success

After graduating in 1996, I had officially become a therapist. But that alone wasn’t the milestone. The deeper truth is this: I was now helping others with the very issues that once defined me.

I began my post-graduate career at Brynn Marr Psychiatric Hospital, then worked briefly at two public mental health agencies. And while each role had moments of meaning—particularly the work I did directly with clients—it became clear that the settings themselves didn’t always align with my values. Bureaucracy, insurance limitations, and profit motives left little room for the kind of deep, relational work that had drawn me to this field in the first place.

So, I made a leap that once would have seemed impossible: I started a private psychotherapy practice.

Chris Hauge—my longtime mentor—was instrumental in helping me take that step. He offered his office space when he began scaling back toward retirement, allowing me to rent the space affordably by the hour. With his guidance, I took the necessary steps to get credentialed with insurance providers, set up billing systems, and advertise my services to the community.

And people came.

I began seeing clients for anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and relationship struggles. One client paid out of pocket for help with weight loss. Another came to me with questions about communication in his same-sex relationship, wondering whether I’d be comfortable hearing about the details. I was. More than comfortable—I was honored. People were trusting me with their most vulnerable truths. And they were doing so because they could feel that I understood.

Because I did.

What once had been sources of shame—my social phobia, my dating inexperience, my fear of being seen—had now become bridges. Not liabilities. Strengths. I had done the work, and I was continuing to do it. I was in therapy myself, pursuing a form of psychodynamic work rooted in self-awareness, free association, and emotional insight. I didn’t want my past to distort the present—not mine, and certainly not my clients’.

The therapy I offered wasn’t perfect, but it was real. And it mattered.

As my caseload grew, I outgrew the shared office arrangement and moved into my own space. I was fully self-employed, fully licensed, and finally—fully believing in my own capacity to help others heal.

Lynn and I went out to celebrate. It wasn’t just a milestone in my career—it was a moment of quiet triumph. Not flashy. Not loud. Just the two of us, sharing a meal, holding hands across the table, knowing how far we had come.

So much had changed since the days when I thought I had nothing to offer.

Now, I was a therapist with a thriving practice, a deep belief in human healing, and a partner who believed in me even before I did.

And maybe, in helping others become whole, I was continuing to see my value to others.

Preparing an Office for Therapy - A Space of My Own

My private practice had grown faster than I could have imagined. At first, I was renting space by the hour from Chris Hauge—my mentor and supporter—but within a few short months, I was seeing clients nearly full-time. It no longer made sense to rent by the hour. The numbers told the story: I had reached a point where a dedicated space wasn’t just a dream—it was the next step.

With Lynn’s support, I found an office in downtown Wilmington, on Chestnut Street. The rent was $400 a month, which was far less than what I would be paying if I continued renting hourly. Within a month, I had already passed that threshold—and we both knew it was time.

The space was exactly what I needed. It was part of a long hallway of offices in a building shared with other professionals, including a lawyer and a few other therapists. It came with a receptionist, a quiet waiting room, and access to a shared conference room I could book when needed.

Lynn and I jumped right into setting it up. We scoured yard sales for a comfortable couch, picked up pillows to make the space inviting, and bought a desk and chair from Office Depot. It was a whirlwind of practical and emotional preparation. I had never cared much about how things looked, but Lynn did—and thanks to her, the space felt warm, welcoming, and professional. Without her help, I would have been self-conscious, worrying if the space felt right for my clients.

We added a whiteboard for diagrams and notes. I framed my degree, licensure, and hypnosis certification. These weren’t just decorations—they were symbols of a journey that had once felt out of reach. From a young man too anxious to speak in class, I had become someone clients sought out for healing and support.

We also prepared for the full range of needs. I added chairs for potential group sessions and stocked a small toy box for play therapy with children. I didn’t expect a large number of child clients, but I wanted to be ready. I remembered how lost I’d felt during my first internship with kids—and I had since studied play therapy with more intention.

The receptionist was helpful with greeting clients, answering the phone, and handling basic tasks during regular business hours. I kept the more personal aspects—like therapy notes, billing conversations, and scheduling—between me and my clients to maintain confidentiality and control. After hours, I had a key and alarm code, and I often stayed late to see clients who couldn’t come during the day.

And then, suddenly, I was here: practicing full-time in my own space. Not as a student, not as a paraprofessional, not as someone tagging along on someone else’s license.

I was the therapist. The space was mine.

It’s hard to describe what that felt like. Euphoric. Surreal. Joyful. And above all, deeply earned.

Lynn and I celebrated the way we often did: with a quiet dinner out, holding hands across the table, hearts full. I felt like I wanted to hang a metaphorical plaque on the wall of my life—“Here. Here is where it all became real.”

Not long before, I could barely imagine a life like this. Now I was living it.

And it was beautiful.

In the last chapter, I mentioned being employed at Brynn Marr Psychiatric Hospital. While the work with clients was rewarding, the values and norms of the setting were not a good match. I then worked in two public mental health settings. The second one was Sampson County Mental Health Center. That lasted just about 9 months before I wanted to move into private practice.

I was able to complete all the requirements for licensure as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) within the state of North Carolina before I left my employment at Sampson County Mental Health Center.

It was clear that whatever problems I had on the jobs at this agency or at Brynn Marr Psychiatric Hospital had nothing to do with how I performed with clients or patients.

During this time, I had sought feedback, counseling, support, and guidance from my colleagues. I had joined the local chapter of the Society for Clinical Social Workers which had regular meetings where I could interact with colleagues in a congenial setting where we got to share our ideas, request feedback on casework, and learn from one another.

It is through these meetings that I kept in touch with Chris Hauge who was a mentor of mine as I have mentioned previously.

I had approached Chris seeking advice on entering private practice because I looked up to him... I had known that he had kept a private practice for some time. He had been very supportive of my goals as they related to making a positive difference in the lives of others.

The Keys to Success and Accomplishments

As it turned out, Chris said that he was considering retirement and that he was cutting back his office hours. He offered to let me rent his office space at a certain rate per hour if and when I used the office. This was a very affordable way for me to find success.

I believe it was about $15 per hour - Chris wasn't using the office anyway during these hours. He told me the hours in which he used the office and when the office would be available. He shared an office with a partner - they had the main waiting room and reception area and two private office rooms where providers, like myself, could meet with clients.

If I had to build a private practice on my own, it could be challenging to get started. I would need to build a base of clients that would be paying every week for treatment with me. If you rent an office full time you have access to the building any time, day or night, but you pay a monthly rate to do this.

The cost to rent an office every month would be higher than the costs that Lynn and I were paying to rent our home - though her mother had been renting it to us and therefore we had gotten a great deal, a cheap rate for renting a home.

Chris gave me a key, introduced me to his partner and we discussed how I would record the hours in which I was going to use the office. He had a schedule I could consult to find out when the office was available.

There are so many things to consider when you are pursuing a career in this field and when you are seeking to work in private practice. As noted, I had to consider Professional Liability Insurance also called malpractice insurance, which are different names for the same thing. Chris needed to know that I had this coverage.

Billing is another issue. I had to file insurance claims for treatment with a client's insurance company or agency. So, I had to get registered with various insurance companies including Medicare.

I had contracted with someone to do the medical billing as well and I got a post office box (PO Box) for non-personal mail.

Having all my mail go to Chris' office didn't seem like something that I wanted to do yet. If I did not go to the office because I didn't have a client that day, then I might miss my mail that day. There was a place where I could get a PO Box close to our home.

It's great to have someone with whom you can consult when you are doing all these things and Chris was helpful in this regard as well.

Then I had to advertise in the newspaper and online. The internet was still a bit new in the late 90s, but I was able to create a website.

Other Advice That I Received from Colleagues

It's important to reflect upon the support I got from colleagues as well as the therapy or treatment that I had been receiving.

I became interested or curious to learn something about psychoanalysis and I began to study this formally from an organization that provides certification in psychodynamic/psychoanalytic therapy. The organization provided learning objectives, credits, coursework, as well as certifications for mental health and psychological professionals.

I would go and see Marjorie Israel, who worked out of her home. She was a clinical social worker like myself and I met her at those meetings.

Marjorie invited me to her home office. It was an interesting and scenic location. She had a nice yard with flowers and plants in a beautiful and serene garden with a curving sidewalk.

I would lay back on her couch and do free association or recount my dreams. It was reminiscent of Freudian psychoanalysis with the psychoanalyst and the couch. Marjorie said that she had to modify her approach since psychoanalysis traditionally had been done with a client coming four or five days a week for years.

Oh, I was paying her out of pocket, also. Lynn and I didn't have a great deal of money but she was supportive of me getting the guidance and support that I needed.

She also engaged in more talking than traditional psychoanalysis. 

While so much of psychoanalytic theory is hard to prove with research, I was interested in a technique where I would not be censoring anything at all. I was interested in making sure that I covered everything going through my mind – my motivations and hidden desires. I didn't want any issues from my past to interfere with my role as a therapist for clients.

It is so special that Lynn didn't ask me to work for a big agency that might offer "good insurance." We both knew that insurance wasn't the answer. She was born with a pre-existing condition. Even forcing insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions is not a guarantee that we would need.

Starting My Practice

One of my counselors cautioned me that Wilmington was a saturated market, meaning there probably isn't a market for another psychotherapist in the Wilmington area.

I was going to prove him wrong, which would make him happy actually. I mean, he had my best interests in mind. He was speaking only about the market for therapists.

I did start to pick up clients rather fast. I had selected a few words to use in the advertisements as specialization areas that I hoped would be problems that people in the area had and/or things that interested me.  So, initially, I thought of advertising that I could help individuals who are dealing with anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and relationship issues. 

I had previously had problems with relationships which was manifested in the form of shyness, social anxiety, and social phobia. 

I added that I could use hypnosis to help with quitting smoking, weight loss, or other problems.

This seemed to work out well for me. I used a second phone number that rang at my home, but the location of where I was living was not revealed.

One guy started paying me out of pocket for weight loss.

Then I picked up a client who had relationship issues. He said that he was gay and asked if I could help. I reported that I could help. To me, relationships require active listening. So, I would demonstrate that in the sessions with the client and help him to learn how to increase his communication skills in the same way.

It's interesting that people in relationships that are non-traditional relationships will understandably want to know if we (the therapists) are comfortable listening to details about their intimate relationships.

Returning to the topic of psychoanalysis, we get terms like transference and countertransference from this field.

Transference is about how the client reacts to or responds to the therapist. It can relate to projection where a client projects onto the therapist ideas and feelings that exist in another relationship.

Countertransference is how therapists respond to the client and the client's behaviors. I was working on my own "issues" to ensure that none of my past was carried into the therapy sessions with others and would cloud my judgment. This was part of why I went for analysis with Marjorie.

Anyway, I also picked up a client who was dealing with major depression. Another issue that I was treating was anorexia. I had taken on a client who was in college and had come home with her family hoping to return to college later.

My client base was growing, and it was getting to the point that I needed more access to the office than what was available while renting from Chris. I also found that by paying a flat rate every month, I could save money.

Recognizing these accomplishments was amazing and a cause for celebration. So, Lynn and I went out to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants. Everything was amazing and a celebration was called for!

This has been an overview of the various types of clients I was seeing and the problems or issues I was treating. Later chapters will go into more detail so I will ask you to keep reading with me.

First, let's talk about family life so that you, dear reader, will know that I had another life outside the office. 

A General Feeling of Success and Happiness

The year was 2000, and life was going great for me. I was successful in all areas of my life. I had been living with the love of my life, Lynn, as husband and wife for several years now. This was evidence of success for me.  

To be loved and to love another person was part of what I had always wanted in life.   

I had the career that was meant for me as well. It was only through hard work that I had achieved this success. I never took for granted all that I had accomplished. Sixteen years ago in 1984, I would not have considered social work because I had been so shy and as a result, I lacked social skills. That was a lifetime ago.  

I had come so far. Everything felt right. Now. At this moment! In the early spring of 2000. I had no idea that things were about to change. 

I had a client base that was large enough to keep me busy forty, fifty, or more hours per week. That was okay, I loved the work.

It might seem surprising that someone like me who has a great deal of empathy would feel "good" when I am spending time with people who are dealing with severe depression, for example. I could resonate with others and their feelings and experiences. I felt with others what they were feeling and experiencing.  

However, it does feel good to know that you are helping another person to cope with psychological problems like major depression.  

So, yes, it feels "good" to spend time with people who are dealing with negative emotions... if you can help them.  

The Importance of My Role

I would reflect upon my role as a mental health professional and the importance of that role in the lives of others.

If someone came for family therapy or couple's counseling, I felt like I had a solemn role in the family or in the relationships between two people. A couple was paying me to help them to live in harmony and to have a healthy relationship with one another.

That responsibility or the importance of the role I played might seem more obvious to a layperson when dealing with serious psychiatric conditions or disorders. However, it never occurred to me that one client's issues were more important than anyone else's.

Concern for Others Mental Health More Important than Money…

The next statement will make sense to consider in light of later events in my life.

I remembered a particular conversation I had with a young woman who had anorexia, named Anne Marie. I had described this previously. I was meeting with her parents and her. I explained that a medical doctor should be the primary person that they contact about her health. I explained that I wanted to be helpful, and I supported Anne Marie, but her physical health is outside my area of expertise. I'm not a doctor and so all medical matters that concerned them must be discussed with their doctor, not with me.  

I had known that my role and my billable hours with her would decrease as a result of this, but Anne Marie's health was so very important.  

I knew that despite her starving herself, she wanted to live a life that was meaningful, and I hoped she would continue to see me from time to time for individual therapy, and she could and was invited to come to the groups I was having for persons with eating disorders, which she found very agreeable.  

A Diverse Group of Clients

I had so many different clients, dozens of them with different problems, issues, or disorders. Each of them had invested in me a solemn responsibility to care for their mental and physical health - their health and psyche as it were. It was a solemn responsibility indeed.  

The past few chapters have focused on Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) as a trauma disorder and the role I played in providing treatment to persons who presented with symptoms of DID. This represented only a small fraction of the time I spent each week in therapy with people. 

I have put additional focus on this particular disorder because of the unique characteristics of the disorder at least in terms of what the general public thinks about psychiatric disorders.

I have previously described the problems that I had discovered when I learned that psychotherapists were spreading conspiracy theories.

To say that my colleagues across America had some unusual beliefs about what had been done to their clients who had DID is putting it mildly.   

The End of Faith?

Neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris came out with a book called "The End of Faith" in which he presents many of his beliefs that form the basis for his choice to embrace atheism. 

During the years I spent with Lynn, I noticed that she was the touchstone of morality for me, and yet she was opposed to any of the symbols and terminology that makes up religious doctrine. For example, she didn't like the term "sin."

For me, I was beginning to align my beliefs with Lynn who had doubted that a loving God could have allowed innocent children to be born with a chronic, fatal illness. I noticed that Lynn had an open mind even though she did not embrace any religious faith.  

My faith had been rooted in love, compassion, and empathy. That never changed even when I turned away from religious ideas.  

I was beginning to think that, indeed, science might be the only tool for understanding reality. I could trust what my senses told me. That would be it!

I had at one point told Lynn that God was real and factually known and not a part of our beliefs and faith. That was such a naïve and irrational statement to make!  

Religious ideas also lead people in America to embrace conspiracy theories about satanic cults, despite there being no evidence that could support a belief in these things. It seemed like the nation was being rocked by a mass delusion.  

Religion seemed to inspire people to believe things without sufficient evidence and to see the world in black and white categories.  

I respect the beliefs of others even if I do not share those beliefs. 

A Charismatic Pseudo-Therapist  

I’m not sure what to call a person like John Freifeld. He was charismatic and persuasive. He looked like Charles Manson. Later, a woman named Ruth Parris would describe his charisma by saying that “if he said the sky was pink, she would see it that way,” and it sounded like she was being literal. Ruth was never a client of mine, but she was a friend. So, let’s call him a pseudo-therapist.

As I stated previously, by John’s own admission, he had no specialized training, no credentials, and no college degree. As of June of 2000, I had not had any contact with John in about a month or so. The situation with Tracy had so disgusted me that I could not speak to him at all.

Jessica had long ago admitted that he had deceived people into thinking he was a therapist. I mean, I got the impression that he wasn’t denying that with her. 

Other than Sadie and Jessica, it seemed that those clients who had DID were getting worse. I should clarify that Tracy who left the area did not seem to have DID.

At some point, I discussed the problem with my colleagues. I was the president of the local chapter of the Society of Clinical Social Workers. Chris Hauge, my mentor was at this meeting. 

I didn’t really have to go into much detail about what I was observing. I just said that I knew that he was not trained in the field, that I felt he was doing what would be considered “therapy” and that I noticed that people seemed to be getting worse.  

The advice I got was to tell them that if they want to keep seeing me they MUST stop getting therapy from John! 

Based on a review of the book, this is not a sentiment that is obvious to every layperson. It was obvious to John’s sister when I spoke to her in 2020 before this book was reviewed and without me having reviewed nearly as much as I have just recounted to you, dear reader.

A website was created to warn people not to trust people like John - there were others who were practicing without credentials. Patt Stubbs had started a website called HIP - Hazards on the Internet and Protection. I had found on one of John’s websites his attacks on Patt and HIP.

She was now the target of his attacks along with others.  

HIP was a website established to help inform people about people online (therapists) who were making false claims about their expertise, training, education, or credentials. Indeed, according to Patt, there were others who were providing therapy online, who were announcing their services online who were misrepresenting themselves.  

I did find out that there were what seemed like a number of people who had been treated by John.  

On one of John’s websites, he attacks all those he sees as conspiring with Patt Stubbs and HIP. That includes me, Patt Stubbs, Ruth Parris, who I would later meet, Christine Brandon, and Stephanie Bryant.

Patt had shared a story about how Christine and Stephanie had gone to John’s “Treatment Center” in Virginia where he had announced that he had a nurse on staff which was his girlfriend whose credentials were questionable. I never tried to verify who she was or what her credentials were. 

At about this time, I had learned that John was reaching out to other clients of mine. Anne was a client of mine who had problems unrelated to DID. She told me in late July that she had been out to the home where John was living. 

I asked her, “why did you go there?”

“He said he wanted to tell me about you and why I shouldn’t trust you,” she answered.

“So, you didn’t know him?” I asked.

“No, but he seemed like a guy who belonged here, at your office?” she answered.

I was still trying to wrap my mind around what it was about John that had people trusting him at all.

“So, you went to where he was living?” I asked.

“Yes, Jessica was there and a few other women,” she said.

Then she added, “It’s like a damn treatment center.”

“What do you mean, it’s just a home?” I asked.

“Well, they have a room for working through anger issues related to their trauma. They have a plastic bat, a bean bag, an inflatable punching bag.” 

My intuition seemed correct from the bits and pieces of information I was hearing, it seemed like he was trying to set up something like a treatment facility at the home of Jessica. 

It didn’t seem at all farfetched that he had been doing this previously, that he had held himself out as a therapist. When I say he had done this previously, I mean that the claims that he had invited people to a treatment facility in Virginia seemed entirely plausible. 

I talked to Lynn about my concerns, and I said, “I feel like I should do something to help these people or at least to have someone look into these matters. Patt had said that I would be credible to the authorities and others who could look into this – like the licensure boards for clinical social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists.

My wife, Lynn had said to me, "don't get involved, you could get hurt."  

I thought, "what can he do to me?" 

In fact, there was nothing I could do and nothing that I did do. Everything I knew was confidential information from therapy sessions and I couldn’t share that with anyone. It was frustrating that nothing could be done to stop Freifeld.

[Disclaimer:  This section continues to use aliases to conceal the actual identity of my clients due to confidentiality concerns.]

I want to describe a success story in the treatment of Dissociative Identity Disorder.  As I mentioned previously, I got a call from two young women who saw the article in the newspaper that featured me. Their names were Patricia and Sadie. Patricia wasn’t coming very often, unfortunately. So, little progress could be made.

With Sadie, I began to meet the other personalities. It was clear that her friends and her family knew that she had been aware of having different personalities for some time. 

In addition to her psychological issues, she had liver damage due to a long history of drinking. It was sad because she was so young to have a problem that caused her so much physical pain and medical problems. 

Sadie was very attractive, with a nice friendly smile, long blond hair, clear complexion. She was 34. She was about my height of five foot seven. What made her attractive was not just her figure but just how cordial, friendly and kind she was to be around.

She was lesbian and she had a girlfriend that came to meet me more than once. I am not saying this to make it seem okay for me to point out that I am noticing that she was attractive. While I didn’t discuss details of my clients with Lynn due to confidentiality purposes, I did discuss these kinds of observations with Lynn without giving it a second thought as to whether I was saying anything inappropriate that would bother Lynn or that would be inappropriate for a therapist to notice.

As much as I would like to assume that every reader knows that I am not shallow or unprofessional, nor do I objectify women, there will be some readers who occasionally will raise their eyebrows about something I wrote. I would hope that you are getting to know me through this book and will understand these things. Yet, I still want to clarify to be sure to remove all ambiguity.

Anyway, Sadie and her girlfriend intended to get married. It would have to be a church ceremony and there were some progressive churches in the area near where she lived. Same-sex couples in North Carolina could not legally marry at the time.

I had gone to a church that was frequented by persons who are gay or lesbian. I liked the more open-minded approach that they had.

Anyway, the therapy sessions were very much oriented toward whatever concerned her at any point in time. Sometimes that would involve issues that were most bothersome to one or more alter personalities. This could include traumatic events from her past.

I used similar approaches to treating trauma as I had with other trauma survivors as I described previously in this book. I was helping them to process the memory and to move past the trauma.

I also drew upon the ideas from the inner child work I had first begun to learn about back when I was an intern several years earlier. I used other techniques but for the purposes of this story, I’m not going to describe everything.

I helped her to nurture, parent, and comfort the other parts of her, the other personalities. I helped with this during our sessions and described things she could do on her own. I knew and used several hypnotic scripts for this kind of nurturing or reparenting.

She began to smile and said how much happier she was. She invited me to her wedding and told me to invite Lynn. She seemed fine at the wedding with others knowing about her condition and that I was her therapist. I even offered to take photographs for her as I had been getting into photography.

I gladly gave her the photographs and negatives for her to use as she pleased.

She seemed happy and thrilled with the progress we had made. She said she wanted to stop or take a break from therapy because she said she was happy with the accomplishments we had made. Obviously, I respected her wishes and her subjective feelings about this – her judgment.

Neither she nor anyone else who I met had anything but positive things to say about me, the therapy, and the therapeutic relationship.

I would later learn that her impression of me and my therapy changed after she had left therapy with me as a satisfied client. I cannot know for certain why her mind changed but I have ideas. 

Things didn't go this nicely with everyone that I was treating.  

[Disclaimer: I have used aliases to describe experiences with clients to protect their confidentiality.]

I did get a few new clients because of what they read in the newspaper. Two individuals said they saw the article and they wanted to see if I could work with them. Their names were Patricia and Sadie who said they believed they had DID – Dissociative Identity Disorder – meaning they had different personalities and other dissociative experiences.

It was brave of them to approach me knowing that they had little means to pay for therapy. I mean, speaking from personal experience, I am very hesitant to ask for help for myself when I cannot pay for something.

I then met with Patricia and Sadie who were to become my clients. I agreed to see them pro-bono (for free). Neither of them had insurance that I could bill nor did they have a decent income.  

I had explained to the best of my ability the extent of my experience and expertise in the field. I didn’t want anyone to think that I was an expert with years of experience in the field.

Just like I had felt when I noticed that I could help people with schizophrenia without having been an expert in that area. The fact that people with certain disorders might have trouble getting psychotherapy was a key motivator for me.

I couldn't help but want to donate some of my time to be there for those individuals who had been harmed so profoundly early in life. After I met with them, it was clear that they had been abused, betrayed, and hurt by people who should have provided for them and protected them.

My dedication to providing the best possible services and availability to them was not diminished by their inability to pay for services. 

I spent a great deal of time learning from them. Asking open-ended questions. Listening.

I cannot remember the exact questions that I asked them but they would have been the standard questions that relate to dissociative experiences, which I describe in more detail below. 

Patricia and Sadie had said that they already knew that they had different personalities and that that they could relate to the description of DID from the newspaper article. As mental health professionals, we have to start where the client is. So, if they say that there are other personalities that are “out” at different times and go by different names, one would accept and respect their “experience” or their “reality.”

An Unusual Referral

Another referral that I received was a bit unusual. I was at the office when the receptionist called me and said that a John Freifeld was on the phone.  

I picked up and John began to speak to me. He said he found the article online about Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and had found my website where I announced my private practice.  

He said that he had been meeting online with a woman named Jessica who might have DID and she lives in my area, but he is not local.

He said that he has a chat room that he operates.  

Okay. He explained that he wasn't a therapist just a “support person” who runs a recovery forum and chatroom online for alcoholics and people with other addictions.  

The fact that there is no relationship between alcoholism/addictions and dissociative disorders didn't register as important to me at that moment. How would a layperson know this?

John asked if I could see Jessica for therapy. I agreed. I was eager to see if I could help. At the time it seemed like a great opportunity to help someone who seemed confused.

I then waited for her phone call.  

John sent me transcripts of the chat sessions he had with Jessica. It was clear, as I read, that he not only thought she might have DID but he had been interacting with different personalities that had different names.

Jessica called me and we agreed to meet at my office the next day.  

She was in her late thirties, slightly heavy, with dark hair. 

I said that I read the transcripts from John and noted that she had been talking to him as if she was a different person at different times.

“Have you been diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder?” I asked.

“No, my doctor has me on medication for depression and anxiety,” she answered.

“How did you discover that you have different personalities?” I asked.

She said, “John has helped me to understand different things about myself,” she said.

I started to get some information about her experiences. "Do you lose track of time... do you have amnesia? " I asked. 

"Yes," she answered.

"How often?"

"A lot."  

“Okay,” I began holding the transcripts that I had. “There are these other personalities that spoke to John, can you describe what that is like? Do they come out on their own and do you lose track of time when that happens?”

“Usually, John asks to talk to some of my alters,” she answered, adding, “sometimes I don’t know what happened when someone else is out.”

I was trying to find out when and how she first figured out that she had different personalities, but she couldn’t seem to remember.

"I understand that this can be confusing." I said, "or hard to talk about. Do you talk to your husband about this?"

"He knows that I have different parts," she answered, "and that I have been talking to John about this."  

"Okay." I then asked, "so, other than your doctor, have you seen another therapist or psychiatrist about these problems?"

"No, we weren't sure if anyone will believe us." 

"We?" I asked.

"Yes, there are others... inside."

"What's that like?" I asked.  

"Sometimes the others are talking, and I can hear them or see them... but it's not me."  

"Where are they now?  Or where do they go?" I asked.

"There are rooms inside," she answered adding “and places.”

"Rooms?" I asked. 

I had heard of this technique being used by therapists to talk about or to think about different ego states, as parts of us and how different rooms or locations where they might exist or live could be used as a metaphor. I had hypnotic scripts from the “Handbook of Hypnotic Suggestions and Metaphors” which is published by the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis (ASCH). 

I have heard about this in other settings as well. I did not expect a layperson to be using techniques like this nor did I know how John had learned to do these things. 

Jessica continued by saying, "It's like a big house with different bedrooms where different people live," she explained.  

"Did you create the house on your own?" I asked. 

"I don't know," she said.

I was thinking that while a formal diagnosis had not been made, we have to meet the client where they are. If Jessica related to the world as if she was a different person at different times, that is how I would have to proceed.

So, I asked, “Is there someone else that might want to talk and might have more information to share?”

"Do you want to talk to them?" she asked.  

"Sure," I said.  

After a brief pause, she said "Hi, Bruce." Her voice sounded younger and the "u" in Bruce sounded longer and accentuated like "oo".  

"Hi," I answered.  

"I'm Cindy. I'm six."

"Hi, Cindy. Are there others?" I asked since I had read the transcripts of chat conversations with John.

"Yes, there are other girls like me. There's Amanda, she's eight."

"How long have you been with Jessica?"  I asked.

"A long time, but she didn't know us for a long time."  

She had seemed like a child, indeed. While I was concerned that a proper diagnosis had not been made, I had to keep relating to Jessica through the others that would come out. 

In the next chapter, I will discuss how I understood I could help clients understand the nature of dissociation and dissociative disorders. It helps to understand these things so that the client knows that they are not alone and that others have had similar experiences.  

I now had a growing client base and an office of my own. I was accepting insurance payments and/or checks for services.  

I was set up to be able to bill Blue Cross/Blue Shield among others... and Medicare. Clinical Social Workers can't bill Medicaid in North Carolina for some reason. We can bill Medicare, though.  

Treating Schizophrenia with Psychotherapy

I was trying to find out if a colleague in the field, named Mary Ellen, who was working with some individuals who had schizophrenia, could find out if some of them wanted a therapy group. She was a volunteer/intern and through her contacts, she had been given the opportunity to work with a few clients in the community.  

They were staying at a nursing home not far away. I decided to offer the conference room as a meeting place for a support group for people with schizophrenia. Mary Ellen and I decided that there was a need for a support group that would be of interest to the people she was serving.  

She started bringing her clients to my office building. Depending on how many people showed up we would either use my office or the conference room.

This was a great learning experience for me. I really wanted to offer something for people who were battling such a debilitating and disturbing form of mental illness. It was sad that these individuals ranging in age from the late 20s to the 50s were all staying in a nursing home.  

I suppose that is better than being homeless. But usually, you think of nursing homes as being there for the elderly who cannot care for themselves. 

I had asked if any of them wanted to meet with me one-on-one for therapy. I was sensitive to the fact that some people might see this as a way for me to pad my income to enrich myself, especially if I met them at their residence, the nursing home.     

These individuals had Medicare and I could bill Medicare. While it's true that this would increase my income and bring in money for me that doesn't mean I wasn't genuinely interested in helping them. They wanted to have someone listen to them and to try and understand what they were experiencing.

They had a doctor that they were seeing. I knew that much and that they weren't seeing a therapist, though they had someone at the clinic who could provide psychotherapy if the staff person was so inclined to do so.   

It had been my observation that some people in my profession thought that the only remedy for schizophrenia was medication. I had noticed this when I was working at Sampson County Mental Health Center. I also remembered that when I was working there some of my clients, if not most of them, if asked, or if it was offered wanted to meet with me for psychotherapy.  

In my heart, I knew that I was trying to offer something good for people who might benefit from talking to someone who is grounded in reality but also very empathetic.  

In addition to just listening and trying to understand their experiences, I used a few psychological techniques to help them build their self-esteem. I also talked about some skills that would be useful in communicating and coping.

This wasn't something that went on for a long time but I did have a chance to work with some clients for a few weeks. 

The Treatment of Eating Disorders        

I did have a client named was Anne Marie who had anorexia which was particularly challenging because starvation can cause a variety of serious physical problems. There are also serious challenges in getting accurate information about binging and purging.  

It would become clear over time that a medical doctor needed to be the one who is primarily in charge of the care of someone with this serious problem. The empathy and rapport that I had developed with Anne Marie were great, but I still had concerns.

What seemed like a great challenge for me became something that was more serious and needed to be overseen by someone with an MD after their name, with admitting privileges at a hospital.   

Anne Marie had returned from college for health reasons and was living with her parents. We were able to have some family sessions as well. I felt it was important to find out about her health when I listened to the concerns that her parents had expressed. 

Anne Marie's parents became increasingly concerned that I wasn't doing enough and that her physical health was in danger. I was not in a position to assess her physical health. I didn't know why or how I was being expected to act as a central contact person for all of Anne Marie’s physical health and well-being. That was something that I had to make clear.

I had taken some training on the treatment of eating disorders, but it could not cover the physical/medical issues.

The last thing I wanted was to be responsible for someone's medical care or assessing a person's physical health. So, I explained this in-depth. 

I didn't want Anne Marie to feel like I was abandoning her or not on her side. I just needed to be sure that there was someone else that she was seeing for those issues related to her physical health. I couldn't be the one that asked if she had kept an appointment with her doctor or the one that weighed her and took other vital signs.  

Like so many others with eating disorders, Anne Marie had symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). There is a sense that you are walking on eggshells with a person who has BPD, where you are challenged repeatedly to demonstrate that you care about your client.  

Sometimes a person with BPD will cycle between idealizing someone like a therapist to hating them. In other words, we are talking about intense and unstable interpersonal relationships... chronic feelings of emptiness. Another symptom that is readily obvious as overlapping with anorexia nervosa is changing perceptions of self-identity and self-perception.      

For a person with anorexia, they might see themselves as overweight even when others see them as emaciated - grossly underweight. The feeling of food in them can trigger feelings of anxiety and lead to purging to vomit the food out of their stomachs after they eat.  

Obviously, this is very dangerous.  

I ended up transitioning to offering mainly group therapy for those who had anorexia. Bulimia was a disorder I felt comfortable treating. With Bulimia people have body image issues and they might binge and purge but they maintain a normal healthy weight.

 A couple of other girls/young women found me listed on the web, in the yellow pages, or through word of mouth. 

Out of this arrangement, I picked up a client who had been diagnosed with Bulimia. Her name was Jennifer.  

Jennifer's condition did not require the attention of a medical doctor as would be the case with Anne Marie who had anorexia.  

Jennifer didn't have this problem. She did put a tremendous amount of focus on her appearance and her sense of feminine beauty. Sadly, this need can make a person feel like their worth is tied to their body image.  

It was hard not to recognize the focus that she put on her body. She had undergone breast enhancement surgery. It would be naïve for us to avoid discussing details like this. These issues were precisely the kind of things that a person with bulimia needs to discuss with their therapist.  

Obviously, a healthy male therapist has to be aware of his reactions when he is meeting with an extremely attractive woman, which did describe Jennifer. A male therapist who acts like he doesn’t recognize things like this is lying or he is gay. 

Our natural human reaction does NOT mean we are going to cheat on our wives, nor does it mean that we are objectifying a woman! Human evolution has programmed us to react in certain ways.

The point is that we were going to explore these issues in therapy - issues related to her sense of worth as a person as well as her as a woman. While it's true that professional boundaries were going to be maintained, it is valid to explore transference and countertransference issues.  

I had studied psychodynamic and psychoanalytic theories, concepts, and ideas. Jennifer was interested in gaining some insights into herself and so this seemed like a good framework for some of our discussions.

We brought out into the open the thoughts she might have about the reactions she might want from men/guys in her life including her therapist. How did it make her feel that she was noticed in this way, based on her attractiveness?

Her understanding of these ideas grew over time. She talked about her experiences growing up. She was open to exploring dreams and their possible interpretations. She was intrigued by the ideas of Carl Jung, a contemporary of Sigmund Freud.  

Any approach that was aimed at insight and seeking to make connections between events in her life up until now was valuable for her to explore, she indicated. With the insights, she felt she was improving, and the binging and purging was happening less frequently. I thought that knowing why this was happening was less important than her interest in discussing seemingly unconnected events in her life.  

She did want to discuss the fact that she had agreed to be photographed nude by a friend of her boyfriend. I wondered when she told me this if she felt that she was seeking to see how I would react to her discussion of this fact. Did she want me to react with interest or excitement?

I asked her, "do you want to show me this?" I was curious as to her reaction.  

"I don't know," she said.  

I was concerned that she might feel like I was expecting her to show me the photograph(s). 

Now, I am supposed to lie to you and tell you that I didn’t want to see the photographs. Right! A beautiful woman is sitting in front of you, and she brings up the topic of being photographed nude and you want me to tell you that I didn’t for a second want to see the photographs? 

At the time, I was still very young and naïve. So, I felt guilty and discussed this with Marjorie who I was seeing for psychoanalysis. She wasn’t young and naïve. She was about 70.

She said, “Of course, you wanted to see the photographs.”

I said, “but I didn’t think that she was more beautiful than Lynn.”

“That’s okay, it would be worse if you were dishonest with yourself,” she said, adding “then you might fall victim to temptation.”

I settled back down into the couch – remember I was lying on a couch when I saw Marjorie. I said, “yeah, I wasn’t tempted to do anything.”

Anyway, getting back to therapy with Jennifer…

Jennifer said that she also was having some problems with a situation with her boyfriend. The way he spoke to her during foreplay seemed to be degrading to her.

That incident with her boyfriend inspired her to ask if I could see them both for couples counseling. Indeed, I had studied this, and I described some tools that I could bring to the sessions that might be helpful in achieving certain goals for both her and her boyfriend.   

We agreed that he could meet with me alone as well - before or after we met for couples counseling.  

This went on for a while. It was very rewarding for me because she was paying out of her pocket for my services, as opposed to having insurance that would cover the cost of therapy. If either one of them or both had been dissatisfied with my competency, they would not keep coming and paying for ongoing therapy or treatment.  

I only saw her boyfriend about three times alone and that was on the same days when we had couples counseling. I did continue to see Jennifer alone. We would examine her interests, desires, and expectations for her future, for her career, and what increased her sense of self-esteem and her feelings of self-worth.

It was great to see how empathy and respect for her had paid off with positive results as per her feedback. Again, she was paying by check out of her pocket and so if things were not working out for her, she had many other therapists she could consult in the area.  

In the next chapter, I will present some more challenging issues that I had to confront as a therapist.  

A few chapters earlier, I mentioned that my private practice had grown so very fast. It was amazing. There were many different clients that I was seeing with different problems or issues. 

Some of my skills opened up some opportunities for me. For example, I was curious and inspired by the effectiveness of hypnosis and the possible opportunities to use it to help people deal with "normal" experiences and problems, as well as more complex and debilitating problems.  

Let me give an example. I had a couple of clients come in to see me for help quitting smoking. There are scripts that exist and established protocols that I had learned during my training that were approved by the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis (ASCH).

Anyway, hypnosis can help with Major Depression and Anxiety as well. 

Getting My Own Office

With the support and help of Lynn, I selected a location in downtown Wilmington, on Chestnut Street.  

The rent was about $400 per month. Since I had been paying Chris $15 per hour when I used his office, every hour after 26 per month cost me more than $400 in the month. So, it was clearly more cost-effective to have my own office since I was easily needing the office for more than 26 hours.  

Everything was amazing and wonderful beyond my wildest dreams. This was real. I was feeling so proud of everything I had accomplished. I knew I had finally reached the height of my success - everything that I had been dreaming of for so long.  

Lynn and I met with the receptionist at the location, and she was really nice. She said that she would meet and greet clients when they come in and ask for me. Of course, she knew about confidentiality.    

They had a nice waiting room that was never full. A lawyer had been renting the office next to mine. It was a long building with about 10 different offices down the hallway. There were a few other therapists like me and others in different businesses.  

Next to my office, there was a conference room that any of us could use. There was a calendar behind the counter where the receptionist sits that is used to book the conference room when you expect that you will need it.  

I now had two phone numbers to give my clients. One of them went to the receptionist and she would ring my office if I was in and not in session. I had a way to indicate that I am with a client and should not be interrupted.  

It was late in 1998 when I made this transition... from a small private practice and renting an office for a few hours per week from Chris Hauge to having my own office with a receptionist, a waiting room of my own, full ownership of the single office room, and access to a conference room.  

Lynn and I started looking for deals at yard sales to decorate the office. We went to Office Depot and bought a desk and a nice comfortable chair for me to sit in next to the desk. We had to act quickly because everything was happening fast.  

We picked up a nice or fairly decent couch for a great price at a yard sale. I obviously cannot remember now decades later what things looked like. We also picked up a few nice pillows to make the couch comfortable. No one was going to sleep here but they could be helped to feel more comfortable.  

We also picked up a whiteboard for notes and illustrations with clients. Obviously, I needed to put my degree up on the wall along with my license and certifications, i.e., the certification as a Clinical Hypnotherapist with ASCH as well as other certificates I received at various training workshops.  

Lynn was a great help in picking out and decorating the office. I am not someone who cares how things look, so I needed help to feel comfortable that I had an office that looked inviting, comfortable, and professional. I am sure I would have been self-conscious if I didn’t have Lynn’s help.

I knew we needed - I needed - a couple more chairs in case I wanted to do group therapy. I figured I would need to do more of this than the availability of the conference room might allow.  

The conference room had a big table that filled most of the room. There was a phone in there and a large whiteboard at one end of the room.  

I also picked up some toys, a toy box, dolls, and a few other things. There was a couple that came to me to get help with their children. So, I needed a way to work with them. It is easier to work with children by letting them play if they are under the age of ten or twelve.  

I had studied play therapy since that time when I was a first-year intern at the New Hanover County Mental Health Center in 94. While I wasn't thinking I would have lots of kids come to see me, I thought I should have something for kids if necessary or if it would be helpful. 

The receptionist could call clients if necessary, she could help with typing, make copies, perhaps help with billing, as well as accepting payments from clients as they come in or after a session. I had a billing person who would help with billing clients for their sessions, so I didn't ask the receptionist to do any of that.  

We discussed the ideas about what she might want to do for me. I thought that due to the need for confidentiality that I would make calls to clients, but she could certainly pick up calls if they called into the office to cancel, reschedule, or to state that they were running late. She would announce to me when someone showed up and I would come down the hall and greet them.

I didn’t like having to collect payments myself, but I still felt that it would make sense for me to arrange payment agreements and accept payments personally rather than have the clients pay the receptionist, most of the time. Sometimes clients would leave a check upfront with the receptionist.

Sometimes, I would get anxious if someone was running late and I would walk down to the waiting room to see if I had missed the announcement. Plus, the receptionist only worked nine to five, Monday through Friday.  

After those hours, I had a key to enter the building, a key code to enter into the alarm, and I was expected to lock the door, obviously.  

So, I was ready to get to work.  

This was amazing! It was a time for celebration! I wanted to tell everyone I knew just how thrilled I was. I wanted to celebrate!

It was so wonderful to have someone to share this with - Lynn. So, we marked it with dinner and marked the occasion as it was so important ... I wanted to mark the importance of this accomplishment through a metaphorical plaque of honor to be remembered as an important marker in the history of my life and I want it told for generations to come!

I did it!

In the next chapter, I will pick up this story and begin to discuss the wide variety of clients, problems, and conditions I was treating as well as the types of interventions used.  

I was able to complete all the requirements for licensure as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) within the state of North Carolina before I left my employment at Sampson County Mental Health Center.  

It was clear that whatever problems I had on the job had nothing to do with how I performed with clients or patients.  

As I explained, I had sought feedback, counseling, support, and guidance from my colleagues. I had joined the local chapter of the Society for Clinical Social Workers which had regular meetings where I could interact with colleagues in a congenial setting where we got to share our ideas, request feedback on casework, and learn from one another.  

It is through these meetings that I kept in touch with Chris Hauge who was a mentor of mine as I have mentioned. 

I had approached Chris seeking advice on entering private practice because I looked up to him... I had known that he had kept a private practice for some time. He had been very supportive of my goals as they related to making a positive difference in the lives of others.

The Keys to Success and Accomplishments

As it turned out, Chris said that he was considering retirement and that he was cutting back his office hours. He offered to let me rent his office space at a certain rate per hour if I used the office. This was a very affordable way for me to find success.  

I believe it was about $15 per hour - Chris wasn't using the office anyway during these hours. He told me the hours in which he used the office and when the office would be available. He shared an office with a partner - they had the main waiting room and reception area and two private office rooms where providers, like myself, could meet with clients.  

If I had to build a private practice on my own, it could be challenging to get started. I would need to build a base of clients that would be paying every week for treatment with me. If you rent an office full time you have access to the building any time, day or night, but you pay a monthly rate to do this.  

The cost to rent an office every month would be higher than the costs that Lynn and I were paying to rent our home - though her mother had been renting it to us and therefore we had gotten a great deal, a cheap rate for rent.

Chris gave me a key, introduced me to his partner and we discussed how I would record the hours in which I was going to use the office. He had a schedule I could consult to find out when the office was available.  

There are so many things to consider when you are pursuing a career in this field and when you are seeking to work in private practice. As noted, I had to consider Professional Liability Insurance or malpractice insurance, which are different names for the same thing. Chris needed to know that I had this coverage.

Billing is another issue. I had to file insurance claims for treatment with a client's insurance company or agency. So, I had to get registered with various insurance companies including Medicare. 

I had contracted with someone to do the medical billing as well and I got a post office box (PO Box) for non-personal mail. 

Having all my mail go to Chris' office didn't seem like something that I wanted to do yet. If I did not go to the office because I didn't have a client that day, then I might miss my mail that day. There was a place where I could get a PO Box close to our home.

It's great to have someone with whom you can consult when you are doing all these things and Chris was helpful in this regard as well.

Then I had to advertise in the newspaper and online. The internet was still a bit new in the late 90s, but I was able to create a website.

Other Advice That I Received from Colleagues

It's important to reflect upon the support I got from colleagues as well as the therapy or treatment that I had been receiving.

I became interested or curious to learn something about psychoanalysis and I began to study this formally from an organization that provides certification in psychodynamic/psychoanalytic therapy. The organization provided learning objectives, credits, coursework, as well as certifications for mental health and psychological professionals.  

I would go and see Marjorie Israel, who worked out of her home. She was a clinical social worker like myself and I met her at those meetings. 

Marjorie invited me to her home office. It was an interesting and scenic location. She had a nice yard with flowers and plants in a beautiful and serene garden with a curving sidewalk.

I would lay back on her couch and do free association or recount my dreams. It was reminiscent of Freudian psychoanalysis with the psychoanalyst and the couch. Marjorie said that she had to modify her approach since psychoanalysis traditionally had been done with a client coming four or five days a week for years.

She also engaged in more talking than traditional psychoanalysis.

While so much of psychoanalytic theory is hard to prove with research, I was interested in a technique where I would not be censoring anything at all. I was interested in making sure that I covered everything going through my mind – my motivations and hidden desires. I didn’t want any issues from my past to interfere in my role as a therapist for clients. 

Clinical Hypnosis Training

As I was studying Clinical Hypnosis, I saw some of the ways this can be used to help others deal with various problems and challenges. Some of those challenges and problems that people turn to a hypnotherapist to overcome are well known, like smoking cessation, weight loss, and phobias.  

Anxiety and phobias can be overcome through behavioral techniques like systematic desensitization. In this technique, a person breaks down their phobia into progressively more challenging and/or frightening scenarios or steps while pairing that with relaxation.

So, for example, if one has a fear of flying, they might break things down so as to cover planning for the flight… driving to the airport… waiting to board the plane… getting onto the plane. They would visualize this during hypnosis.

Hypnosis can be used to create a feeling of peace, relaxation, and serenity. Then when the person is in this relaxed state of mind, they can visualize the anxiety-provoking situation. This now pairs a relaxation response with the stimuli or phobic situation, experience, or trigger.

Starting My Practice

One of my counselors cautioned me that Wilmington was a saturated market, meaning there probably isn't a market for another psychotherapist in the Wilmington area.  

I was going to prove him wrong, which would make him happy actually. I mean, he had my best interests in mind. He was speaking only about the market for therapists. 

I did start to pick up clients rather fast. I had selected a few words to use in the advertisements that I hoped would be problems that people in the area had and/or things that interested me. So, initially, I thought of advertising that I could help individuals who are dealing with anxiety, depression, eating disorders, relationships. I added that I could use hypnosis to help with quitting smoking, weight loss, or other problems.  

This seemed to work out well for me. I used a second phone number that rang at my home, but the location of where I was living was not revealed. 

One guy started paying me out of pocket for weight loss. 

Then I picked up a client who had relationship issues. He said that he was gay and asked if I could help. I reported that I could help. To me, relationships require active listening. So, I would demonstrate that in the sessions with the client and help him to learn how to increase his communication skills in the same way.  

It's interesting that people in relationships that are non-traditional relationships will understandably want to know if we are comfortable listening to details about their intimate relationships.  

Returning to the topic of psychoanalysis, we get terms like transference and countertransference from this field.

Transference is about how the client reacts to or responds to the therapist. It can relate to projection where a client projects onto the therapist ideas and feelings that exist in another relationship.

Countertransference is how therapists respond to the client and the client's behaviors. I was working on my own "issues" to ensure that none of my past was carried into the therapy sessions with others and would cloud my judgment. This was part of why I went for analysis with Marjorie.  

Anyway, I also picked up a client who was dealing with major depression. Another issue that I was treating was anorexia. I had taken on a client who was in college and had come home with her family hoping to return to college later.  

Eating disorders are particularly challenging, and so I will devote further time to this topic later. 

My client base was growing, and it was getting to the point that I needed more access to the office than what was available while renting from Chris. I also found that by paying a flat rate every month, I could save money.  

Recognizing these accomplishments was amazing and a cause for celebration. So, Lynn and I went out to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants. Everything was amazing and a celebration was called for!

This has been an overview of the various types of clients I was seeing and the problems or issues I was treating. Later chapters will go into more detail so I will ask you to keep reading with me.

First, let's talk about family life so that you, dear reader, will know that I had another life outside the office. 

It seemed like anything was possible indeed if you put your mind to it and work hard. There is a career or profession for everyone; an area where one is most adept; a field where one is meant to work. I had found my career and my direction in life and everything was falling into place.  

In this section of my autobiography, I will describe the success I found as a mental health professional, a therapist (a psychotherapist as opposed to a physical therapist), in private practice. Just getting to this place in life and in my career demonstrated the many accomplishments I had made in my life.   

I had achieved the recognition of my colleagues and the admiration of my friends and family. I felt like my family was now very proud of me and amazed at all my accomplishments. 

It would be a logical assumption to think that your family is proud of your accomplishments and happy for you. It would be years before I realized that this was not the case – that they had not cared about my happiness or success at all!

These were things that I sought after my whole life. I mean who doesn't want their parents, their brother, and sister to be proud of them? Or similarly, we want our friends to be amazed and to admire us for our accomplishments. I had friends who were interested in what I was learning and my accomplishments.

Among my colleagues, this success and these accomplishments gained me recognition in the field which is very valuable.  

We want our colleagues to recognize our success because this helps us network, get new client referrals, as well as confirm our sense that we are doing things right. We can appear as an authority in our field as well. Most importantly, this confirms for us that we have what it takes and our skills, talents, character, expertise, as well as trustworthiness, are recognized.   

I will describe the types of treatment techniques or modalities that I employed. You will learn about the various therapies and diagnoses, problems, or issues that my clients had for which they were seeking my treatment.  

Therapists in the mental health or psychiatric field use techniques that they choose to specialize in employing. It's not the same as treating a medical problem where there is a very specific treatment that exists for a specific problem. Instead, the skills of a therapist are employed and adapted to the needs of a client.  

I had always wanted to help others regardless of their income, i.e., the most financially vulnerable and well as those who are vulnerable due to other factors such as having a mental illness.

I could see clients on a pro-bono basis (for free) if they could not afford to pay for treatment.  

My life with Lynn was something that sustained me, brought me so much joy, peace, support, self-esteem, and self-confidence. Sometimes it is said that we shouldn't rely on others to feel good about ourselves or to maintain self-confidence. That might be true but if there is someone who gives us these positive feelings then that is very helpful and valuable.

In this section, I will describe all these things.