The World Shaping Forces of Destiny: An Interview with Betsy Chin, AMFT

For our "Humans of MHT" series feature this month, we will hear from Betsy Chin, AMFT, about destiny and how it shapes our world by both having us shape the world and having the world shape us.

Below you will find the interview.

Chelsea Small: Welcome, Betsy!

Betsy Chin: Hi Chelsea, how are you?

CS: I am good, how are you?

BC: I’m well, thank you for having me

CS: I am excited to talk to you today about humanness for our newsletter series.

BC: Yeah, I am excited too.

CS: My first question for you is, what does humanness mean to you?

BC: For me, when I think about what humanness means to me, it is deeply inextricably linked to our sentience. For me, sentience is a multidimensional subjective phenomenon of consciousness and being capable of suffering and having compassion. Being human includes our ability to ponder and reflect, our capacity to love, create, feel, connect, communicate, generate, and empathize. Those are all parts of our humanness.

CS: That is so beautifully put. It feels like you’re really speaking about our capacity to think and to feel.

BC: Yeah, definitely. Those elements that makes our existence, that separates us from all the other elements that exist, that deepness in ourselves to have capacity, the capacity to see, feel others, have emotions, have thoughts, have connectedness.

CS: You chose the chapter on destiny from David Whyte’s “Consolations” and I am curious what about destiny speaks to you. What about that chapter called to you and what meaning do you make of it?

BC: Yes, so the book by David Whyte called “Consolations” had all of these wonderful words that headed each chapter and I was drawn to the word destiny because it has and implies a pathway, a sense of destination. Inherent in it, it has a concept of both life purpose and perhaps alluding to a force, or powers, or energies outside of ourselves intertwined with our internal sense of agency or free will. When people talk about destiny, they talk about, “is this our destiny, is this something that I am either following on a journey.” The way David Whyte presents it in the chapter, he also talks about the way destiny creates a conscientiousness of shaping our world, like the way we are shaped by the world and then in turn the way we shape the world is in constant engagement. Then by our shaping, the forces turn around and shape us. I just really love that internal agency and external force in our lives as a pathway

CS: Yeah, I was thinking as you were describing that, it feels like you’re really speaking to the narrative and conversation that is born out of that relationship between internal and external.

BC: Yeah, absolutely. We hear these callings and voices within ourselves and pulls often greater than ourselves. A sense of destiny grants us possibilities, not just looking in our world at what is, but what can be. That constant internal modifying and balancing.

CS: It feels so deeply related to our work. I wonder how destiny and humanness show up in your work as a clinician.

BC: These two concepts both of them are the meaning we make around our destiny and our humanness shows up in my work every day because to be able to reflect and ponder and have compassion and connectedness, is that journey in which our clients come and in which the therapist comes into the room as an ally in this person and sees this sentient being in front of me that has the full humanness of love, connection, generativity, creation, suffering. All of these elements we were discussing earlier about humanness. The word destiny brings forth that narrative of the internal external dialogue of forces constantly in motion and engaging one another in the therapeutic space that is created. I feel that it supports and facilitates and guides the pathway the person is on. Destiny and humanness is present in every moment of my clinical work.

CS: That was beautifully put.

BC: I get the sense of when I look at someone’s narrative of their path, their story provides a sense of coherence or purpose that can be revealed when connect to our compassion and turn that humanness for compassion inwards to self-compassion, which we all can be out of balance with or missed on our journey.

CS: It feels like you’re talking about what happens in your work between you and the person you’re working with and also how that becomes internalized and becomes part of themselves and part of their internal process. The way it goes from being a relational process to being an internal process.

BC: Absolutely and as an ally to that person’s curiosity of that discovery of deepening that conversation with themselves. As you said, that internalization of both what’s happening externally and then shaping and molding the internal as well.

CS: That’s lovely. Thank you so much for sharing your mind about humanness and destiny with me today. I really enjoy hearing your perspective and a bit about your work.

BC: Thank you Chelsea, this was such a nice experience to ponder on. We don’t often have time in our busy lives to talk about the qualities of self-compassion, awareness, and humanness. It was such a pleasure, thank you.

CS: Thanks Betsy, bye.

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Betsy Chin, AMFT, supports her clients on their paths towards authentic selfhood by exploring their truths and strengths. Betsy carefully considers the cultural context and lived experience of her clients when helping them navigate the complexities of their stories and relationships. Her tenured professional background in the arts also informs Betsy’s approach to her therapeutic work — she joins her clients in a creative process of meaning-making and change.

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Chelsea Small, LCSW, believes in the transformative power of the therapeutic relationship to create a safe and fertile place for all aspects of the self to be witnessed, explored, and integrated in the service of growth. She understands psychic pain as a message from the parts of the self that are calling for attention and healing. She believes in the wisdom of the therapist-client dyad to attend to those parts and experience the full range of what it means to be human in all of its depth and beauty.

The Embeddedness of Racism in Psychoanalysis: An Interview with Dr. Veronica Abney

Chelsea Small: Welcome. Thank you so much for being here and talking with me today about your work studying the experiences of Black psychoanalysts. I'm excited to learn more.

In your final paper for your doctoral degree, you mentioned that less than 2% of the psychoanalysts in America are Black. I'm curious if you could start by speaking a bit about the current racial landscape of the psychoanalytic world, its history, and some of the implications and meanings.

Veronica Abney, LCSW, PhD

Dr. Veronica Abney: I think it's still a pretty racist profession. There seems to be, at least here in Los Angeles, a few more African Americans that are in the profession than since I trained…When I started here in LA, there was one Black analyst practicing. And that was it...They're more in New York. That seems to be a place where I think Black analysts are more welcomed in the general mental health community. I really want to do more interviews [to continue the research conducted for the dissertation] if I could ever find the time to do it, because I got more and more names as I went on, from word of mouth, and I discovered all these other people that I didn't know were there. It was a really daunting task to try to identify these people in the United States. I called Institutes and they tell me things like they don't know. You don't know? How could you not know if you have somebody Black? So, I went with the American [American Psychoanalytic Association], and they gave me four names. But, you know, a lot of Black analysts are not part of the American because of the way it is.

Chelsea: Yeah, those numbers do seem extremely low compared to other mental health practitioners, like social workers or Marriage and Family Therapists. My next question is about why that might be. In your paper you speak about analyzability and the primitive as mechanisms of racism that are specific to the psychoanalytic world, and the ways that it has created its own arm of the racist system. I'm wondering if you could briefly define for our audience the term analyzability and the notion of the primitive, and talk a little bit about how they have been used as a form of exclusion.

Veronica: Well, when I was in training in social work school, there was a way of talking about people that made them not as desirable as a patient. A lot of times, Black patients were seen as being just in need of supportive treatment. Not anything deeper; nor any uncovering work. And that comes from a really long time ago, when Blacks were seen as people who didn't have good impulse control, weren't articulate, and were not able to self reflect. They were just, you know, people from the jungle…When Jung came to the US for a visit at one point during the early 1900s, maybe around 1920 something, he said that Americans were really lucky to have Blacks to really study primitive peoples. That was just the way that they thought. And it went into practice. So, in practice that meant that you weren't appropriate for an analysis. Therefore, you couldn't be an analyst. So, who wants to join a profession that thinks of them that way? And these are the kinds of concepts and ideas that were in all of the mental health professions at some point…though their language may not have been as dramatic. They wouldn't come in, in 1970, and say “well this is a primitive jungle bunny,” that was a negative term for African Americans, they wouldn't say, this is a primitive person, they would just say, “They need a supportive treatment. They need something more concrete.”

Chelsea: And by saying someone needs supportive treatment they are basically saying that they're not capable of benefiting from analysis.

Veronica: Exactly right. I remember my best friend who, unfortunately is no longer here, but I remember when we were in social work school, she went to one of the institutes in Boston to get an analysis, and they turned her down. And she was the most neurotic person…But they turned her down. Because she was Latina. I had a colleague who once was told by her analyst that she didn't have an unconscious when they first started working, and now she does. I mean, I have never heard of anything so fucking stupid in my life.

Chelsea: It seems like that contradicts everything that analytic theory would suggest. How could she not have an unconscious?

Veronica: Because you're just id. That's how people of color were seen, as id. They had id. They didn't have good ego skills.  I was trained in ego psychology. Which was pretty rigid. But that was the feeling, ego skills are poor, and that there's not enough super ego. That's how they explained it, theoretically. I think that California therapists are much more radical in some of their approach to life. And they really rejected psychoanalysis because of that. Does that answer the question?

Chelsea: It does. It really speaks to the languaging of racism and to the sub-system that has maintained the analytic world as being very exclusive, very white, very privileged, very small. In some way, it feels like there is a closing in, when there could be so much benefit from analytic work being more accessible.

My next question is about theory and about the way that, since the psychoanalytic world has been so white…how Eurocentrism and white-centeredness has trickled down into the theory, and what’s missing from that body of work that has been developed so overwhelmingly by white people.e.

Veronica: Well, there's a lot missing. It's just another example of how racism is embedded in all of our systems. In every profession, one way or another. They had the theory, and they used their theory to say these people are not appropriate for this. They didn't have to do that. The theory didn't dictate that they view black people, in particular, in this way. They chose to use it that way. Bringing it to today, I think it's wonderful that we have theories that are more based on contextuality, we've got intersubjectivity, dynamic systems theory, these theories allow for a different explanation…All of us organize our lives, our experience, based on our cultural background, whether you know it or not. In the past we had theory that was, like you said, very Eurocentric. And there was no desire, or even thought about whether or not this would fit someone from a different background. Although there were people in Germany before the Second World War, who had a psychoanalytic clinic and they took in poor people. Because poor people were considered the same way as Black people. You know, you're not educated and you live in a dirty apartment and you're this or that—so they worked with people in a broader context. I think we could really do some great work right now if we could really look at the benefit of these of these theories for people who are different.

I think a lot of times when you work with people of color, you've got to deal with layers of trauma. In order for that safety to occur…So, we have to use our relationship and that's why it's really important for white therapists to really do their work. And not to hide behind, “I'm not a racist.” Because I know I have lots of prejudicial kinds of feelings. And I have to be aware of them, because I can’t overcome them if I’m not. I tell this story a lot of times when I teach, about this case I had many years ago. A child was admitted to the adolescent unit at UCLA and initially I was just the social worker on the case. Eventually, it became my case but that's another long story.

Anyway, I remember meeting the parents, the first day she came in and I had to do two sessions with them that day because they lived far away. And so, the first session, the dad comes in, and he's wearing Levi's and a big belt with huge buckle, and some kind of cowboy hat. And they were from the desert, and you know, we talk really bad about families from the desert at UCLA. The kids were a mess when they would come in because there really wasn't much care out there. And then it was a unique set of people that initially were living out in places like the Inland Empire. And so, I was like okay these are desert people. And the dad in the middle of the first session pulls a knife out of his pocket and starts cleaning his fingernails. And my first thought was “redneck.” So I just checked it in. And then the second session I had with them, the dad's age led me to ask him if he had been in Vietnam. And he said yes and I said, “What was that like for you?” And he started to sob. He said, not even his wife had ever asked him that. And we connected right there. And it was the beginning of a really great relationship. The child was in the hospital for nine months so we spent a lot of time together. And after that for years this family would send me little gifts for the holidays and things like that. If I had not logged in my mind, “redneck,” that initial reaction to him would have surfaced in a way that was not good for him. And by being aware of it, I was able to make sure that I was available to him. And that I was really taking good care of him and not just writing him off.  Because he would have been the kind of guy that would have been easy to write off just based on those descriptions I gave you, like pulling a knife out of your pocket. But I'm a believer in that we can't try to push those feelings down. We have to be aware of them, then we can overcome them.

Chelsea: That connects nicely to my last question which is about what you've seen work well. What have you've experienced that has worked well to make this field less racist or to confront some of the prejudice and racism that is in the air.

Veronica: Oh, I think you have to talk about it. It has to be out there…And so that's what I believe about how this has to be approached. We have to do—what now people are saying since what's been happening in our country—you have to do the work. And that white people have to do the work. It's not my job to teach you. It's your job to read, to study, to go out and have different experiences, and to ask serious questions, not questions like, “Well, What do I do?” Well, you know, I’m not in that room with you. But you could start by working on you, because then you will be open to understanding this person, to hearing this person, to not invalidating this person's experience. That's something that happens a lot for white therapists because it's a different experience. They think Black people are just being paranoid. Because we talk about having to deal with white people in these racist spaces and what it brings up for us…Those are the kinds of things I think a lot of times get therapists in trouble. They don't really understand or know the experience. They think we're in a fucking post racial society. And we're not. As you can see…And if people can just ignore that? What does that say to the other person? So maybe I'm saying that there's a component of this too, of doing some social justice work, of really putting yourself out there. That's my viewpoint about how to deal with it. It's not easy, people don't want to do it. [But] I think it is part of the moment that people are thinking more about this now wondering more, after seeing a man killed on their own television set.

 Chelsea: Thank you so much for your time and for sharing your mind with me and the MHT community.  

 Veronica: Take care. Bye. Bye.

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Veronica Abney, LCSW, PhD, is a training and supervising psychoanalyst with the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis-Los Angeles. She specializes in trauma associated with childhood sexual abuse and practices psychoanalysis and psychotherapy in the Los Angeles area. She works with preteens, adolescents, and adults.

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Chelsea Small, LCSW, believes in the wisdom of the therapeutic relationship to ignite transformative growth. She has extensive experience working with people impacted by trauma, domestic violence, and the effects of emotional dysregulation.

Dear White Therapists: An Interview with Dr. Lynne Jacobs

Chelsea Small: Dr. Jacobs, in May you came to Michelle Harwell Therapy (MHT) and gave an excellent training on whiteness. In your article "Learning to Love White Shame and Guilt," you speak about the assumption of whiteness and white-centeredness. I am wondering if you can speak a bit about your experiences with white-centeredness in the therapy world. 

Dr. Lynne Jacobs: One thing I have noticed about white-centeredness in the therapy world is how ignorant white therapists are about what their whiteness means—both in the world and in the consulting room. Many white therapists seem to suffer from the “white fragility” of which Robin Di Angelo [a white academic and lecturer] writes. They feel personally insulted/assaulted by being asked to take a look at how whiteness functions in society (and therefore, in the consulting room). They take it personally rather than understanding that we are all caught up in whiteness, whether we like it or not. 

Lynne Jacobs, PhD

Aside from the sense of fragility and/or defensiveness that may inhibit necessary conversations, it also leads to a defensively organized disinterest in learning the history that can help one broaden their understanding of the differing contexts that we each bring into the consulting room. I am sometimes surprised and dismayed, I must admit, by the ignorance that some white therapists have about what it means to be a perpetual “other,” in most contexts. They don’t know much history of white supremacy and white privilege, and some seem uninterested.

I have also met many white therapists who ARE interested, and in fact, eager to learn. In that case, I recommend they start with DiAngelo’s “White Fragility” writings (and her talks available on YouTube), and then go on to find blogs by people of color, and also turn to books that can open their ordinary ideas about our history. 

CS: Do you have any suggestions for how we can begin to make this field more welcoming and inclusive to both clinicians and clients of colors? What conversations can we be starting in our work and other communities? What can we pay more attention to? 

LJ: This question reminds me of the remarks that one of the few people of color at my psychoanalytic institute said. She asked us to imagine what it was like for her when she came to the institute for the first time, walked into the main room, and found photos of our twelve founders on the wall. All white men and women. It concretized for her that she was going to be hyper-visible and pretty much alone in a white space.

While she was a candidate, some folks formed a “racism and homophobia task force.” They have put on some educational programs over the years, and they are sparsely attended. So, what this tells marginalized folks is that the institute is not willing to do its homework, not interested in doing the work of inclusiveness. When people wonder what they can do to make their groups more inclusive, I say, “Begin with self-study.” If that feels too difficult or time-consuming, then admit you don’t want to do the work, and just live with whatever guilt you might have about settling for what is easy.

I co-teach a now-required class on “diversity, power and privilege.” We have the candidates write a brief essay on contexts in which they are centrally socially-located and contexts in which they are marginalized. The essays are fascinating because it turns out most everyone has experiences of being “in” and being “marginalized.” That helps everyone get more interested in the complexity of all our contextual positions, and helps the candidates think more sensitively about the process of “othering.” This is another aspect of self-study.

In my gestalt institute, we have now set aside training scholarships for people of color, and that is bringing more diversity into our program. The faculty is all white, but that will change as people of color come up the ladder, I hope.

Anyway, you ask about conversations…the important conversations to start with, are conversations among white folk about what they need to learn, etc. Word will get around, if that starts to happen. Another thing is to do guest lectures at schools and colleges with people of color in them. 

Since our demographics are changing so much, people of color are going to be more present in the lives of whites, and the more self-study you (whites) do, the easier you will find it, to have conversations about race and ethnicity. 

CS: You mention shame and guilt in the title of your article. Can you speak a bit about how shame and guilt tend to show up in conversations about race and how they can be worked with?  

LJ: Theses feelings show up often when someone of color points out the difference between their social position and the position of a white conversational partner. The white person can suddenly feel the wash of guilt and then shame. A more direct experience of shame happens when the white person is confronted because of racially insensitive remarks they have made. Then, what often happens. is the white person either slinks away in shame, or visibly collapses, and either tries to explain themselves, or beat themselves publicly with their badness. This is the fragility Di Angelo writes about.

I recommend that we white folks develop a different practice. First, don’t make the conversation about you! Your guilt and shame are better addressed elsewhere. What is needed at such a time, is simply a straightforward recognition of your insensitivity, and an apology, and if you don’t understand what you did, and then ask (with curiosity), so that you can learn something.

If you focus on your badness, your guilt, your shame, you are adding insult to the injury you already caused, and you are burdening the other, who now is feeling the pressure to take care of you.

I have developed a strategy. This may sound like cheating, but it isn’t. It is a useful tool. When I find myself being confronted about my insensitivity, or my hurtfulness, or a racist or prejudiced idea I have, I can feel the rush of guilt and shame. But I immediately dissociate a bit. I can feel myself separate my guilt and shame from the rest me. I tuck it away my back pocket, to be dealt with later, and it frees me to be genuinely interested in the exchange I am having. 

This is the same thing I do when patients confront me. Whatever rising guilt or shame I feel gets tucked away for later so I can stay in the conversation. I hope this doesn’t sound too crazy. Because it does work. Then, when I get home, those miserable feelings come roaring back, and I try to learn from what happened, and I also try to explore how it is that I came to make the “mistakes” I made, I try to explore my ignorance, and explore how it is that I have been so ignorant. What am I not-seeing? Why? I do that exploration by myself, or with a trusted other white person.

CS: In your article you mention working with race and racializing your whiteness in your work with patients. Could you share an example of how you do that?

LJ: The more comfortable I become with “race talk” in generally, and amongst people of color and white folk, the easier it is to talk race with my patients, regardless of color. I bring it into the conversation pretty early. When working with a patient of color, I may be the first person who asks if what they are talking about as they describe a scene has anything to do with race, as in, “and was that critical boss an angry white person, by any chance?” Once I break the ice like that, race discussions can flow freely. When a patient of color hesitates in describing a race-based humiliating situation—getting stopped by cops, for instance—I look for signs that telling the story to a white therapist adds to the humiliation. I will often ask.

But let me provide something from my first article I ever wrote about working as a white therapist, because it shows my beginning awkwardness. The article is called, For Whites Only, and I included snippets throughout the article about my work with a black patient:

….

…. I found myself wondering why she had chosen to see me, a white therapist, rather than one of the many black therapists who practice in the LA area. I wondered if she knew of the availability of African-American therapists, if she purposely chose a white therapist, or if the fact of our race difference was unimportant to her. That last thought embarrassed me, confronting me with the reality of how her race WAS important to me, and I felt vaguely guilty, as though I ought not be having any awkwardness or discomfort, or to be thinking of her as, among other things, a “black” woman. I was being bitten by a common bug in our culturally diverse and racially divided country, and it is an element of the subjectivity of most white therapists. I call it white anxiety. I shall discuss it further at a later point.

“Many white therapists seem to suffer from the “white fragility” of which Robin Di Angelo writes. They feel personally insulted/assaulted by being asked to take a look at how whiteness functions in society (and therefore, in the consulting room). They take it personally rather than understanding that we are all caught up in whiteness, whether we like it or not.”

...At any rate, back to my story. You can see from what I have written, that I made the usual white background assumption that unless I picked up evidence to the contrary, the woman I was to meet would be white. Joyce is a sociologist with a particular interest in racial consciousness, and racial experiences in LA. When I did ask her, in our second meeting, if she had given any thought to finding an African-American therapist, she said that she had gotten my name from a colleague she trusted (a white sociologist whom I had seen for therapy a few years earlier), and the referral was more important to her than color. My question also seemed to raise her level of defensiveness slightly, and I knew that she was already quite embarrassed that she was seeking therapy in the first place, so I did not inquire further. 

Several weeks passed and the therapy lurched along with few references to her race, and none to mine. She would occasionally mention a difficult interaction or situation, and in the process of exploration I sometimes asked her for the race of the person with whom she was struggling. She would appear relieved and identify the person as white. At that point we would explore the possibility that the difficulties arose in part as a result of the racial prejudices or ignorance of the other person. But I always had to initiate the race-based discussions. 

I continued to be uneasy that we had not overtly acknowledged our racial difference. I could not see that she was uneasy, but I was. I became tangled in doubts of almost obsessive proportion. The doubts took my thoughts in various directions. I was reluctant to impose a figure into her process of talking about her own interests if that figure was an enactment of my anxiety. I wondered if perhaps I wanted to offer an African-American therapist so that she would leave and relieve me of my anxiety. Or, I wondered, perhaps I wanted the overt acknowledgment of our racial differences so that I could establish myself as different from “those other” whites. Then again, I wondered if perhaps I needed the acknowledgement of our racial difference because I was not as developed, in terms of my racial consciousness, as I thought I should be. On the other hand, I hoped that maybe, just maybe, such an acknowledgement might be helpful to Joyce, who might need me to take the initiative. 

One of the striking “symptoms” of my anxious self-doubt is the harsh tone of self- doubt and self-criticism in them.  This is a not uncommon experience for other whites who are racially sensitive. This may be a manifestation of white guilt, something I will address at a later point in the paper.

…. 

“I recommend that we white folks develop a different practice. First, don’t make the conversation about you! Your guilt and shame are better addressed elsewhere. What is needed at such a time, is simply a straightforward recognition of your insensitivity, and an apology, and if you don’t understand what you did, and then ask (with curiosity), so that you can learn something.”

One day Joyce started talking about the details of a study she was conducting. She mentioned that she always had to allow twice as long for interviews with white people than with other interviewees. She said it took the white interviewees an extra hour or so become comfortable enough with her to speak freely and openly. They had to overcome their anxiety over whether they would make a racial faux pas, and their worry of being harshly criticized by my patient. She said that the whites in her study lacked a vocabulary for addressing multi-cultural themes, whereas the other participants were highly articulate. 

I was reminded, as she spoke, of my first few awkward sessions with her: my anxiety, confusion, twinge of self-conscious shame, not knowing how to acknowledge our racial difference, not knowing how much it “ought” to matter. I decided to tell her what I was thinking. I described the tangle of doubt and confusion I experienced in not knowing whether I was being more racist by mentioning race, or by not mentioning race. We both had a good laugh, and the atmosphere between us underwent a palpable change for the better. I believe that this was a signal to her that we could talk about the effects of racism on her life, but also, and perhaps more importantly for the development of our relationship, that we could also talk about my “whiteness”, and my racial consciousness, and how both of these factors influenced our work together. We have both been looser, freer with each other since then.

My point in sharing this, is to say, awkwardness may haunt you until you get more practice. 

CS: What would you recommend to someone wanting to learn more about this topic and about themselves within the racist system? Any books, articles, podcasts, workshops, exercises you have found helpful? 

LJ: There is so much good material now.

• If you haven’t read Peggy McIntosh’s White Privilege: Unpacking the White Knapsack, it is a must.

• Also DiAngelo’s White Fragility.

• A terrific article online (originally in The Atlantic) by Ta-Nehisi Coates, called The Case for Reparations.

• Also by Coates, Between the World and Me.

• Kendi - How to Be an Antiracist.

• There is a blog site called Medium. You can set it up to pick out articles on race.

•  A good, short video on what it means to be a white friend.

• Another video featuring a poem entitled “Black Privilege”

• A Poem for My White Friends: “I Didn’t Tell You”

• You can find stuff I have written on being a white therapist by looking me up on Academia.edu. It is free!

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Lynne Jacobs, Ph.D., lives in two psychotherapy worlds. She is co-founder of the Pacific Gestalt Institute and also a training and supervising analyst at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis-Los Angeles. She has written numerous articles for gestalt therapists and psychoanalytic therapists. She has a private practice and is involved with the Soldiers Project in Los Angeles.

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Chelsea Small, MSW, is an Associate Clinical Social Worker, ASW #78503 working under the supervision of Saralyn Masselink, LCSW # 28617. Chelsea believes in the wisdom of the therapeutic relationship to ignite transformative growth. She has extensive experience working with people impacted by trauma, domestic violence, and the effects of emotional dysregulation.

Home: Your Place in the Family of Things

This November, MHT is participating in the Miry’s List Friendsgiving Fundraising Drive. The money goes to programs that support refugee families that have been resettled in the United States. In tandem with these efforts, our clinicians are writing posts reflecting on what home means to them.

“...that is so much of what therapy is about—creating a home. ”

“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.”

-       Mary Oliver, excerpt from the poem “Wild Geese”

When I think of the word home, I think first of a feeling…the feeling of a warm, summer night.

Home is sense of belonging, a sense of returning, of being found, of having a place—a place that waits just for you. That welcomes and loves you. Not so much a physical place but an emotional place. A place that can hold you, no matter what form you may arrive in. That remembers you, no matter how long you have been gone. That is the first thing I think of when I think of home.

And then, right after, I think of how often in the human experience we do not feel that. How often we feel the opposite of that—a lostness, a feeling of being strange to our self or to another, a homelessness. A longing for that feeling of coming home in the moments when it feels unreachable. To me, that is so much of what therapy is about—creating a home. A person, a place, an hour of the week, that is just yours. That holds and remembers you even when you feel strange and unfamiliar to yourself. That knows and welcomes you. And about how, over time, that sense of home becomes internalized—becomes not only a place that you go to with yourself and another in your hour each week, but a place inside yourself. What a lovely thing that is to build with another human. 

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HERE'S HOW YOU CAN PARTICIPATE IN FRIENDSGIVING WITH US:

Give! Visit our Miry’s List campaign page and make a donation. It's that simple and no sum is too small. Truly.

Follow! Be sure to follow us on Instagram and our blog throughout the month of November. We will be reflecting on what it means to be welcomed, received, and known.

Share!  Help us spread the word. You can do this by sharing our social media posts or links to our Miry’s List Friendsgiving Fundraiser page.

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A little about Miry’s List:
Refugee families come to the United States seeking a safe haven from violence and persecution in their home countries. They leave behind family and friends, as well as virtually everything they own. Many Americans, seeing these families in their communities, wonder: What can I do to help? Miry's List provides a mechanism for people to directly help new arrival refugee families with the things that they need to get started in their new lives – from diapers to beds to cleaning supplies and toiletries. To learn more, visit miryslist.org.

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Chelsea Small, MSW, is an Associate Clinical Social Worker, ASW #78503 working under the supervision of Saralyn Masselink, LCSW # 28617. Chelsea believes in the wisdom of the therapeutic relationship to ignite transformative growth. She has extensive experience working with people impacted by trauma, domestic violence, and the effects of emotional dysregulation.