NPI REFLECTS FALL 2023
Volume 13: Issue 3 Indwelling, Instructions to a Young Therapist
this issue
By Rain Marie Voss, LPC-MHSP
Subtle realms of transmission, below language and outside of theory. Reifying S e l f - discovery. Amidst numberless interlopers. Don’t become one.
What is NPI? The Nashville Psychotherapy Institute is a 501(c)(6) non profit, professional organization. Founded in 1985, NPI now boasts 340+ members.
Instead, divine truth while dropping keys into The river below the river.
Ins i de this i ss ue:
Knowing your eyes become the eyes that occupy each soul. The act of open-hearted embodied perceiving supports integration of undigested experience. It is a subtle art form, this non-judgmental curiosity that lives beyond notions of right-doing and wrong-doing successfully resisting the urge to slip into the easy act of foreclosure and labeling. Within the discordant chaos lives as yet unperceived order that naturally arises when comforted, or perhaps, confronted by an awakening one.
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A note from the Chair Tom Neilson
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From the Chair-elect Michael Murphy
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Savage Divinity Barbara Sanders
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Social Justice Special Event
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Wild Peace Barbara Sancers
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Review of Us: Getting past you and me to build a more loving relationship Philip Chanin
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Holiday Social
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Grace Linda Odom
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NPI Spring Calendar of Events
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Board Member Spotlight Rich Gorman
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Thank You to Our Sponsors
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From the Chair... This is my third and final “From the Chair” column. In January, my friend Michael Murphy will take over as NPI Chair, and Tiffany Davis will take on a new role as Chair-Elect. I am confident in the exceptional leadership that Michael and Tiffany will bring to NPI. Michael has chosen the theme of Time for her year as Chair. Her theme strikes me as both creative and full of potential. I expect the next year’s programming to be interesting and thought provoking, and I look forward to it.
This year has seen a return to something like “normal” for NPI, following the disruptions of the pandemic. NPI went to virtual luncheons during the pandemic and transitioned to a hybrid, virtual-in-person model last year under the leadership Tom Neilso, Psy.D of Linda Manning. This year, we were able to return to in-person luncheons only, with the addition of a few on-line-only events. Attendance at the luncheons increased considerably over the course of the year and both in-person and on-line events have been successful. The theme I chose for the year has been Opening to Our Inner Healing Intelligence. Thanks to Doug Taylor’s hard work identifying and recruiting speakers, we have had a series of rich and interesting luncheon presentations. Some of the luncheon high points have included presentations by Ray Ballard (Pathways to our Inner Healing Intelligence: IFS, Spirituality and Psychedelics), Gurjeet Birdie (Yoga’s Perspective on Health and Healing), Kenneth Robinson (The Body as Guru), Bruce Rogers-Vaughn (When Focusing on Inner Healing Becomes a Problem), and Mendy and Joe McNulty (Internal Family Systems), among others. I want to offer a sincere thank you to Doug Taylor for recruiting these excellent speakers and helping to make our luncheons so successful on our first year back. Our larger events were also successful. The NPI Connections Retreat was a popular event with a sold-out crowd. We had a slate of lively and interesting presentations, headlined by Valerie Martin’s keynote talk (How to Win an Unwinnable Game: A Paradigm Shift for Healing Overwhelm and Disconnection). One of the high points of the year for me was the impromptu workshop that Jamie Kyne and I presented (Poetry as Magic, Poetry as Therapy: Reconnecting with Ourselves, Others, and Nature) when our other keynote speaker had to cancel due to illness. Although I enjoy public speaking, I don’t often do spontaneous public presentations, and this was an opportunity for me to stretch and grow. Thanks again to Jamie for his willingness to step into the breach with me! NPI’s Jules Seeman Fall Workshop was also a resounding success, as Mary Cosimano, LMSW, from Johns Hopkins University Medical School presented The Healing Presence of the Psychedelic Therapist to a rapt audience. Mary generously brought much wisdom, knowledge and depth to the fall workshop. I thought Mary’s presentation was one of the most interesting and useful professional presentations that I’ve attended in recent years; she presented much that would be useful to a non-psychedelic psychotherapist as well, including provocative thoughts on the role of love and death awareness in psychotherapy. I would like to thank Sonya Thomas for her role in helping to bring Mary to the Fall Workshop. I would also like to thank Rebecca Pearce for her work on the Board as the Hutton Historian. For those of you who don’t know, the Hutton Historian has the responsibility of identifying NPI members who are willing to serve on the Board, vetting them, and nominating them. Rebecca brought her usual intelligence, grace and diligence to a job that is more difficult than I realized when I asked her to do it. Thank you, Rebecca. Perhaps most important of all, I would like to thank Melissa Vickroy for the excellent work she does as NPI’s Executive Coordinator. Melissa is remarkably efficient and organized, she is consistently helpful to NPI members, and she does an excellent job. Melissa, you have certainly made my life easier this year. And finally, I would like to thank the entire NPI Board. I appreciate all your dedication and the incredible work each one of you has done over the course of the year. 2
From the Chair-Elect... Hello, dear friends and colleagues! For me, 2023 has moved along quickly. Much has happened in our world, our community of Middle Tennessee, as well as in our NPI community, and time seems to have raced by. One of the big upcoming events for NPI is the reconfiguration of our Board. I will become the new Chair, and we will be saying farewell to some really wonderful folks, namely: Valerie Martin, Juliana Vokes, Avi Dressler, Linda Manning, Rebecca Pearce, and Khalid Stetkevych. Each of you will be greatly missed! Please continue to share your voices and your energy with us. The rest of the reconfiguration involves welcoming new members of the Board: Erin Carney, Jill Flowers, Gina Frieden, Jeannie Ingram, Tyson Marlow, David Spielman as well as Cathy Yarborough as the Hutton Historian. Tiffany Davis will be the new Chair-Elect. I look forward to our work together.
Michael Murphy, LCSW
I felt great support and encouragement from many of the Past Chairs (and current and future Chair) at the Advisory Brunch we held at Mere Bulles on September 30th. Thank you, Rhonda Scarlata, Linda Odom, Linda Manning, Bethany Ezell, John Nichols, Tom Nielson, Rebecca Pearce and Tiffany Davis! Your presence and input meant a lot to me. Also in attendance was Melissa Vickroy, our Executive Coordinator, who continues to be a major help to me and to NPI - thank you so much, Melissa. As your Chair-elect, I was invited to select a theme for the coming year. I thought about the diversity of our wonderful community and wanted to choose a theme that impacts everyone in a variety of ways. What emerged for me was the element of time. Time is the theme for 2024: our subjective view of time, our perception of time, our relation to time, etc. Our thoughts and language are filled with words and phrases about time! There are issues involving time that come up for us as well as for our clients, such as being "stuck", end of life, grief and loss, achievement of goals, failure to launch, aging/ageism, addictions, the present moment, family of origin/constellations and flow, to name some of them. The luncheons and workshops will reflect the theme of time in some way. (Check out the link below on Time.)
https://youtu.be/AZsmyTE3j9o?si=F5KuhHTMS3HIxhxj One of the things I became aware of during my time as Chair-Elect for this year is that our Board and our membership are comprised of four or five different generations! I believe we have The Silent Generation to Gen Z - each one representing the events, culture, norms and politics of each of those eras. (See informative chart on page 4)
It is my hope that there will be interest, curiosity and appreciation of each others' experiences and perspectives and that we learn from each other and continue to grow. A quote from Shakespeare has long guided me in this regard: "There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio than are dreamt of in your philosophy." (Hamlet, 1.5) As a member of this profession of life-long learning, I welcome your input at any time. Please feel free to email me your thoughts about next year’s theme; my email address is: mmurphy.lcsw@comcast.net. (By the way, do you know a popular song from your generation with the word 'time' in the title? A couple of mine are Time Has Come Today, by the Chambers Brothers and The Last Time by the Rolling Stones. If you feel like it, include a couple of yours in the email you send - could be fun!) Thanks for taking the time to read this. Here we go! (Continued on page 4) 3
Savage Divinity By Barbara Sanders, LCSW https://sacredmetamorphoses.com/ Roaring Awakening Glowing Leading Gathering Sharing Blessing
Instead, we rejoice as we Impale ourselves On the spear of Bright white light
Feeling the burn Of suffering taking place The divine spark Once again ignites Through a new ritual
Empty at last While never feeling Alone again
Letting go of control Letting go of sorrow And despair Letting go of thoughts Mind, ego, achievement Releasing all rationality To the winds of change
Wiping out all stains All beliefs of sin And disgust Judgment and pride
(From the Chair-elect; continued from page 3)
The storm causes Disaster Clears the path For the opening of hearts More Love than was ever Experienced before Surrendering all thoughts Of attachments and binding Knotty, tangled relationships Knowing We do not own or possess Anything at all We are given gifts We receive blessings No more victimization No more perpetration No more blame and shame No more heavily laden guilt To bend our shoulders And weigh us down With the burdens of This world
Did you know that our NPI membership is comprised of up to FIVE different generations!?!? Our events often have attendees from The Silent Generation to Gen Z - each one representing the events, culture, norms and politics of each of those eras.
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All Social Justice Committee sponsored Events are FREE to members AND Non-Members
More information at www.NashvillePsychotherapyInstitute.org
The NPI Social Justice Committee NPI was founded to provide a forum for continuing education for licensed mental health clinicians and an
opportunity to experience community with one another and encourage one another in all aspects relevant to our common scope of practice. The Social Justice Committee supports these goals of NPI. We do this with events we create and host, as well as by providing resources and information about events sponsored by other
organizations in Middle Tennessee. As a part of our commitment to promoting Social Justice, NPI’s Social Justice page: https://nashvillepsychotherapyinstitute.org/social-justice/ and the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion page: https://nashvillepsychotherapyinstitute.org/social-justice/ on the NPI website provide education and advocacy resources. The Social Justice page describes our mission and invites participation and suggestions by any interested NPI member.
The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion page acknowledges the national moment of reckoning related to race and its intersectionality with gender, class, and other social locations and identities, and how we as therapists can be involved in this movement. It includes statements from our professional organizations, professional practice guidelines, and
resources for education and action. We are continuing to add links to assist members in tracking legislative proposals that impact our work as therapists and the people that we serve. Please let us know of any needs or suggestions that you have for the work of this Committee by contacting Linda Manning at doclgm70@gmail.com or Valerie Martin at valerie@gaiacenter.co. 5
Wild Peace By Barbara Sanders, LCSW Shimmering Rippling Vibrating No you or me No separation Between each other And the Divine This is Wild Peace Peace which needs no understanding Wildness beyond measure Allowing the spirit of Grace To move within, outside, And all around us
The rhythm of Wild Peace Is the bass line The heartbeat inside us And throughout the universe Strumming strongly yet gently Always present underneath All other sacrificial sounds While chaos enacts its dynamics Disturbing our resilient calm We witness, we watch our world We may even participate By dipping our toes Into the playground of humanity And then, diving in and throughout Past humanity’s edge Further into the deep, hallowed Waters of our souls and into Sacred Space and Time Bubbling all around us We breathe, we race To be at one with To be inside the circle Rainbows of light Expanding from the cosmos All the way down Into our moon tides Into our wiggling toes We reach out Drawing down the bright white deep Receiving these gifts That set us on fire We explode into Stardust once again Shedding our skins Entering the New World In different forms and shapes Energies being born Transformed Awakened Now I see you Do you see me? Floating around Ecstatically? 6
“Ask Yourself: ‘What is the Thing I’m About to Say Going to Feel Like To the Person I’m Speaking to?’”: A Review of Us: Getting Past You
And Me to Build a More Loving Relationship by Terrence Real By Philip Chanin, Ed.D, ABPP, CGP
Board Certified Clinical Psychologist Assistant Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry at Vanderbilt University Medical Center www.drphilchanin.com ~ philchanin@gmail.com “Few things can trigger us or make us go crazy like our intimate relationships can. Love is like a Roto-Rooter - it will push every button you own; it will bring to the surface every unhealed wound and fissure that has lodged inside your body. Nothing stimulates hurt quite the way love does. As we shall see, we all marry our unfinished business.” (p. 37) “First, repair is not a two-way street. Almost everyone gets this wrong…You must take turns. Repair goes in one direction. When your partner is in a state of disrepair, your only job is to help them get back into harmony with you, to deal with their upset, and to support them in reconnecting. I ask people, when faced with an unhappy partner, to put their needs aside and attend to the other’s unhappiness.” (p. 208) “Think of yourself as being at the customer service window. Someone tells you their microwave doesn’t work; they don’t want to hear that your toaster doesn’t work. Nor are they interested in your reasons. They want a new microwave. Take care of your customer first. Only once they feel satisfied will there be any bandwidth for you and your experience.” (p. 209) “Start with this. Swear off unkindness; swear off disrespect. Before you open your mouth, ask yourself: ‘Does what I am about to say fall below the line of basic respect? Is there a chance the listener will experience it that way?’ I would ask you, dear reader, here and now in this moment, to take the following pledge: ‘Come hell or high water, short of outright physical self-defense, I will not indulge in words or behaviors that are disrespectful to any other human being. And neither will I sit passively by if someone is disrespectful to me. I will ask them to speak differently to me, and if that doesn’t work, I will break the interaction and leave. But I won’t just be silent and absorb it. In either direction—dishing it out or taking it—I am right now today swearing off disrespectful behavior. I don’t need it. I am developing the skills of soft power, speaking up and explicitly cherishing at the same time.” (p. 253)
Terrence Real is a Boston psychotherapist. For the past 30 years, Real has been developing what he calls Relational Life Therapy, and he has trained thousands of therapists in this model. In Chapter 1: “Which Version of You Shows Up to Your Relationship?”, Real describes his approach. “Relational Life Therapists break many of the rules we learned in school. We are not neutral, for example. When it comes to responsibility, not all problems are an even fifty-fifty split. We take sides. And we don’t hide behind a mask of professionalism. We make a point of being real people, sharing when appropriate from our own journey toward wholeness and intimacy.” (p. 4) Real continues, “The critical question I think about is not even What is the dynamic, the choreography between you? That’s an important question, but it’s not the most essential. The central question I ask myself during a therapy session is simply this one: Which part of you am I talking to? Am I talking to the mature part of you, the one who’s present in the here and now? This is the part I call the Wise Adult. That’s the part that cares about us. Or am I speaking to a triggered part of you, to your adversarial you and me consciousness? The triggered part of you sees things through the prism of the past…The past superimposes itself onto the present, fundamentally confusing the mind.” (pp. 6-7) Real then describes the origins of what he calls the Adaptive Child: “But most of us do not reenact the experience of the trauma itself. Instead, we act out the coping strategy that we evolved to deal with it…The Adaptive Child is a child’s version of an adult, the you that you cobbled together in the absence of healthy parenting.” The traits of the Adaptive Child are described as “Black and White, Perfectionistic, Relentless, Rigid, Harsh, Hard, Certain, and Tight in the body.” The traits of the Wise Adult are described as “Nuanced, Realistic, Forgiving, Flexible, Warm, Yielding, Humble, and Relaxed in the body.” (pp. 7-8)
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(Review of Terrence Real, Continued from page 4)
Real often draws upon the teachings of poets and mystics. He writes, “The great spiritual teacher Jiddu Krishnamurti once said that true liberation is freedom from our own automatic responses.” When we become reactive to our partners, Real explains, “The present-based, most mature part of our brain, the prefrontal cortex, has lost connection with the older fast brain, the subcortical limbic system. Without that connection, you lose a pause between what you feel and what you do…Over time, with training and practice, we can change our responses. We can shift from being reactive individuals to being proactive teammates who, in cooperation with our partner, intentionally shape the transaction between us.” (p. 17) Real continues, “In your close relationships, urgency is your enemy, and breath is your friend. Breath can change your heart rate and your thinking physiologically…The real work of relationships is not occasional, or even daily: it is minute-to-minute. In this triggered moment right now, which path am I going to take? Rather than being overridden by your history, you can stop, pause, and choose.” (p. 18) Real describes what he calls a “relational trauma wound.” “Abandonment is a child ego state. ‘Adults don’t get abandoned,’ I tell Joe. ‘Adults get left, or even, if you want, rejected. But they survive.’ Abandonment means, ‘If you leave me, I die.’ Children get abandoned. When you feel that petrified, desperate feeling, you are no longer in your adult self. You are in a child ego state. Joey wants Linda to care for that hurt, angry seven-year-old. We all want that. We all want our partners to reach in and heal the young wounded parts of us with their love. And they always, to some degree, fail us…the only person who can with absolute consistency be there for our inner children is us. And that’s okay. That’s enough. Once we learn how to do it.” (pp. 60-61) Chapter 5 is entitled “Start Thinking Like a Team.” Here Real encourages his clients not to try to repair a relational rupture from the Adaptive Child position: “Remember your first skill…relational mindfulness. Take a break, throw some water on your face, take cleansing breaths with long exhalations, go for a walk. But don’t try to grapple with relational issues from your Adaptive Child. Get yourself reseated in your Wise Adult before attempting repair. Ask yourself which part of you is talking right now, and what that part’s real agenda is. If your agenda in that moment is to be right, to gain control, to vent, retaliate, or withdraw—then stop, call a formal time-out if need be, and get yourself re-centered.” (p. 123) Real continues: “Everyone gets to go crazy in long-term relationships, but you have to take turns. I call this relational integrity. It means that you hold the (Wise Adult) fort while your partner goes off their (Adaptive Child) rails. It’s not an easy practice, but it builds strong relational muscles. If you behave well, and your partner responds in kind, that ’s a good day for everyone. If you behave well, and they don’t—and you manage to stay in your Wise Adult self despite your partner’s provocations—that’s a bad day for your partner, a mixed day for the relationship, and a stellar day for you. You may not have achieved the result you wished for but you remained steadily in the you that you wish for.” (pp. 123-124) In Chapter 7 Real describes how a Relational Life therapist operates differently from a conventional therapist: “In subsequent months, I stagger their sessions. One week with the two of them, one week with Mike alone—sideline coaching sessions in relational skill, in stepping into the role of husband and father. I become not only Mike’s therapist but also his mentor…Relational Life therapists…explicitly step into a mentoring relationship. We speak with the authority of our training and clinical experience, to be sure, but we’re grounded more deeply in our own relational recovery. We’re more like twelve-step sponsors than blank-screen traditional therapists. (p. 185) Real concludes this chapter with “We all marry our unfinished business. Most of us wind up partnered with an all-too -familiar failure, limitation, or offense. We are thrown back in the soup of our relational traumas from childhood…To use the crisis rather than be buried by it, however, you have to keep yourself above the flood of reactivity that threatens to sweep you away. You have to have a skill that can be cultivated and made stronger—the skill of selfregulation…(which) emerges from successful experiences of repair…that’s how it is, being human. A hurt worth bearing. We stand grounded in the humility of our own imperfections…the critical first step is remembering love, getting seated in a part of you that wants to repair to begin with.” (pp. 191-192)
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Love & Exile Wine Bar
December 8th 4-6pm
Proceeds benefit the NPI Scholarship Fund
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GRACE By Linda Odom August 2023 I WILL trust Grace. I’m looking at the beautiful, precious kitten that She just, so unexpectedly, brought me.
New love and joy, from a breeder actually named Grace.
Just a few weeks ago I wrote about the Christmas when there was no kitten - that I so longed for -
under the tree. And then, the surprise that waited for me in the house my father took me to, to see the decorations. And there weren’t any. But there WAS a box of beautiful Persian kittens. Grace then.
And Grace now. Grace ongoing.
So often when we least expect it. Or when we have lost hope, or are feeling despair. Or are just soldering on. I remember the thought: “The amount of love in our lives remains constant, only the faces change.” Sometimes I forget.
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PROUD SPONSOR OF THE 2023 JULES SEEMAN FALL WORKSHOP
GET IN TOUCH WWW.ELUMENT.COM 615-560-8742
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Board Member Spotlight Richard Gorman Rich Gorman is newer to the therapy community in Nashville, having graduated from Vanderbilt University counseling program in May of 2022.
Previously, Rich worked in the fields of Native American legal advisory and advocacy and then as a pastor focusing on community development and community organizing in Chicago. Along with being a therapist, Rich is
spouse to Dori for 17 years and parent to Charis (12) and Nia (9). As a
Rich Gorman
therapist, Rich focuses his energies towards helping adult individuals and couples, specializing in work with clients who are healing from religious trauma and adverse religious experiences as well as those
experiencing the challenges of cancer diagnosis and treatment. Rich has been practicing with Brentwood Counseling Associates since June of 2022. I first joined NPI in 2019 as a student member. At the time I was new to Nashville, having relocated from Chicago, and just beginning my graduate program at Vanderbilt. NPI was a breath of fresh air for me. Relocation from our home in Chicago had me often feeling lost and lonely. NPI provided
community, connection, support and a sense of belonging and camaraderie that I was needing. I became very involved and served as student representative to the NPI board in 2021.NPI provides significant benefits and opportunities and, for me, here are my highlights:
Community and Belonging: The work of therapy is amazing and wonderful--and, frankly, just very weird. No one else can really understand what we experience in the therapy room--except other therapists. NPI provides a community where we all "get it" and provide support and belonging for one
another in ways that no one else can. I experience this in the monthly luncheons, social events, board meetings and lunches, coffees and gatherings with friends I met through NPI. The Connections Retreats: The annual connections retreats is one of the most valuable opportunities for me to connect, develop friendships as well as therapeutic skills via the breakout sessions. Many rich, significant friendships that I have developed started at the Connections Retreat. This weekend is an
annual "must" for me and I always recommend that other therapists take advantage of it! New and renewed projects and priorities: This year has been an exciting one for NPI as our board has taken on ambitious new projects and priorities as we strive to adjust to an ever-changing world and
city! I am encouraged and inspired by each of our board members. They possess the two dynamics necessary for healthy expansion: Seasoned wisdom that can only come from decades of experience and also fresh energy that can help propel us into an expanding future. I am excited to participate alongside
everyone as we work to sustain and expand NPI's capacity to facility connection, support and belonging for all.
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NEWSLETTER CREDITS
2023 NPI BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Editor: Juliana Vokes, MA, LPC-MHSP Layout & Design: Melissa Vickroy, MS Printing: ISSUU online publishing
Tom Neilson, Psy.D; Chair Michael Murphy, LCSW; Chair-elect
Linda Manning, PhD; Past Chair/Social Justice **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.
Krista Conrick, M.ED Candidate Tiffany Davis, LCSW Avi Dressler, LMFT; Finance Committee Laura Fritsche, LPC-MHSP; Membership Chair Rich Gorman, NCC, MA, M.Ed. Valerie Martin, LCSW; Social Justice Tonya Mills, LPC-MHSP; Treasurer Rebecca Pearce, PsyD; Hutton Historian Sarah Rodgers, LMFT, RDT Khalid Stetkevych; Student Member Doug Taylor, LPC-MHSP; Speaker Research Juliana Vokes, MA, LPC-MHSP; Communications
Nashville Psychotherapy Institute
Eboni Webb, PsyD, HSP Melissa Vickroy, MS; Executive Coordinator
P. O. Box 158626 Nashville, TN 37215 npinashville@gmail.com www.NashvillePsychotherapyInstitute.org 14
