08.27.08
Posted in Events, Information & Referrals at 9:02 am by Michael_Reeder
A shameless plug, but hey, I like doing public workshops:
I’m told I’ll have a presentation slot at the Northern Virginia Pagan Pride Day celebration on September 7th. More information on the festival at http://www.openhearth.org/paganpride/nova.shtml
Not sure what time I’ll be speaking — I assume not opposite Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone!
I’m looking to set-up an info booth at the festival too. In addition to info on my practice, I’ll have some flyers and be available to talk about my experiences a few years ago with Cherry Hill Seminary. More info on them at http://www.cherryhillseminary.org/
Here’s my topic:
Trauma and Magic: Diagnoses, Groups, and Beyond: Often times folks drawn to the unusual and the occult are re-discovering themselves after a difficult past. That past history can lead to a variety of symptoms that friends may not realize are psychological in nature. These symptoms can effect covens, groves, and other working groups. This workshop will start by covering some of the symptoms of persons with trauma histories. We’ll briefly cover the spectrum of trauma disorders and discuss how such may effect the groups you are a part of. We’ll wrap up with a speculative discussion on the links between abuse and psychic or trance abilities. Time permitting we may range into the differences and similarities between psychosis versus psychic or magical capabilities.
Michael Reeder, MS, LGPC operates a counseling practice in both Baltimore and Washington, DC. His primary interests are Tarot, developing Neo-Pagan “pastoral” counseling methods, and the overlaps between magic and psychology. He holds a Masters degree in Clinical Community Counseling and a Post-Graduate Certificate in Spiritual and Existential Counseling from Johns Hopkins University. Michael has presented workshops for the Mid-Atlantic Pagan Alliance Beltaine Festival, Free Spirit Gathering, and the Pagan Leadership Skills Conference. His blog can be found at http://www.pagantherapy.com
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07.02.08
Posted in Experiences & Musings at 10:40 pm by Michael_Reeder
I got a good laugh this evening — and am strangely uplifted too. Tonight I received two emails. The first was from the full-time chaplain of a hospital. He’s been through Christian seminary, is ordained, and wants to join the Pagan Professional Counseling listserv. Turns out he’s also Wiccan and is the HP of a coven. The second email was from a newsletter editor at a Pagan graduate school apologizing for messing up her email lists and sending her local UCC church bulletin out to the Pagan grad school mailing list!
I’m both amused and heartened. I like seeing Pagans working in the mainstream. Let’s face it — there are benefits and rewards to working with mainstream, larger congregations that might keep some Pagans interested in Christian church. And — lots of luck (with a few rare exceptions) of fulfilling your dream to be a PAID clergy member or hospital chaplain if you are openly Pagan.
I wonder how many of us Pagans are quietly working to make MAINSTREAM religion a better place?
– Michael
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06.05.08
Posted in Business of psychotherapy, Rants & Complaints at 12:20 pm by Michael_Reeder
There’s an old argument in the counseling community regarding how to restrict dual relationships between therapists and clients — that is, any sort of relationship between the therapist and the client outside of the therapeutic context (like running into each other at Pagan events, shopping at the client’s store, having sex, etc.). Certain activities (like sex) are universally condemned while others (like attending the same large event or going to a client’s wedding) attract a variety of opinions.
There are LOTS of good arguments why dual relationships are generally a bad idea. Why this is important to Pagans is that periodically there are attempts to make the various professional society ethics codes more rigid so counselors can not knowingly have dual relationships. This is a BIG PROBLEM if we want Pagan therapists to be able to see Pagan clients given the still small size of our communities.
Anyway, someone with alot of clout has been advocating the rigid position lately on a widely-read Yahoo Group for therapists and got my dander up. Here’s my response, with some references for those interested in learning more towards the end. I’ve edited it slightly since the whole discussion thread is not reproduced here so it makes more sense:
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I tend to think the dual relationships ethics debate in counseling is not dissimilar to the abortion debate in our society. You end up with good people on all sides of the debate, and after a while they can scream all the facts and arguments at each other they want – no one is going to change their minds.
I could point out that relationship boundaries between healers and their clients have varied widely throughout history as the various healing professions have sought the right balance between closeness as a healing tool versus distant and boundaries as a defense. To my thinking, the wide variance of opinion on this topic amongst good quality counselors argues for some latitude in the ethics guidelines. This, however, won’t persuade someone who believes there is an absolute right and wrong – an absolute professional standard – that must be upheld. (Similarly, I tend to see abortion as a personal choice, but choice is no acceptable compromise to those who see it as murder.)
Rural counselors who can’t avoid dual relationships have been pointed out as a reason for some latitude in the ACA ethics rules. This can be extended to any small community – even nestled in the middle of a large city – when clients from that community believe that there is an advantage to seeing a counselor who is also a member. I’m thinking specifically of religious communities. There is some research showing that evangelical Christians and Jews often prefer or demand counselors who are of the same faith and worldview. These groups are not so small, so dual relationships are not a common problem, but I suspect future research will show the same preferences amongst members of smaller religions as well.
So what are potential clients from smaller, little understood religions like Ifa, Umbanda, Santeria, Neo-Paganism, Wicca, Voudun, Asatru, etc. supposed to do when they want a counselor? These religions have unusual worldviews compared with mainstream Western culture. They believe in spirits, magic, direct communication with the dead, and a whole host of other beliefs that they (rightly or wrongly) fear will get labeled as psychotic by counselors from a mainstream orientation. Their religions tend to have only a few hundred to a few thousand members in any given metro area. Religious gathering draw as few as 5-10 people to as “many” as 50 or 200 at large events.
A strong argument can be made that a disservice is done to clients if counselors from these alternative faith paths (or any small distinctive community) can’t see people from their own community for fear of an absolute ban on dual relationships. Harm to such clients may include:
a) Never seeking counseling at all for fear counselors will misunderstand them,
b) Inferior quality of counseling relationships if in fact mainstream counselors do have some trouble relating to them,
c) Failure of knowledge about these small religions (and other subcultural groups) to reach mainstream counselors. If counselors from small, distinctive communities can’t help their own community, they will be unable to develop expertise in what the unique concerns of that community are from a mental health standpoint. They will then be unable to raise awareness of such and/or train the rest of the professional community.
There are many arguments (and research papers) regarding how to best handle the complex subject of dual relationships other than enacting tough, nearly absolute bans on them. I believe the best known author in this area is Dr. Ofer Zur. His website can be found at http://www.zurinstitute.com/dualrelationships.html Another (and rather rare) article on this topic, entitled “The ethics of a dual relationship, psychotherapist and Wiccan clergy” by Ellen C. Friedman can be found at http://unicorntrad.org/PDF/Wiccan_Clergy.pdf It has references as well as a discussion of choice-making decision models on this topic. Another version of it (as well as some materials on how counseling members of a small religion (Wicca) is different) can be found at http://www.draknet.com/proteus/counselbook.html Thanks,Michael
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04.18.08
Posted in Rants & Complaints at 2:25 pm by Michael_Reeder
I sometimes wonder if there is an original bone in the bodies of mental health marketers. Here is the latest contribution from the ACA (American Counseling Association) to promote “Mental Health Awareness Month”:
Just makes you want to do therapy, doesn’t it? (NOT)
They want me to order posters of this to put up in my office. LOL! No, really, they do.
But wait, no need to worry, there are other organizations doing mental health marketing too. Here’s an example postcard I recently lately:
Let it never be said we are not a creative, innovative profession.
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Posted in Business of psychotherapy, Information & Referrals at 2:11 pm by Michael_Reeder
What does this have to do with Pagan therapy you may ask? Other than me now having Saturday office hours there? Well, Mystickal Voyage is Pagan-owned – making it one of rather few holistic centers to have that distinction.
It’s really nice office space and I always run into interesting people there. They have amazing classroom space, yoga space, a large store, and a coffee shop too. Check them out if you are in the White Marsh, MD area.
More info at: http://www.mystickalvoyage.com
They recently bought some of my wife’s artwork for resale too! More on her wonderful digital colleague and altar box construction at http://www.nineravens.com/art-gallery
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Posted in Experiences & Musings at 2:08 pm by Michael_Reeder
Ever found yourself working 60-70 hours per week at a new job? Then you got sick? Then you opened a new office? There’s no good excuse for not blogging for a long, long time but I am just swamped. I will try to do better. I also suspect I’ll update less often than I first intended.
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01.11.08
Posted in Business of psychotherapy, Experiences & Musings at 1:10 pm by Michael_Reeder
I did an interview yesterday with the editor of an industry newletter. He basically wanted to know what is Paganism, how can therapists work with it, and how big of a financial market opportunity does it represent. I’d say the emphasis was on the last question — are Pagans a big enough market to warrant specialized attention from psychotherapists?
I’m going to refrain from reposting most of what I wrote and told him because I want to see what he publishes first — it would be uncool of me to undercut his article by posting the interview contents here first. But this does raise all sorts of interesting questions for the Pagan community and for psychotherapists.
One of the tenets often heard within psychotherapy is that an accepting therapist, who is basically familiar with a cultural group, can service all clients. So do you think this is true? Can a therapist who is non-Pagan, but willing to see our Paths as valid and willing to learn a bit about Pagans, service Pagan clients adequately? Or, does the therapist need to be religiously Pagan themselves in order to understand Pagan clients?
I’d love to hear opinions. I’ll throw out my own opinion here for what it’s worth. At the moment I think therapists who are doing secular therapy on standard mental health problems can service Pagan clients adequately if they take some time to learn about us. I think therapists who specifically market to the Pagan community or who want to engage in something like pastoral or spiritual counseling as well need to be religiously Pagan themselves. One possible exception might be a counselor on a somewhat similar personal path (like say Pervian shamanism) who chooses to spend LOTS AND LOTS of time at Pagan community events and trainings really getting immersed in our culture first.
Thoughts?
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Posted in Experiences & Musings at 12:45 pm by Michael_Reeder
I’m struck by how many Pagans I know who are good at going into Aspect (divine possession) during rituals also have a traumatic childhood background. Trauma in childhood is linked with all sorts of trauma disorders and dissociative experiences including PTSD and leading up to Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly Multiple Personality Disorder).
Now I’m not saying that all instances of divine possession in Pagan rituals are not real. That they are only an artifact of trauma. Several times lately I’ve heard the idea batted about that children who have experienced trauma are more open to otherworldly communication & more psychic. Of course I’ll never be able to prove this through any scientific or professional means as a psychotherapist. Still — as a Pagan and a psychotherapist I’d really like my religious and professional worldviews to mesh and complement each other.
For more information on this idea, see all of the articles from the Spring 2007 edition of the Journal of Heart-Centered Therapies – especially the one entitled “The influence of childhood dissociative states from sexual abuse on the adult woman’s spiritual development“.
Another interesting article touching on dissociative states and otherworldly communication and creativity leading towards health can be found at a recent “Searching for Imbas” blog posting.
I’m mulling over an idea right now that I hope proves true — because it would make my world alot easier. I’m hoping that a parrallelism exists the paradigms of divine possession and psychological dissociative states. In divine possession, there are “rules” — the gods are supposed to behave certain helpful ways at certain times. They are of course unperdictable and Themselves, but the farther their behavior strays into what is considered inappropriate or destructive, the more this is discouraged and a means sought to end it. The more its questioned if it’s really a god or something else.
In a somewhat similar fashion, psychology usually seeks to integrate the different ego states — the different alters — of a person suffering trauma. They are all thought to be a part of the same whole person. They all have strengths as well as weaknesses. Generally speaking, even the scary ones hold energy and abilities that the whole healthy person needs. Only occasionally when an alter is too dangerous or the person is not ready does psychology seek to keep that alter — that ego state — walled off and seperate and forgotten.
So, as I work with clients who seem to fit both paradigms simultaneously, what I’m hoping to find is the following:
- That divine possession states that seem scary actually need to be embraced and worked with, just as scary alters need to be integrated into the whole person
- That divine possession states that must be discouraged corrispond with ego states or alters that should not be integrated and should be weakened
I’m indulging in some hopeful thinking here because it will be difficult when I find situations where Pagan religion calls for rejecting at the same time that psychology calls for integrating (or vice versa).
Whatever the level of divine or otherworldly communication actually present in Paganism, I do tend to think of modern Paganism, and ancient shamanic and magick systems as definitely servicing a mental health purpose as well. So I’m hopeful the systems will mesh.
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01.03.08
Posted in Information & Referrals at 10:30 am by Michael_Reeder
From time to time I look (usually in vain) for financial counseling services to refer my clients to. Some of them are very expensive, others require ALL credit cards to be cut up, and others you wonder how much they are working for the credit industry versus the consumer. All in all, not an inspiring situation.
I have a friend who used to do excellent quality financial counseling as a senior manager with a financial counseling firm in Frederick, MD for many years before he moved to London. Before that he was an investigator and collections expert for a law firm, so he knows what’s he’s doing. He now works for Myvesta — a financial service company that helps people get back on their feet and otherwise manage difficult financial situations.
I just found out that he still does financial counseling in the United States via Myvesta’s service at http://myvesta.org/debt_experts/ There is a requested donation for the service, but it is voluntary and you can donate whatever you can afford.
He says “Once I am notified they have signed up, I will email them for details of how and when to phone them and their circumstance, we schedule a time to speak and the counseling is done via the phone, in most instances in 1 call with some email follow-up.”
This makes it sound like he’s the one counselor, but if you try this I’d specifically ask for Jon Emge to make sure you get him.
If you try Myvesta’s financial counseling service, please write me back and let me know what you think of their service.
I know this sounds like a paid commerical endorsement — it’s not. I’m just happy to have what looks to be a good referral option for clients in financial difficulty.
Thanks,
Michael
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12.28.07
Posted in Experiences & Musings, Spiritual Counseling Theory at 4:45 pm by Michael_Reeder
I’m struck as I look at the past few weeks at the power of trances to get to the root of the issue. Therapists with hypnotherapy and hypnosis training should be looking at how their skills overlap with guided journeying and astral travel in Neo-Pagan rituals.
One of the differences between the two is that Pagans believe their soul really is traveling to a distant realm on the astral and that the Beings that they talk to while there are real and constitute contacts outside of themselves.
But the techniques are highly similar. A Wiccan coven might decide to do a guided journey to meet an aspect of the Crone to determine what their needs are for the coming year. This might very well be done in the next month or so as this is the dark time — the time of the year where you rest up from the efforts of the past year, take stock of your gains and losses, then start planning new projects to coincide with the spring. This coven would likely invoke sacred space, dim the lights, light candles and incense, and then have members relax and close their eyes while the leader walks them through a visualization of going down a tunnel into an astral realm. There they meet a goddess and are asked to individually hear what She has to say and what gifts She gives them. The coven members are then walked back up the tunnel and bought back to wakefulness — possibly soon followed by cakes and ale (food) which further brings them back into their bodies. The experiences are often then shared (which reinforces their validity since most people had them) and helps the group support everyone in attaining what the message said they needed.
Compare this with the guided meditation I recently ran with a client (and I’ve done this or similar several times). The client is trying to figure out the proper direction to go in life. So I have the client close his/her eyes, do some deep breathing for relaxation, then I have the client walk down 10 stair steps — each step taking the client deeper and deeper into relaxation, closer and closer to the place where they can see within themselves what they most need to do. We get to the bottom of the steps and I suggest all manner of possible places they might find themselves while leaving details vague. I suggest that parts of themselves or spiritual guides might show up to help them. Soon the client is describing being in the middle of an activity that feels completely right, peaceful, exciting, and productive. We close by going back up the stairs, turning the lights on, and standing up and clapping our hands a few times to fully return to room. The remander of the session is spent discussing what first steps in the real mundane world might be taken to realistically work towards the envisioned new long-range goal.
The similarities are incredible. One protocol uses words like trance induction, deepening, and calling on inner resources. The other protocol uses words like astral travel, magick, and goddesses. I’m not saying they are exactly the same — they are the same only if you don’t believe that it’s possible to leave the body, or don’t believe goddesses can actually speak to you.
But for therapists counseling Pagan clients, using the toolsets they already believe in and have practiced can make a world of difference.
To a typical Pagan client, being contacted while in trance (on the Astral plane) by an entity or God is a religious experience. It brings a whole new level of importance to the message. The message is not “merely” from the person’s own mind — it is often a Divine message to be taken much more seriously and acted upon much more promptly. There is much greater authority and belief vested in the message.
And so we reach another choice point or ethical decision point for the therapist. If you happen to be a therapist who is religiously Pagan, this is all well and good (and ordinary) for you. If you are not a Pagan therapist, how do you feel about using techniques that may bring along a Divine message? One that you don’t really believe in yourself? Do you worry that a “Divine” message may come through that the client will feel obligated to act on that you may not feel is good for the client?
Honestly, I’ve usually found such messages to be highly useful and to the highest good of the client. I’ll leave it up to you to decide then whether higher power or the client’s own unconscious was the source.
– Michael
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