Board Member Spotlight We are continuing our board member spotlight by featuring Linda Manning, the Chair of the Social Justice Committee. Linda has been a member of NPI since the early 2000’s, and a member of the Board for a year and a half. Although relatively new to the Board, Linda has been active with NPI and has presented at three luncheons, one Connection Retreat as a keynote and one as a co-presenter with Kenneth Robinson for a breakout session. At these events, she has addressed several of her favorite topics, including Relational Cultural Therapy, Body and Breathwork, Working with Trauma, and the Impact of Trauma on Chronic Pain. Linda’s interest in Social Justice is longstanding and one of her greatest honors was being awarded the first Movimiento Guerrilla de Diversidad Award presented by the Social Justice Committee.
Linda G. Manning, PhD
Linda loves to tell her students and colleagues about the benefits of membership in NPI. She first became a member while she was the Director of the Margaret Cunninggim Women’s Center at Vanderbilt. She states that “The Women’s Center was my first and only administrative job that did not involve direct clinical work. Meeting with NPI and its wonderful members helped me to stay connected to the clinical heart of my profession. It also allowed me to co-sponsor speakers such as Maureen Walker and Judith Jordan - two of my heroes – for a Spring Workshop.” Unlike many NPI members, Linda has never worked primarily in private practice. Her NPI connections, however, helped her to learn about an opening at the Vanderbilt Center for Integrative Health (now the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at Vanderbilt) and led to a ten-year-long career there. Now that she is retired from the Osher Center, she continues at Vanderbilt as faculty in the Human Development Counseling Program, teaching a course on “Trauma: Impact and Intervention” every Spring semester. As a result, she now has more time to offer to the Board. Like Lindsay (highlighted in the last newsletter) Linda is also very grateful for the opportunity to listen to, and meet with, wonderful speakers over the years. She has been particularly impacted by speakers such as Louise Silverstein and Beverly Green (multicultural therapy), Laura Brown (trauma and memory), and Bonnie Badenoch (interpersonal neurobiology). Wisdom from all of them has made it into her work with clients, her teaching, and her mentoring. In this and so many other ways, NPI has deeply influenced her professional life. Linda states that she is very excited to be involved with the Social Justice Committee. She hopes that the committee will continue to provide education related to Social Justice and offer information and support to NPI members who want to pursue Social Justice in their work and lives. In the forward to Advancing Social Justice Through Clinical Practice (2007), American Psychological Association President George Albee wrote: “Those of us who believe in the importance of the bond between mental health and human rights must come together in alliance with groups everywhere who share this belief. We must come together to help students in our field learn the importance of this connection and find the courage to oppose the mainstream that stresses adjustment to the status quo.” If you have suggestions for the Committee or would like to be involved in its work, please contact Linda at linda.g.manning@vanderbilt.edu 7
