Guest post by Kendra McGivney, LCSW, REAT Do you ever feel at a loss for ideas? I was meeting with a 17 year old client the other day.  At the start of session, she told me she’d written a poem about the hard time she was having. I wanted it to be inspiring or full of hope, but as it turned out, it was a very sad poem. In it she’d written about the loneliness she’s felt over the past year with COVID-19 and the social distancing restrictions. I empathized and recognized how hard it is to to be a high school senior right now.  I thought to myself, “What can I really do here?” The real ..read more

  A story about Smoke Detectors It was 4 in the morning. My husband and I had been shocked into waking by screaming smoke detectors.  We scrambled out of bed without talking.  Groggy and annoyed by the beeping I was grateful for my earplugs and decided keep them in. Greg brought a ladder from the garage; I fetched the footstool from the laundry room.  We were stealth alarm disablers in the middle of the night.  Reaching up to each plastic disc, we twisted them off the ceiling, pulled out the 9V battery, and when that didn’t stop the noise, we disconnect the electrical ..read more

by Kendra McGivney, LCSW, REAT Kendra McGivney is the co-writer and facilitator of ArtKey.      Do you ever sit across from a client on a computer screen and wonder how the heck did I get here? When I signed up for this field, there was no part of me that thought I would be sitting in my garage, space heater at my feet, staring at a computer all day and saying nearly 10 times a day, “Can you see? Can you hear me? I can see you! I can hear you!” Somewhere mid pandemic last year I had a moment like that. I was in a telehealth session with my 20 something trauma survivor client, m ..read more

Yesterday, I threw rocks into the Salish Sea and then I floated. I hesitated to write this post this because it borders on cliché—well, actually it IS a cliché.  And then I remembered how most of you are okay with that.  My cliché’s, my metaphors, my inspiration—you receive it so beautifully.  And, sometimes you tell me it helps. While floating, I thought of you. So, I want to say that while I was floating—in the churned up cold of the sea—you all came to mind.  I know from teaching this Fall, that many of you feel burdened.  Some of you feel like you can’t stay afloa ..read more

When someone so passionate and creative and beautiful believes in you, it means everything. Susan was my professor first, and then my art therapist.  In class she handed a thin strip of paper to each of us.  She held the strips fanned out in her hand and walked around the classroom to personally deliver the message.  I read my strip.  It said, “Try Trusting the Art” in a fancy font printed in all caps on a dot matrix printer.  She could have said it directly with words, but it was powerful and special to receive Susan’s hand delivered, four word poem.  It’s been ..read more

  Closing my doors After 16 years in private practice I’ve closed my doors.  From my initial decision — to the months of transition — and now the actual closure, it’s been a profound process. (If you missed my initial announcement, you can read more about my transition here and here and here. Historically, I’ve been terrible at goodbyes.  I’m the person who doesn’t show up for last sessions.  I’m the person who will say, “We’ll see each other again, so this is not goodbye.” I was tempted to pretend that my last therapist group was just the final week of ..read more

  We can learn from people at the end. When people are at the end—end of life, end of a relationship, end of a long hard project—they have a unique viewpoint that can only be gained from having lived through it to the very end. I’ve always listened a bit harder to the folks who are generous enough to share their view from their last stop.  When we pay attention to their wisdom, we benefit. So, since I’m at the end of a successful private practice, I want to share something that only now, 2 weeks away from closing my doors, I have come to understand clearly. (If you missed ..read more

The other day, at coffee, Hannah reminded me that artists work in series.  She was talking about her own work—completing a couple of big commissions and her show at the Pence Gallery that I was about to see.  She was in-between projects and inspiration.  She knew it and was trying to tolerate the patience with oneself it requires to incubate the next thing—the next series.  She can feel it changing, but she doesn’t yet know how.   As a therapist, my art has been with clients and they’ve come in a series. For I really do believe that therapists are artists and therapy ..read more

I’m facing my biggest creative project ever! I’m moving.  As in, moving my whole life.  Not just to the office next door or to the house down the street (which is what I did 7 years ago).  I’m really and truly packing everything up and sending it across 2 state lines in stacked pods on a truck bed.  There’s a ferry ride at the end which involves breathing through the flood of bliss that always comes when I see the beauty of the Puget Sound.  And there will be the cedars and Douglas firs that wait for us.  They guard our property with ancient solidity. They are ho ..read more

In a therapy session, the details are everything To a therapist, just like an artist, the little details are everything.  When we sit with a client we track physiological responses, posture, eye contact, tone of voice, reactivity, activation, our own responses—the list is practically inexhaustible.  Most of us are naturals at this and are just putting our sensitivity to work.  I love the feeling of being highly present and attuned to my client.  I feel alive and curious and connected. This particular detail is super important One of the details that I like to pay particula ..read more