the smallest play-er in the operations of the brain. Our brains run mostly on autopilot, and the conscious mind has little access to the giant and mysterious factory that runs below it.

(Continued on page 4)

Emotional Immunity

Ask any pediatrician or epidemiologist and they will confirm that children are born with an innate immunity to certain environmental pathogens. However, most of a child’s immune system develops over time based on increased exposure to deleterious microorganisms. As an adult, macrophage cells perpetually scan the body for invading antigens while sending messages to helper T cells for allowing the body’s white blood cells to create antibodies. This evolutionary arms race of virulent pathogens versus host cells is a non-stop competition for space in biological systems. Subsequently, the first human vaccine was developed in 1796 as a precursor to more than two centuries of successful vaccination treatments – including the global eradication of smallpox.

Similarly, human emotions are affected by a never ending cascade of environmental stimuli; some traumatic, some prosaic, and others exhilarating. Developing resilience requires the construction of an emotional immune system capable of identifying activating life stressors while carefully calibrating the correct behavioral responses. The more exposure one has to life’s unpredictable range of experiences, the more availability one has to adaptively process the outcomes of various events. My personal aphorism and philosophical default position has been “wisdom is not experience, but rather the interpretation of experience.” How an individual interprets and assimilates life’s occurrences often determines one’s ability to preemptively avoid attaching emotions to uncontrollable outcomes. If emotional stability is predicated on the fallout of life events, anxiety, disappointment, and disillusionment are sure to follow.

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Upcoming Conferences

April 18“Nitty Gritty of Caregiving”

College Heights Baptist Church Gallatin

June 21“Addressing Behavioral Healthcare

Disparities in Multicultural Populations”MHAMT Conference Center, Nashville

6 CEUs/Contact Hours

August 16“Children’s Issues”

MHAMT Conference Center, Nashville6 CEUs/Contact Hours

For More Information or Registration:www.mhamt.org or (615) 269-5355

of Middle Tennessee(formerly Mental Health Association of Middle Tennessee)

8

EDITOR WRITES: “Who I Used to Be” By Amanda Lucas, LCSW

I was inspired to select this topic for our “Reader’s Write” column after hearing from colleagues several times recently that psychotherapy is a second career for them. I was hoping that one of them would share their story, but as it turned out, I have been afforded the opportunity to share my story with you.

By the time I was a freshman in college, I had already been a volunteer for years. So it was no surprise when I plunged headfirst into volunteer work in college, starting with the Vanderbilt Prison Project. By the time I graduated I had taught English in the Tennessee State Penitentiary, mentored with a cognitive skills program at the Tennessee Prison for Women, and had been a volunteer visitor for juveniles in youth detention centers. My experience in those institutions created a keen interest in social justice for the incarcerated, which in turn brought me into my first full-time professional career as a Parole Officer in inner-city Atlanta.

I had always been the kind of person who prided myself on having the courage to do the things no one else wanted to do; go to the places no one else wanted to go. And no one wanted to go where I went. The conditions in the inner-city of Atlanta in 1992 were dismal. Four years before the Olympics brought revitalization, the housing projects and tenements buildings in the city were decrepit. The crack epidemic was in full force and our caseloads were bursting at the seams. I had seen extreme poverty first hand in the ultra-rural Mississippi Delta, as a volunteer with Alternative Spring Break in college, but urban poverty seemed to me to be such an uglier animal.

For those unfamiliar with the work of a Parole Officer in the early 90’s in Georgia, our role was equal parts adult case manager, social worker, counselor, and police officer. I visited my parolees in their homes and at their places of work. I made sure they took their medication, kept their appointments with their providers, and stayed out of trouble. I helped them find work, housing, treatment, and even furniture. And if I found out they were violating parole, or when they got arrested again, I tried to send them back to prison. And I was the one who had to obtain the warrant, go to their house, and take them in. As a result, I carried a weapon and often had to wear a bulletproof vest.

9

I have stories upon stories of my time in Vine City, the neighborhood where most of my caseload lived: ramshackle, shotgun homes, empty storefronts, crack dealers and prostitutes on every corner. My clients had Schizophrenia, Addictions, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder. They were addicted to Everything; they smoked it, crushed it up and snorted it, shot it in their arms, their legs, between their toes. They were in wheelchairs from being shot in drive-bys, on disability due to strokes (one as young as 25), on oxygen from a lifetime of smoking. They were sexual predators who preyed on children with the relentlessness of sharks. They were dying of AIDS, Cancer, Cirrhosis, and several died while I was working with them. And many of them smelled. My Lord, no one ever talks about how badly people smell when they live at the bottom of the world. It was extremely easy to become hard, as the song says. And many of my colleagues were just that. I felt I offered my clients a rare commodity: respect, compassion, and fairness. In return they offered me avoidance at best, flagrant disrespect and resentment at worst. At times they frustrated me and disgusted me and angered me and occasionally made me so stressed out that I would literally shut my office door and cry silently at my desk.

One day I received a call from a young man on parole for selling crack. His name was Herman* and he was a tough character. When he called me I could not understand him and I soon realized it was because he was crying hysterically. When he calmed down somewhat, he was able to tell me that his mother was in the hospital, having had a massive heart attack. He wasn’t sure if she was going to make it. After speaking with him for a few minutes, I could not contain my curiosity and asked why he was calling me. Or more specifically, why he was calling me. He burst out crying again and said, “I had no one else to call! I had no one else to call…”, his voice trailing off at the end. I was completely stunned and instantaneously enlightened.

He trusted me, the person most parolees avoid like the plague, with the worst moment of his life. I knew he adored his mother and had to be terrified. I suddenly saw him as the wounded, isolated, helpless soul that he really was. He called me because he had no one else to call, but also because he knew that I would care. The compassion I had showed him had registered, it just wasn’t acknowledged. Because he did not believe he deserved it. I came to see with amazing clarity that no one was more angered, frustrated, stressed, or disgusted with them than they were. They knew the difference between right and wrong, and they knew what they did was wrong. And they abused themselves in their shame and regret.

My work in Atlanta stays with me, as it gave me some of my proudest moments, and some of my most embarrassing failures, as a professional. But the greatest gift it gave me was to see these individuals as human beings, with all of the same longing to do the right thing that anyone else has, without finding the ability to do so. What agony that creates within the human spirit. We had a motto in the volunteer program, borrowed from John Harrigan, that “Volunteers in Corrections know that people need love the most when they deserve it the least.” My work as a Parole Officer was the impetus for me to become a psychotherapist, to help people heal before they traveled so far down the path of self-destruction. I wanted people to see that nothing we do in life, no matter how immoral or illegal, means that we cannot become a better person. I still believe strongly that it is never too late for anyone.

One of the greatest honors I have ever received in my life is that call from Herman. His mother made it, by the way. I sincerely hope that Herman did as well. I only wish he knew how much his act of reaching out to me taught me. As only the smallest of gestures between two human beings can.

*Not his real name

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Not Your Story To Tell

Listen … it’s my life

Listen … to learn about me

Listen … please put aside the lens of your life

Listen … be cautious with labels that you affix to me they may not fit and if held too tightlyI won’t be able to breathe

Listen … with me, as I untangle the tangledness of my life story

Listen… with compassion as I seek to find my way

Listen… with curiosity, hope, and gentle loving -kindness

Listen … so you can know me not the me you need me to be not the me you hope me to be not the me you think I am not the me I appear to be

Listen … so you can see and feel with your human-sized heart my human-sized journey

Listen… to my losses, my joys, my failures, my loves, my dreams

Listen… I deserve to be heard and known.

26 January 2013Oro Valley, ArizonaKaren Anne Silien, PhD

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Perennial IntimacyL.J. Ratliff, LCSW

There is a mossy companionship in old friends.

Pungent earthiness of ease in thistogetherness that has weathered yearsthrough injuries,storms,high winds,and even fire.

The mottled hickory bends with ageand the moss, adoringly green,simple and present.

We are growing older now my friends,reaching for the sky in these last yearswhile cherishing quietconnection.I will dance one last timeon the forrest of desirein shoes made of little twigs and leaves.I will throw off my clothing and howl at the full moonwhile you witness the end of my mind.No soft shoe shuffle into oblivion for us,we have dared to be different all our lives,my weird friends who hear words in the windand find worlds in the glistening weight ofa single quartz stone.We are growing older now my friendsand we will not go gentle into that good night.We will not be tagged, warehoused, and dying, kept alive.We will dress in purple linens and tye dyeand lay down in meadows of wildflowersto be taken by the sun,to be eaten by fox and vultureshapeshifting at last.We always knew we could.We are growing older now my friendsand the light of each full moon means more than dollars,more than sense,more than almost anythingexcept love.that flows in many directions,

often upstream,dammed up it overflows,because it has to always move.We cherish the love between us,the love around us,the love within us.This is the lesson we were here to learnWe moved the boxes down gravel driveways of impermanence,we separated the Christmas decorations,the vintage glass ornaments for one,the kitschy candle lights for the other.

We walked away. We said hello.

And so we learned to move through the currents of love,the euphoria, the heartbreak, the leaps of faith to connect,the betrayals, the anger, the loss, the loneliness, the yearning,the amazing resilience of the human spirit,dowsing rod for underground streams of love.

We are growing older now my friends and wewade through these streams with delight,knowing they change in split seconds and mightsweep us to our knees or buoy us to weightless new heights.And we refuse to be boxed up, warehoused, tagged,and dying, kept alive.

C/O Lisa Smith, Executive Coordinator P.O. Box 158626 Nashville, TN 37215

Phone: 615-799-2000 Fax: 615-279-1394 E-mail: npinashville@bellsouth.net

PAGE 12 NPI BOARD 2011-2012

Co-Chairs

Andrea Barrett, LPC, MHSP

Julia McAninch, PsyD

Members

Melinda Borthick, PhD; Hutton Historian

Chad A. Buck, PhD; Co-Chair-Elect

Bethany Ezell, LCSW

Maria Gaskill, LPC/MHSP; Treasurer

Angela Hart, LPC/MHSP

Shirley Jaeger, LCSW

Beth Lamb, LCSW

Parrish Paul, PhD

Rob Rickman, Med; Co-Chair-Elect

Kenneth Robinson, MS, MTS

Kacy Silverstein, MEd, NCC

Eve Vanzant, MEd; Secretary

Lindsay Vaughn, PsyD

Gretchen Watts, LCSW

NPI

NPI BOARD 2013-2014

Co-ChairsBethany Ezell, LCSW

Angela Hart, LPC, MHSP

MembersZach Bryant, PhD

Chad A. Buck, PhD; Immediate Past Co-Chair

Peter Donets, LCSW

Kathryn Galbraith, PhD, MSW

Susan Hammonds-White, EdD, LPC, MHSP; Hutton HistorianPaige Holliman, M.Ed., M.T.S., LPC/MHSP

Beth Lamb, LCSW

Amanda Lucas, LCSW; Co-Chair Elect

Rebecca Pearce, PsyD; Treasurer, Co-Chair Elect

Barbara Schmitt, MS

Kenneth Robinson, MS, MTS

Jay Tift, M.Ed, NCC

Eve Vanzant, M.Ed

Lindsay Vaughn, PsyD

Want to Get More Involved in NPI?

The NPI Board has several committees that you can join!

If you are interested in becoming a more active member of NPI, please email the 2013-2014 Co-Chairs,

Angela Hart: angela@angelahart.infoBethany Ezell: ezellcounseling@gmail.com

Newsletter Credits:

Editor: Amanda Lucas, LCSW

Layout & Design: Jeffrey Nelson

Printing & Distribution: Lisa Smith

**Editor’s Note: The content and opinions expressed within this newsletter do not necessarily reflect the views of nor are they endorsed by the Nashville Psychotherapy Institute, the Board of Directors of the Nashville Psychotherapy Institute, or the Editor of the newsletter.