I started working in human services when I was in high school and apart from a year and a bit, I have spent my entire career working in nonprofits. The profession has changed a great deal and in many ways the world seems much smaller now than when I began. Computers were only for the rich and or well connected then, now it seems everyone has one and with that connectivity we can communicate across the globe and do so much more than we had ever imagined.

My generation is getting a bit older though we are not close to retirement. The hair is not as thick as when we started and wrinkles are immigrating in great numbers but we are still on top of our faculties and on top of our game. So many of my generation seem to think that the current generation is weaker than we ever were, that they whine, complain and are lazy. Some refuse to hire them, others take little interest in them and do little to help them learn their craft. As for me, well, I’m in the majority that realizes that they are our future and I will do everything I can to see them succeed. After all, if they win, we all do.

Sometimes we must take pause and think about our career and how we can pass the torch to the next generation. Will it be upon our death; at our retirement, or will it be in phases? To me, phases can be the most efficient way to prepare them. I’d like to think we are leaving big shoes to fill after all, so why not let them grow into them gradually?

I remember how hard it was when I clawed my way into the field. I remember the nicknames “puppy, Bambi, newbie” and a host of others. Some were said in jest, some with derision as they felt that though I had the same degrees or more than they had that I had not earned my way in. My generation was lazy as well in their eyes. Still, we persisted and now many of us are the leaders that we once worked hard to impress.

The other day marked a milestone in that I did my last session in the first office I had in the nonprofit I founded. I remember opening it as I was finishing up on my doctorate. How we lacked even a fax machine at the start and found our furniture at estate sales, flea markets, hand me downs etc. The office was very crude in those days with even a subtle breeze causing the old single pane glass to rattle.  We painted it to make it look nice and even refreshed the floors but that glass needed to wait a while until we could replace it. Over the years we grew and eventually bought a 2^nd building and rehabbed it. I kept the first office as we already owned it and wondered if my son would ever want it. I split my week at one office or the next while he went to graduate school and got the post grad hours that he needed to be credentialed. He has that now. He has been working elsewhere for several years actually. I will go to the new office while he will get his chance in my updated older one.

My last session was uneventful. I said good night, finished my paperwork and then took a minute to look around. I remembered the day when most everything in that office was put in place. I remember the younger man’s clothes and my visions for the future. I remember him graduating High School, starting college, graduating again and going through grad school and entering the field. He became a man during the years I worked in this office. While I have no idea where my son will go I know he wants to work with me in that office for a few hours to start. Maybe he will one day run the charity, maybe he will only work a few hours for a bit and then move on, or he may just work a few hours and never progress beyond. We simply do not know. I do know however that I want him to have the best chance at success that he can have. I did the same when my wife decided to enter the field as well.

So as I start to pack up the many treasures that I have collected over the years, patch the nail holes and begin to paint this office so it becomes not a hand me down but a fresh start, I will get the benefit of watching him come into his own. The color of the office may change, the outlooks will have a younger set of eyes perhaps but the desire to make a real and lasting change will remain.

He is not trying to be me, no more than I tried to be my mentor. Out of all my furniture he has said that he would like to keep my craftsman style desk. Gone will be the barrister bookcases and my favorite leather couch. So too will be my favorite nick knacks and paintings. He will have his own style, just as he will have his own favorite techniques.

We will not have to totally remove the name from the door as I gave him my own at birth. The letters after it will differ some.

That’s the thing about handing off to the next generation. We cannot expect that they will become younger versions of ourselves even if they carry our DNA and name. We cannot expect that they will do what we did or like what we like. Truth be told, I never encouraged my son to join this field and when we told me he was thinking of entering the field I sat him down and gave him ever reason not to. Once done I asked him if he was still interested and when he said he was I replied “good, now let me tell you every reason why you should.”

To all those that are entering the field I wish you the very best of luck and hope that you have or will have mentors that embrace you and help you grow strong in life and in the field. For those like me, that are well into their careers, I encourage you to embrace the next generation now, not later. Nourish them and nurture their development in the field regardless if the generation before us did the same.

It doesn’t take a lot to help. You can:

• Take on interns if you have not been doing so.
• Share your favorite books, techniques or tricks of the trade.
• Write about your field to share information to others.
• Share your triumphs and how you got them.
• Share your mistakes and how you could have prevented them.
• Share your time, be there for them when they need you, and when they could just use a friendly face.
• Listed to them, their ideas, dreams and general desires without judgement but do offer them constructive feedback.
• Let them know the importance of competence and ethical behavior but also let them know that they WILL make mistakes and when they do, how they handle it will make all the difference.
• Stress the need for self-care even if you are weak in this area.
• Let them develop their own voice while also teaching them the value of listening.
• Share your space with them as possible. Let them learn to fly in an atmosphere that allows them to land safely.
• Let them go when it’s time, just as they will need to let you go one day.
• Embrace the change; embrace the future and accept that we will not be here forever.

As the end of our working days become closer than the beginning, how we embrace those that will define our profession can make all the difference. Leave a mark on the next generation now while you have the time to see it grow. We are all in this together.

”Doc Warren” Corson III is a counselor, educator, writer and the founder, developer, clinical & executive director of Community Counseling of Central CT Inc. (www.docwarren.org) and Pillwillop Therapeutic Farm (www.pillwillop.org). He can be contacted at [email protected]  He is internationally certified as a counsellor and counsellor supervisor (USA & Canada).

When working with graduate interns or new clinicians in supervision they often express confusion over who they are or who they will be as they begin their careers. There is often so much overthinking that some of them become frozen or stagnant not only in their personal lives but professionally as well. What IS a clinician? The simple truth is that there is no one cogent description of what a clinician is in Toto. Sure, we can define the educational, experiential and credentialing requirements as well as the traits that are often found, but there are so many other things that flavor a clinician’s praxis as to make it nearly impossible to capture their entire essence or flavor.

Besides being dynamic, clinicians are multifaceted and that’s what helps make them effective. Our clients come from many different environs and no clinician will meet the needs of them all, that’s why a strong referral network can be one of the best tools that we have.

What a clinician does on their off time can have a very positive impact on their work as it offers insights that cannot be found in a text book. It can also make you more relatable. What is a clinician? A clinician is an amalgamation of everything they do, learn, believe and enjoy. Don’t try to hide it. Embrace who you are.

Years ago I was contacted by a corporation that had just experienced an on the job death; many employees saw a fellow welder fall to his death. I was warned that the group was very suspicious of outsiders and not to take it too personally if I was shunned for trying to do my job. “No problem, I know how welders can be, I’m a certified welder myself; stick and MIG (Arc and Metal Inert Gas welding). I didn’t care much for TIG (Tungsten Inert Gas welding) when I was in training as it has limited application to structural welding.” Was my reply. The corporate rep was amazed before stating that she knew she had found the right Doc for the job.

As I debriefed and assessed the workers as well as supplied triage care, word got around that I was “one of us” and they spoke more and more freely. Sure, some challenged my knowledge of their craft at first, so this was not something to fake, but once they saw that I knew the craft, one by one they opened up.  Nowhere in the credentialing process of the USA or Canada does it require welding or a host of other skills, but the more that you know, the broader your skill set and ability to reach those that are often resistant to treatment.

A clinician with broad interests can have an easier time breaking the ice than does one that simply knows their trade. Grab a book, or truck load of books to be sure but also grab a tool, instrument or other device. Explore many many different types of activities. The broader your background the more relatable you can be.

Don’t define yourself by outside interests; I am not advocating pushing your beliefs or hobbies on others but knowing a bit about a lot of differing things can make you more relatable or at the very least help you better explore leisure, work or educational pursuits with your clients that may be looking for something new or something more.  Be who you are, share what you know when it will help.  Our clients are counting on us.

-Doc Warren

”Doc Warren” Corson III is a counselor, educator, writer and the founder, developer, clinical & executive director of Community Counseling of Central CT Inc. (www.docwarren.org) and Pillwillop Therapeutic Farm (www.pillwillop.org). He can be contacted at [email protected]

“*This morning when I thought of you, your face appeared dark for the first time. In the years since you passed, I have always seen you in my mind as if you were standing here with me. It always made the pain a little more manageable, but today was different. It was like you were no longer next to me, but instead, you were across the room standing in a shadow. Your features were blunted by the darkness. I could barely see your smile. I could no longer tell your eye color. You are leaving me again. Only this time, I will have nothing to see, only some rapidly fading memories remain.

When you were taken from us I felt that I would never be whole again. They talk about time healing all wounds, but to me, time just allows you to get a bit numb to the pain. I’ve gotten used to the sense of dread; in the moments that I avoid it, I feel weird because it’s otherwise ever present.

I’ve stopped talking about you to everyone around me and I think they prefer it. Now when they ask how I’m doing, I no longer tell them how long it’s been since you’ve passed. When someone shows me a new car or a gift they just received, I rarely think of you and how you would have enjoyed it. I rarely think about how you used to surprise me with little things whenever I was down. Actually, you just seemed to always leave me little things just because that’s who you are. I really miss finding them. Sometimes, I put some of them in ‘hidden’ places around the house or office so that I can ‘find them’ when I need a pick me up.

I go to social events when I need to and no longer look at the empty spot beside me; the emptiness is now relegated to my heart. Friends and family think I have moved on but really, I just stopped sharing my sense of loss. When folks try to set me up with single friends I no longer immediately compare them to you and I also stopped telling them all about you, about us. I try to be present in the conversation but really I just wish it was you who was talking to me, if even for one last time.

My memories were all I had left and now I am losing this as well. I remember that we had so many good times and so many adventures. I feel great when lost in those moments, but they too are fading fast. I’m losing you again but no one seems to be concerned; they just don’t seem to get it…”

Our clients all have unique reasons for coming to see us and many of them present with complex grief, grief that many of their friends and loved ones may not be able to understand. When working with clients, it’s important to remember that their issues may have been discounted or dismissed by those around them, and they may be timid at first when discussing them in session. Setting a tone of acceptance and showing compassion and a genuine concern may be what it takes to make them feel comfortable enough to open up. We can only help if we get a true picture of the problem.

Many folks feel a renewed sense of loss when they reach the time that the once clear pictures of their loved ones start to fade in their minds. For them, it can be as if they are losing them for a second time. Some share that this seems almost worse in that the first time they lost them physically but had them inside, now it feels that there is nothing left (many never experience this however). To the casual observers, they may see this as trivial and dismiss it as hysteria, attention seeking, neurotic or foolish, but to the person experiencing this, it is all too real. As a clinician, showing compassion and validating the new loss and working with them as you would anyone that has suffered loss can be key.

There is no time limit on grief. When memories fade, pain can take its place. That’s when we step in.

*inspired by decades in the field.

-Doc Warren

”Doc Warren” Corson III is a counselor, educator, writer and the founder, developer, clinical & executive director of Community Counseling of Central CT Inc. (www.docwarren.org) and Pillwillop Therapeutic Farm (www.pillwillop.org). He can be contacted at [email protected]

Sometimes you need a fancy logo, long explanation and a media event to get a point across, other times a few will suffice. I love history and try to repeat the good while avoiding the mistakes, though life likes to give us plenty of opportunity to make our own mistakes anyway. I listen. I listen to the trees, to the people and I read as often as possible (daily) a mixture of old and new work in order to keep pace with today and learn from yesterday in order to provide a well rounded tomorrow.

Sometimes it takes a thousand pages to convey a thought, others a few paragraphs. Still, there are times when a look or a hand gesture speaks volumes both within and without a session. Smiles can mean many things beyond happiness but mostly they tend to be positive. A person once told me volumes by just letting me see his hands. They were weathered, withered but large, scarred, stained, callused and stiffened through years of manual labor. You knew where he had been.

A bumper sticker that a school I attended had two large words “Do Good” and in the corner in very small writing it had the college name and contact information. I knew from reading those two words that this was the program for me and those of my ilk. I completed five programs there before finishing to open my not for profit. I am sure many others who walked though those halls have done the same, many have done it bigger and better, but we all try.

I once had a school send me a large package of swag designed to sell me on their program. I almost signed up especially after I read a book they sent that listed them as the best school for my type of program.  A few years later I learned that the owner was being featured on a news program; the government and many people alleged that he was a crook and run a degree mill. It turned out that he had written and published that book himself. All hype, no substance other than greed. Last I read he was on the run with all the money he had collected.

I find myself attracted to older people with broken bodies; they seem to have the best stories. One such gentleman that I will call Cecile as I didn’t think to ask his permission to share his story, talked about his adventures during the depression as a young man, earning a living with his hands, body, sweat and blood. He never made much money but his hands made many things that helped build this country. He shared his glory days when he “could fix any machine with a few wrenches, an oil can and a little persuasion.” I came to learn that persuasion was what he called a hammer like hunk of steel that he made in the factory.

Now feeble bodied but sharp in mind, he resides in a local “rest” home, retirement and our tax dollars paying the rent (it bothers me so much less when I pay my taxes knowing that it helps folks like him). He never made much money, had no pension and never got that gold watch that people used to talk about that capped their years of service. Instead when asked about his retirement he said “they said I was getting slow, either get faster or stay home. Then the foreman stopped giving me a choice of the two, I grabbed my lunchbox and went home.” He made a swiping gesture with his hand as he said it. It was there that I noticed one and a half digits missing from his hand. When asked he simply said something along the lines that sometimes the hand wins, sometimes it is the machine.

I asked him if he had any regrets and he stated he did not, he did wish he had seen the ocean a time or two but otherwise he was ok. He mentioned that his broken hands and broken body enabled his children to get “educated and be a better man than I ever could have been.” That part I highly doubted but did not want to interrupt. His kids never worked a factory job that I know of. They all got jobs as clerks in offices or some such work; a few went to college and “got themselves important jobs with fancy names and everything.”  He never had much of an education, “poor people just didn’t do that back then” he advised.

He did not see his kids that often the last few years of his life. They had moved away to bigger cities, they saw the ocean that he never did and made a good life for themselves.  He said he was proud of every one of them and that if their success meant he had to live in the home, it was worth it knowing that they were safe. He loved telling people to be safe. He never was heard by me at least, to say goodbye. Instead he would simply wave his hand and say “be safe.” I am not sure if he ever noticed how ironic it was that he waved the hand with missing digits when he wished people to be safe but it always warmed me when he said it to me.

I find myself closing more and more correspondence to those that mean something to me with the words “be safe and do good.” I did not consciously decide to do this mind you; it just came from my love of learning from the “now” and from the “then” of time.

I wonder what has rubbed off on you, from your studies, clients, friends and family etc. As for me, I learned to go to the ocean so that if I live as long as he did I will not have to say that I wished I had. No regrets, just a life well lived…

Be safe and do good.

-Doc Warren

”Doc Warren” Corson III is a counselor, educator, writer and the founder, developer, clinical & executive director of Community Counseling of Central CT Inc. (www.docwarren.org) and Pillwillop Therapeutic Farm (www.pillwillop.org). He can be contacted at [email protected]

Last year my wife and I came to Canada for the first time to present at the joint conference between CCPA and ACA (American Counseling Association). Though she has been to other countries before this was my first time out of the USA unless you count a few trips that I took in high school when I went across the border in Fort Kent for five to ten minutes, once I even got out of the car and bought some pop. My knowledge of other countries came from stories from relatives, friends and clients for the most part, supplemented by some TV and readings of course.

After I secured my first passport ever, we headed to Canada ready to present and to explore as much as we could in the few extra days we were able to stay prior to the conference. Driving around Kingston and through to Montreal we stopped at many shops, spoke to countless folks and found the conversations to be engaging, sometimes entertaining but always enlightening. In one otherwise empty shop a conversation took a turn to the more clinical and I found myself doing an unofficial consultation with someone that was feeling overwhelmed. We found a private spot and talked about what was going on and explored some ways to improve, where real help could be accessed in their area and that above all, that they were far from alone. A nice thank you was the result and then we got into our old Merc and headed for our next destination. Though the person was far from suicidal and posed no risk, I have thought of them often and hope that they did enter formal treatment.

Most folks were curious to learn where we were from and typically had kind words for us about our country. In some areas language was a barrier but for the most part folks found my confused stare as a sign to speak English as I was clearly lost as to what they said. I often apologized for being in a country where I did not speak their native tongue but most shrugged it off and welcomed me fully. A few agreed that perhaps I should not be in a place where the language was unknown (there are some of those folks everywhere I suppose).

So here we are, two clinical professionals from a different country, one that speaks the language a bit (my wife took French in high school and traveled to France before so she can hold her own) and one that can look confusedly at the speaker of any language other than English, but we found many a kindred spirit in our northern neighbor. We were outsiders yet we were accepted.

A man named Michelle who was also a counselor, and proudly in recovery told me about the Canadian health care system and gave many real world examples. He spoke of his mum and how she went from a diagnosis of cancer to specialized care, including surgery to remove the cancer in a matter of three weeks or so. She, along with Canadian healthcare in general, are fit and fine as of our meeting. When asked about the mountain of debt she surely must have from treatment (here in the states, losing one’s home and life savings after a major illness is not uncommon, nor is the need for a “go fund me” page or fundraisers to help fund care). He told me she was covered and simply needed to focus on her health.

We met with many interesting clinical professionals during our stay and enjoyed the sights to be sure. And while we in New England USA know maple syrup (I believe it is in the DNA of every Vermont born person) we stocked up on the Canadian staple as well. The more we may sometimes feel different, the more we realize that in many ways, a border is just a made up division. We are all one though we may live under different conditions and authorities.

As counselors we’d like to thank our northern hosts for allowing us to present in their great country and for helping to educate us as to how your system of healthcare differs than ours. As a token of my esteem, I have become a member of this fine organization and have spoken with them on sharing freely many years’ worth of my writings. I have also applied for the CCC and CCC-S credentials and hope to play a small role in Canadian health care. Most important however, is my desire to learn as much as I can on the Canadian healthcare style so that much of your ways can be taught to my readers back in the states. This information exchange has much promise in my eyes.

While we may have different authorities and our take on health care differs greatly, it is my belief and my experience that counseling knows no borders.  I hope and pray for a day when the USA adopts a similar mindset on health care and refinds much of the humanism that it appears to have lost recently. If you ever find yourself in Wolcott Connecticut USA, consider this an invitation to tour our humble therapeutic farm. We hope to receive many such invitations from Canada as well. As I send this, my wife and I are packing our bags to head to other parts of Canada over the next four days. We hope to meet and speak with many folks including counseling professionals, to learn from and share with in order to help make real and lasting change for those we serve. If you see an old Merc with Connecticut plates in your neck of the woods, please give us a shout as we’d love to talk with you. Until then, Be safe and do good.

-”Doc Warren” Corson III is a counselor, educator, writer and the founder, developer, clinical & executive director of Community Counseling of Central CT Inc. (www.docwarren.org) and Pillwillop Therapeutic Farm (www.pillwillop.org). He can be contacted at [email protected]