From Linda McCarley...

While in nursing school and doing the psychiatric nursing rotation, my instructors introduced me to myself. Not that I hadn’t engaged in self-examination or introspection before, but the methods and the help with knowing myself in a deeper way were new and so appreciated. At the time, I didn’t know how much these nine weeks changed the course of my life. After moving from Germany back to South Texas (where I grew up) I got into therapy for the first time with two incredible women therapists, one of whom was a student at the newly founded Fielding Institute - a competency based psychology program for mid-career adults. I didn’t exactly fit the age demographic but between the personal growth I was experiencing in therapy and the faculty I was meeting in the weekend workshops that my therapist was offering - I was fully hooked and wanted more. So, I entered the Fielding Institute at the age of 24 and graduated with a PhD in Clinical Psychology six years later. In those six years I was transformed, transfigured, transmuted, loved into my next profession. I had been blessed to learn from masterful therapists who knew how to get inside, go through the window or back door and magically bypass my resisting and erroneous thoughts of myself. I learned about being a therapist by being a client and I learned what was necessary to create an environment for change, and my mentors showed me how to use creative intelligence and “being with” as the main tools for facilitating change.

Needless to say, the academics and the experiential learning of Fielding in my 20’s shaped my life as a therapist. It has been simple to offer my clients what was offered to me and this has worked for most who find their way to me.

I pass on the gifts of:

• being seen as okay
• giving information about how things work - me/you/us/them
• being empowered to think/feel/do
• gently insisting on personal responsibility
• using relationship, here and now as the vehicle for change
• removing the barriers to love - being loved and loving
• seeing living and thriving as a real possibility when one is willing to let go of old beliefs