On Community,Courage,and Change—and Falling in Love

Good afternoon. Thank you for being here and for the privilege of your time. I am really, truly honored to be standing here. I know this may sound a bit “dorky,” but I taped a photo taken at last year’s business meeting, when I was sworn in as President, above my desk, right at eye level. It was my way of reminding myself, every single day, of the trust and responsibility that had been given to me by all of you, and that I held something precious and compelling. I have tried my best during this past year to be worthy of that trust.

In my earlier years, when I was younger and more full of myself, I used to say that the main benefit of being President of Division 17 (or any other division) was that you are given an entire hour to say anything you want to a captive audience of your peers. But, as I have aged, I have become less and less confident in the wisdom and veracity of my own pronouncements, and more and more doubtful that anyone actually cares much about what I have to say. Also, I worry that giving privileged people (like me) a platform to pontificate is not entirely consistent with the egalitarian ideals of our profession, and that this time belongs more rightfully to YOU (you will see in a bit how I tried to make this your time, not mine). So, I struggled with this address more than you might think, if you know how much I like to talk! But I received lots of advice from colleagues, who told me to stop the rattling in my head and just speak from my heart—and that is exactly what I am going to do.

Let me start with a truth: This has been an extraordinarily difficult year for me personally. I have experienced an overwhelming amount of unexpected loss and pain and chaos. I am profoundly grateful to my closest friends and colleagues (you know who you are), who got me through it, at least so far.

But here’s the thing—another truth: Lots of others currently in leadership positions in Division 17 also faced major struggles this year. One person endured multiple cancer surgeries, and another had two different life-threatening surgeries almost simultaneously; each of these women is in highly critical roles in the Division. Another individual contended with a very high-risk pregnancy (ultimately giving birth to a healthy baby), yet another was challenged by the death of her mother and serious health issues of her partner in a period of a few months, and a third individual dealt with a mysterious, painful, undiagnosed health problem for most of the year. Four people endured toxic work environments and egregious discrimination, and two others lost their jobs when their university closed down (literally) overnight. A substantial number of people found themselves in the midst of “natural” disasters or were personally touched by human-made disasters, like mass shootings. Many more faced disappointments and anxieties such as not receiving an anticipated grant or struggling to find an internship or job. And these are just the struggles I knew about (those of you who use Facebook and other social media are far more tuned in to your colleagues’ personal lives than I am).

Now, most of you probably did not notice any of this, did you? That is due to the incredible dedication and perseverance of the leaders in this Division, who pushed through their difficulties as long as they could and continued to do their work, and when they finally had to take a break, their tasks were covered by others who stepped up to fill in and do what needed to be done. It is a profound testament to the strength of this leadership community that it continues to function—and, dare I say, make progress forward in critical ways—even when individual leaders are compromised or under extreme duress. Sharon Bowman had given me sage advice early on about being President of the Division. She said “Don’t worry, you can’t break Division 17.” I held on to this image as I and others struggled, and this brings me to what I want to say today about community, courage, and change.

This triad emanated directly from the Division’s strategic planning process and became the formal theme of my presidency (and, of course, this year’s convention theme). Here is what I included in my first presidential Announcements about this theme:

COMMUNITY is what we create with and for one another, and it is reflected in the inclusion, engagement, and communication of our members, in the ways in which we integrate our myriad professional roles and identities, and in the leadership our members provide, both within counseling psychology and in psychology and society more broadly. It is through strong community that we find COURAGE, individually and collectively, to advocate for and make CHANGE. Courage can be found in every professional role we take on in our work as counseling psychologists, from holding a hand and bearing therapeutic witness to suffering, to scientific daring that challenges the knowers and the known, to education that builds capacity for solving problems we can’t even yet anticipate, to advocacy that actively disrupts deeply-rooted systems of privilege and oppression. Change is what happens when we harness our courage in community to work toward a healthier, more equitable, more just world–the overarching goal of counseling psychology.

At that point in time, I wanted us, collaboratively, to find ways to strengthen and celebrate our community, to build and enact our courage, and to work strategically and effectively to bring about change.

And we did, not completely or perfectly or even having done all the tasks we set out for ourselves. But we made significant progress (at the .001 level, I would guess!). Here are some of the highlights summarized for the Society of Counseling Psychology Annual Business Meeting:

All of these accomplishments required us to work collaboratively as a leadership community, to be bold in our visioning and willing to experiment with new ideas, and to be always conscious of our positions as Division leaders in implementing change, particularly in interrogating the social justice implications of every decision we make. I would like to take a few minutes now to invite all of you to think about your own roles in helping our Division to meet its challenges, that is, ways that you can further strengthen our community, find and enact your courage (individually and collectively), and work toward change—in yourselves, in our Division, and in the world. I offer a few suggestions to help you along on this journey:

First, regarding Community: Consciously bring into the community some who may not be there currently, or are present but remain silent about ideologies they feel are not understood or accepted. Particularly in our polarized political environment, what is sometimes described as “viewpoint diversity” may be especially important to include, allowing more conservative perspectives to be expressed in an organization (and indeed, in the wider profession of psychology) that tends to be characterized by liberal political views and agendas (Haidt & Jussim, 2016). We need diverse perspectives to understand why solving some problems seems so impossible and the lines of battle so firmly entrenched. Moreover, if we can welcome and find ways to dialogue with our own colleagues about our differences, we will be better able to bring a unified front to bear in tackling the divisiveness around us and finding mutually acceptable solutions to seemingly intractable problems. As voiced by Nelson Mandela (Nicholls, 2001): “It always seems impossible until it is done” (p. 17). Allowing for more diversity in perspective also would help us to attend more consciously to the varied contexts in which we all exist, would remind us more insistently of the shoulders we stand on, and would help us honor, more enthusiastically, the contributions of everyone in the community, even if those efforts do not seem as big or bold or affirming as we might prefer.

Second, regarding Courage: Using the inimitable Audre Lorde (1997) as inspiration, “dare to be powerful,” but own your power with humility and “use your strength in the service of your vision.” Work to understand the fear of others, but also your own fear, and continually interrogate the intersection of your power and your fear. Practice self-compassion and self-forgiveness, especially about all the ways your courage becomes eclipsed by your fear or uncertainty or inability to act. And always remember (as I used to say to my students) that you are a human being, not a human doing.

Finally, in regard to Change: Embrace and become yourself a leader who learns, a leader who creates. Current conceptions of leadership emphasize its volatile, uncertain, complex (I would add, chaotic), and ambiguous (“VUCA”) world context, where change happens at an unthinkable pace, and global interconnectedness enlarges almost infinitely the possibilities we face (see Fassinger & Shullman, 2017; Fassinger, Shullman, & Buki, 2017). Solving problems in this kind of environment clearly requires courage and vision, but also constant (re)learning and adaptability, the capacity for collaboration and true shared power, a healthy dose of humility and, perhaps most importantly, the capacity to experiment, to innovate, to create. Creativity is, by its very nature, an act of disruption and revolution; it questions assumptions, challenges rules, and disturbs current ways of thinking and perceiving in order to discover new forms, new symbols, new patterns on which new structures—indeed, a new society—can be built (May, 1975). As Nietzche (1883–1891/1995) asserted: “One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.” Creativity admits the chaos of imperfection and the probability of failure because, if outcomes were entirely predictable, novel approaches would not be truly experimental or innovative. To be creative, you must embrace imperfection and see success and failure not as opposites, but as different outcomes of the same process of trying new ideas (von Oech, 1983). So, cultivate your imperfection. It is what keeps you striving, reaching, and revolutionary. And know that you can embrace the messiness of creativity while still being strategic. You can have coherent, unified goals as you chart the path forward, and you can use both insider and outsider sources of power to bolster your creative process—that is, partner with—those who work within systems to coax gradual change, as well as those who disturb systems from outside them, forcing more radical confrontation of entrenched ideas and more abrupt change. Finally, use your outrage to propel you into action rather than just venting, blaming, or giving up.

And this brings me to my last point. In a recent commencement address at a Maryland high school, Representative Jamie Raskin (2018) implored graduates to fall in love with the United States, not in an intolerant, nationalistic, us-versus-them way, but in a “constitutional patriot” way that recalled the profoundly ambitious, optimistic values upon which our nation was built and embraced all of the “its history, its institutions, its struggles, its agonies, its triumphs, its people, its land and water, from sea to shining sea” (para. 11). He begged students to be “smitten” by the United States.

And today I ask the same of you for this Division. Fall in love with Division 17—again, or for the first time. Maybe you were in love once, but the Division disappointed you and you turned away. Maybe you really want to fall in love, but you aren’t sure if the Division will love you back. Maybe you’re still in love, but you’ve gotten bored by long years together and frustrated by annoying habits, and you can’t remember the passion you once felt. Maybe you don’t know enough about the Division to decide if this is the right relationship for you. Find out. Let love in. Remember why you became a counseling psychologist and why you sought out this Division. Embrace and appreciate what is beautiful and irresistible about it, even as you notice its blemishes and its imperfections. Let yourself be open to all that it is: the quirky and the predictable, the small and the grand, the annoying and the rewarding, the petty and the generous, the exhausting and the uplifting. Let yourself love something imperfect. You cannot change any organization or system that you do not truly care about, any more than you can raise a child without love or create a work of art without appreciating the tools and materials you have at hand. This kind of love does not constrain you to keep the same tools or practices forever, and it is not unidimensional; you can be angry and loving with your child at the same time. But it does require you to hold what you love constant in your affection, to be the lover who is committed to the relationship, the lover who looks inward (not just outward) for blame when things go awry, the lover who puts the other first when it matters most, the lover who brings out the best in the other. And it requires you to hold tight to the hands of others who are there with you in loving community.

And this is the real truth about my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year: Division 17 and the people in it helped me to survive my travails, to keep grounded and (mostly) functional through it all. And I fell in love with Division 17 all over again—‘truly, madly, deeply,’ as my dear friend Sue Morrow used to say. Not that I entirely escaped moments of despair or frustration or disappointment over certain tasks or people or my own leadership inadequacies. But those turned out, in the end, to be tiny bubbles in a much larger wave of affection, connection, and support that washed over me—and love won, as (I believe) it always does.

So I end with a gift to all of you. You gave me the gift of your trust, and I wanted to give something back to you that expressed my gratitude and love. I offer you this gift: It is a love letter, if you will, to Division 17, a love letter that captures my deep and abiding caring for this Division and one that, I hope, inspires you to fall in love too. https://www.div17.org/home-slideshow/we-are-scp/