We’re bringing back a series at our practice called “The Humans of MHT.” Originally launched in 2017, it told the stories of what it meant for us clinicians to be human. For this round, our group read David Whyte’s book “Consolations” together, and each week, a different clinician selected a word that was meaningful to them in relation to their humanness and presented it to the group. Our conversations centered on the idea that healing happens in the context of real relationships and real people — not perfect, unknown others, but humans genuinely engaged in the messy business of life and meaning-making just like you.
We'll be releasing one interview a month, so you can get a glimpse of the humans that sit in the chair across from you. Check out our first interview on “Memory” with Lauren Furutani, LMFT and Executive Director at MHT. - Michelle Harwell, PsyD, LMFT
Below you will find the interview transcript.
Michelle Harwell: Well, good to see you, Lauren.
Lauren Furutani: Hi.
MH: Hi. You got the memo to wear polka dots.
LF: I love how we showed up together with our polka dots!
MH: Yeah.
LF: I chose the word “memory,” which probably feels like a pretty obvious choice for a therapist. We're in the business of listening to and holding our clients’ memories…and sitting with what can often feel like really, really painful memories.
MH: Yeah.
LF: And so I guess that was there. He also, I mean, David’s words and the way that he describes what memory is was striking to me, and felt so true about what I have experienced in the clinical realm. So I'd love to just give him the credit where it's due and read the words that inspired what I have to talk about today.
MH: Let's hear it!
LF: So he says that “we actually inhabit memory as a living threshold, as a place of choice and volition and imagination, a crossroads where our future diverges, according to how we interpret, or perhaps more accurately how we live the story we inherited.” Yeah, I mean, I can think of so many moments, I can think of how easy it is to get caught. I mean, personally, I think, to get caught in how I remember something went and how it went, and bear down on that place, and certainly can get caught in that place with a client as well, to the point that it really does not feel like it's serving that client anymore. That memory, or the way an event has been remembered.
MH: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
LF: Has probably served a purpose, certainly served a purpose, to help keep someone safe…and can get to a really barren, feels like the word, the landscape becomes really dry and barren.
MH: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
LF: And yeah, so this idea that we can inhabit our memories as though they are actually a living threshold for new possibility is really exciting to me, and does happen in therapy, that's the work, that's where we get. So that's what was behind, I guess, my choice of a word.
“...that we can inhabit our memories as though they are actually a living threshold for new possibility is really exciting to me.”
MH: Yeah. I love the way you talked about the barrenness. I think you're talking about memory, the difference between memory as static, and memory as a fluid potential space.
LF: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
MH: To be played with and understood differently. So I'd love to hear more about how you see the use of that, and this concept of a frontier clinically. How do you think about that?
LF: It's funny, I'm caught a little bit on the word “barren.” Actually I've been holding that word for about a year, since the beginning of the pandemic, when you held the poetry class.
MH: Oh yeah.
LF: And I actually, I wrote a poem in that about an experience of feeling caught in a really barren place within myself, with my client.
MH: Yeah.
LF: And it's just funny that that, when I think of memory, and I thought about who comes to mind.
MH: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
LF: I didn't even realize necessarily that I was using that word, but it's connected.
MH: Yeah, yeah.
LF: But yeah, so this this idea that there is, yeah, that our memory can actually serve as a frontier for new possibility. Hmm what do I want to say? I think that there's more opportunity in how we hold our memory that sometimes we can't see, and I guess the way that I view the role of myself as a therapist, and the therapist, is to listen for moments, and sometimes this actually can happen without even having our mind around it, sometimes it just happens.
MH: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
LF: But the moments where maybe more spontaneously kind of interject and offer, “Well wait, what if? What if it were a certain way"?” Or even just play it out or act it out differently.
MH: Yeah.
LF: And play with it, and use yourself to do something different, or say something different, or think about something differently.
MH: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
LF: And I think, for me personally, humor is one of the greatest ways to do something a little silly, maybe, or lighten it a little…but also with a real sincerity and seriousness that offers the opportunity that this can be a fun, different way of thinking about it, a lighter way, and it could also actually be a new way of thinking about it.
“...humor is one of the greatest ways to do something a little silly, maybe, or lighten it a little…but also with a real sincerity and seriousness that offers the opportunity that this can be a fun, different way of thinking about it.”
MH: Yeah. I was just delighting in, I mean, Lauren, I think as you were talking about what you do as a therapist, you were being you as a therapist. I mean that when I'm in a group with you, or any learning setting, it's the most wonderful thing when you lean forward and you say something and you add this vitalizing aspect, and I think that contrast of the barrenness of when we get stuck in a memory or a story about ourselves that doesn't serve us, and the ability to live it differently, to try it on, that's what I'm hearing you to say.
LF: Yeah.
MH: To shake something loose and take the risk as a therapist to be spontaneous like that, and what that offers the client, not in a thinking way, but in an experiential way.
LF: Yeah.
MH: So lovely.
LF: Yeah. I just can't help myself. I'm too in my body all the time. I mean, it's not necessarily a bad thing, but I do live in my body, and I like to offer that to my clients. I think we live very disembodied lives in our culture, and I think that it can feel a little riskier, there's a vulnerability to be myself in that way. But that is who I am, and I really can't help myself.
MH: And, Lauren, I think there's an intelligence to it. I think you're responding, often when you're being that vitalizing spontaneous, you're knowing something on a feeling level, and willing to take the risk action before maybe your mind has caught up with you, and sometimes that's the best thing, because-
LF: Yeah, and I-
MH: Yeah.
LF: Well, sorry to cut you off, I think I'm feeling the client's longing.
MH: Yeah.
LF: And that is, I mean, those are moments that are so ripe for responding, and helping a client response to their own longing.
MH: Yeah.
LF: Yeah, yeah, I think.
MH: Yeah. And to me that shapes the idea of memory as not a static thing. It's like, memory that tells a story of what we're afraid of also tells a story of what we long for.
LF: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
MH: And so I think you're saying, when a story is told the same way over and over again, it loses connection with the memory of the initial desire that was corrupted or disrupted, and your action maybe syncs up a more fuller story.
LF: Uh-huh (affirmative).
MH: Or expands the narrative to include both what we're afraid of and what we want.
LF: Yeah, yeah. And man, that's exciting work, I think, when you can help a client understand how terrifying it can... when there's been a wound around, particularly, I think, around having one's needs met, which is so often the case. I mean, that's probably one of the most common wounds, but not having one's needs met, or not being able to go after what you want or desire. And yeah, that is such exciting, gratifying work to help someone be able to stand at that threshold and start to move toward understanding why that is so terrifying and has been, and start to play with, maybe I can. I don't know if I'm putting it to words well, but yeah, I think that's the energizing work of therapy.
MH: Mm-hmm (affirmative), yeah.
LF: Is helping individuals learn how to have their needs met, and how to negotiate having their needs met with others, when that was a scary or just fraught experience as a young person.
MH: Glad we got to spend some time together today.
Lauren Furutani, MA, LMFT is an advocate for emotional, physical, spiritual, and social health. She blends her psychodynamic and relational orientation with her down-to-earth personality to bring both complexity and ease to the therapeutic space. Lauren received her MA in Counseling Psychology from National University and BA in Psychology & Social Behavior from University of California Irvine. She serves as the Executive Director at MHT.
Dr. Michelle Harwell, PsyD, LMFT is an expert trainer, respected speaker, and licensed therapist in trauma and attachment. She is noted for her specialization in areas of development, attachment, trauma, and neuroscience, and her ability to communicate complex topics with clarity and humor. Michelle completed her PhD in Psychoanalysis from The Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis. She received her BA in English Literature from University of Oklahoma, MA in Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary, and MS in Marriage and Family Therapy from the Fuller Graduate School of Psychology.