In my career, I am most proud of three things, but in addition to that there is one aspect of my career that I value above all else, and for that one thing I am the most fortunate person I know.
First those three things.
1) I am most proud of the way that I have believed in people, invested in people and enabled so many others to do for themselves what I have been able to do for them. I am proud of my role as a mentor and a recognizer of talent, of my team building, and my focus on seeing the best and bringing out the best in others. I’ve worked hard to diminish my individual importance by cultivating the talent around me, nurturing the strengths inherent in others, and adding to abilities; thereby enabling others to understand and employ advanced therapeutic concepts and methods. As the centrality of my own importance decreased through these efforts, I gained tremendously in collective spirit across a vast network of independently thriving consultation teams. It is an incredibly elevating experience, witnessing the developing excellence of others and achieving one voice with so many on behalf of children in need of that voice.
2) I am also proud of the seminal creation of the Brain-Based Therapeutic Intervention Program for Children, which, for years, has provided the leading definition of “therapeutic classroom,” a more robust and a more efficacious alternative to the “behavior programs” from the 1970s, still widespread in most school districts today. The Brain-based therapeutic intervention program has helped schools stay years ahead of the child clinical field in methodology as well as in the depth of understanding of children’s behavioral health, especially children impacted by autism or by trauma.
3) So often, what I needed just didn’t exist, so I am also proud of the invention and creation of the New Frontiers therapeutic game, The Social Challenge Program, The Green Zone continuous feedback system, and Long Run (a therapeutic novel). I am also proud of the vast library of articles and intervention programs I created and made available on my own website. Thousands of people throughout the world utilize this free resource.
I am exceedingly proud of those three things, and much more, but well beyond all that, there is one aspect of my career that I appreciate above all else, and for that one thing I am the most fortunate person I know.
In my 30-year career as a consulting child psychologist I have had the privilege of vast opportunity—dozens of districts have entrusted me with some of their most challenging and perplexing cases—and throughout this journey I have had bestowed upon me extraordinary gifts in the multitude of talented people who have worked alongside me on consultation teams. My journey has been enriched beyond imagination by these incredible relationships, so many remarkable people, compassionate, creative, bright and insightful people, resilient, hard-working, child-focused people; people with unmatched diligence, people with a deep sense of purpose, and tremendous dedication to the well-being of children. These people inspired me in profound ways, to be intensely present, relentlessly compassionate and endlessly innovative. So, as much as I think that I saw the best and brought out the best in others, undoubtedly so many others have done the same for me.
I loved going to work—no matter what I had to face— because I got to be on the same team with these people, got to witness what they could create, got to be a part of their passion and their brilliance. These people, these dedicated, kind, caring, compassionate, warm-hearted people; they captured my heart and never let it go. They were my source of energy, my source of inspiration. This is why my career has been richly rewarding beyond anything I could have planned or ever imagined. For 30 years, that is what it has been like for me to go to work. I am eternally appreciative of the opportunity I’ve had to know these people, to work with these people, to travel with them—for a time—on the same path.
My relationships with these wonderful people and our unity of purpose as we achieved one voice on behalf of each child; that has been my greatest reward. I am what I am because of who we all are (Ubuntu, from South Africa) and for that I will be forever grateful. Much respect and deep appreciation.
Cue music: Israel Kamakawiwo’ole (“IZ”), Over The Rainbow.
