Remember the three-legged stool I taught you? I learned those legs in 12-step recovery - not grad school. One of the three legs is: "If I am disturbed, the problem is in me." This letter is about this truism.
I imagine in a different era and if you were different ages Mary Jane and Brad would be Aunt MJ & Uncle Brad. They are really good friends to Pabs and me. One day Mary Jane and I were talking about the evolution of our therapists' guild and the devolution of our school.
The Seattle School taught me so much: The idea of the I/Thou relationship, Esther Meeks' covenant epistemology, a possible understanding (which has become my understanding) of how the mind works, all about shame, the difference between niceness and kindness, a new Biblical theology, a fleshed-out theology of freedom, the concept of "And" instead of "But," a theology of Holy Saturday, a fleshed-out theology of the Imago Dei, attachment theory, play therapy and the importance of play, and that I need to create space for intersections of thoughts and ideas to become more fully engaged (I learned as an undergrad that ideas of consequences).
As Mary Jane and I compared notes about our alma mater and the state of our guild (The ACA), she was not surprised/surprised to learn that our grad school was not welcoming to "non-progressive" thinkers; and that there was an underground of students that learned to simply keep our mouths shut in order not to be ostracized, labeled, called names and attacked by other students. One would think that Esther Meeks' ideas would stop some of the blatant condemnation that marks so much of the intercourse surrounding how one approaches life, and indeed I think it did mitigate some of the fallout. But, it certainly didn't stop the prejudice.
I want to be very careful because while I was there, the faculty and administration were rarely condemning of other voices and ideas. The condemnation was primarily limited to the student body. And, to this day, I do not know of a school that teaches counseling/psychology where it is possible to get the level of instruction I received and not have to face a progressive fundamentalist epistemology of black and white thinking that effectively destroys dialogue with other ideologies and perspectives. The idea of holding the "&" is an ideal that I was taught at The Seattle School. And, yet, while the Seattle School holds it as well as any counseling grad school you can name -- it still fails miserably. Institutions are rarely perfect.
But beyond that, Mary Jane stated that our therapists' guild is losing our way and we are becoming social workers. We are not helping people change, adapt, and become more resilient (a traditional role of a therapist), as much as we are pointing out and working to change the injurious system (the traditional role of a social worker). This is important because injustice will always surround us, no matter the ideological system we create. Woody Allen pointed this out admirably in his movie, "Sleeper."
The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous tells the story of a doctor who knew that the problem was always, "out there." He believed if only the world would be fixed, he'd be OK. He learned in AA that such a belief is errant. If "the problem" is "out there," individuals give away their power to find joy and peace. This is why AA teaches its members the serenity prayer, "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can't change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." Only by understanding what we can and cannot change can we begin to find peace.
We can only change ourselves. We can't change others. We can't lay our hope in systems changing in order for justice to run down and people to find wholeness. Wholeness is not found in external sources. Wholeness is discovered when we can assimilate the exiled parts of ourselves, which we want to ignore, and "re-member" them differently, interact with them compassionately and become whole instead of remaining fragmented and broken. Shit guys, whole books could be written fleshing out this paragraph! I guess that is why I went to grad school; in order to begin to embody the truths I just articulated and help others do so. This is why I am a therapist and a rebel for love
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