What is Dressember?

Brighid Quinn wearing her “Women are Resilient” t-shirt inspired by one of our Instagram followers! Thank you @raejus!

Photo by Even Keel Imagery - Miriam Brummel.

There’s a common misconception that human trafficking happens “somewhere else” or “overseas.” According to Annalisa Enrile, clinical associate professor in the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work: “Human trafficking occurs in every country—even in first-world countries such as the United States.” In fact, in 2017, 26,557 calls were answered by the National Human Trafficking Hotline (U.S.). We’ve also learned that Los Angeles has been identified by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) as one of the thirteen high intensity hubs for Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children and Youth (CSECY).

It surely can be overwhelming to come across such alarming statistics. Blythe Hill, the founder of Dressember, is no stranger to that feeling when you became passionate about making waves and yet simultaneously reminded of your limitations. In an interview with Starfish Project, Hill remarked that she first learned about human trafficking as a teenager, and “For years, I felt a sense of personal urgency to do something but I also felt powerless. I’m not a cop, a lawyer, a social worker, or a psychologist….I felt helpless. Then, as Dressember grew, I felt compelled to use it as a way to engage in the fight.”

So, what is Dressember?

Dressember is a month-long campaign where people wear dresses or ties/bow ties every day in December as a way to raise awareness and money for human trafficking programs.

It started in 2009 as a personal style challenge with no cause or fundraising element to it. As it grew, and Hill saw people she didn’t even know personally who wanted to join in, she realized it was a good idea and started dreaming about using it as a way to bring attention to the issue of human trafficking. In 2013, Hill aligned Dressember with its first grant partner, International Justice Mission (IJM), and set what felt like an ambitious goal of $25,000. They hit that goal on day 3, and then proceeded to raise over $165,000. Since then, Dressember has extended it reach and now partners with 12 organizations, including IJM, A21, CAST Los Angeles, Love146, Saving Innocence, and Olive Crest, that are leading the charge in their respective areas of expertise to end modern-day slavery.

Since 2016, the team at Michelle Harwell Therapy have advocated for Dressember while putting their own creative spin on it. Women and girls historically have been the most vulnerable to human trafficking, and we have wanted to draw attention to this fact by challenging stale, one-dimensional notions and images of femininity. This year is no different except we’ve raised the bar for our fundraising goal — setting it to $6,719, which will fund a full rescue operation to bring victims safely into freedom and begin the process of recovery and restoration.

It’s incredible how far a small donation can go - contributions in the range between $20 and $50 can secure a survivor with vital services, such as a night in a shelter, a care package, or a therapy session.

Will you consider standing with us?

-Brighid Quinn, Marketing Intern at MHT

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HERE'S HOW YOU CAN PARTICIPATE IN DRESSEMBER WITH US:

Give! Visit our Dressember page and make a donation. It's that simple and no sum is too small. Truly.

Follow! Be sure to follow us on Instagram and our blog throughout the month of December. We will be documenting our fierce fashion choices but our deepest intention is to empower and educate.

Share!  Help us spread the word. You can do this by sharing our social media posts or links to our Dressember fundraising campaign page.

Women are Powerful

“Owning our voices safely is not always easy to do. We cannot do that alone by sheer will. We are social beings through and through. We are deeply influenced and affected by one another, and therefore, deeply vulnerable in one another’s company...When we feel we lose our power, it is as if we are boxed in.”

Photo by Even Keel Imagery - Miriam Brummel

WOMEN ARE POWERFUL. This phrase was inspired by a young client who is not yet an adult woman. It has special meaning for her because she has experienced bullying and yet is a strong, bright, and compassionate girl. She is finding healing in the midst of the messiness and owning her voice – her vulnerability, her fierceness, her unflinching sense of justice, her laughter, her grace, and her ability to say what is true for the sheer simple reason that it IS true. What she knew of women and girls was that we have a voice AND that each voice is strong - this IS powerful.

Owning our voices safely is not always easy to do. We cannot do that alone by sheer will. We are social beings through and through. We are deeply influenced and affected by one another, and therefore, deeply vulnerable in one another’s company. We have a whole field of social psychology that has shown us this. When we feel we lose our power, it is as if we are boxed in.

What I found fascinating, and also frustrating, while searching for a word to describe what women are to me, is that words have often have the unintentional effect of boxing us in. Each word has a cultural connotation and means something different to the person hearing it. Now, THIS is powerful, too. For example, women are POWERFUL. Maybe I mean that women are strong and able to connect deeply to themselves and others; are able to unarm someone’s defenses with a smile and a few words spoken in the right tone at the right time. That is powerful, that is beautiful, and that is love in a sense.

Now, but what does POWERFUL mean in a cultural context? Perhaps a powerful person is seen as domineering, controlling, and ruthless. And we have heard, at times, that strong and/or powerful woman can be intimidating or worse…

So, I ask myself, what kind of power has most value to me, in my world? How do I want to show up or stand up?

I want my power to come through in my listening, in my attuning to myself, to others, to my family, to my friends, to the tree outside my window, and to the sand beneath my feet when the ocean water flows gently around my legs from it’s source. The power of love I feel when I look at the night sky with the moon and the stars reflecting in my eyes. And the power to say no, to stand up, to not back down, the power to fight – all when necessary. Power to discriminate or to discern.

“They” say we are at a crossroads in our humanity on this planet. And maybe that is true. I ask you, what is real power? What does it mean to be powerful in the most beautiful interpretation of the word?

For me, what is powerful is both my vulnerability and my fierceness. BOTH are necessary.

I bow to you, to us, to our humanity, to what makes us the same, so we may support each other in our differences and in our sameness. To not give up on ourselves, to remember to use the power that is our birthright. The power of our hands, of our voice, of our heart, of our minds, and of our feelings of connection.

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HERE'S HOW YOU CAN PARTICIPATE IN DRESSEMBER WITH US:

Give! Visit our Dressember page and make a donation. It's that simple and no sum is too small. Truly.

Follow! Be sure to follow us on Instagram and our blog throughout the month of December. We will be documenting our fierce fashion choices but our deepest intention is to empower and educate.

Share!  Help us spread the word. You can do this by sharing our social media posts or links to our Dressember fundraising campaign page.

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Michelle Levy, PhD, is a Registered Psychological Assistant #PSB94024010 working under the supervision of Gabrielle Taylor, PhD. Dr. Levy’s clinical interests focus on parenting practices, attachment, child mental health and developmental concerns as well as the effects of trauma on youth, families and communities. 

A New Taste of Home

For me, food holds memories of being grounded and content. Memories of dishes I’ve shared with people I love, dishes I’ve made for people I love, and lingering together with food and wine. These memories are places I come back to time and time again to feel at home.

When I was 18 years old, I moved away from my family and lived in England for a year working as a nanny. It was there that I remember first solidifying food as a grounding memory. The family I worked for regularly made chicken korma and it became a dish of comfort and calm for me. Something about the strong curry scent, basmati rice, and creamy yellow sauce shared with a family I cared about deeply eased my feelings of homesickness.

In doing some research, I found neuroscience affirms my experience of food as grounding. Eating food engages all of our senses, and senses are deeply tied to memories. Researchers have found that smell is often the strongest sense tied to memory, and if you add on the layers of all other senses experienced when eating food our brains are given multiple cues to recall a memory linked to a meal.

In a study done in 2007 by Johan Willander and Maria Larsson, researchers found that memories triggered by smell were also more emotional than those triggered by verbal information alone. This may be why even today, years after my time in England, I find myself ordering chicken korma when I feel a bit lost and alone, and after a few bites I find myself at home again.

“For me, food holds memories of being grounded and content...These memories are places I come back to time and time again to feel at home.”

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Abigail (Abby) Wambaugh, M.S., is an Associate Marriage and Family Therapist, IMF #94231, working under the professional supervision of Michelle Harwell, Psy.D., MFT 50732. She specializes in treating relationship difficulties, trauma, and sexual issues.

Women of Style: Louise Brooks

“A well dressed woman, even though her purse is painfully empty, can conquer the world.”

— Louise Brooks

I can’t exactly recall when I developed my penchant for all things 1920s, but I know that falling in love with silent movies in my late teens sealed the deal. A big part of the charm was Louise Brooks. I adored her look - bobbed haircut (also described as a black helmet), enigmatic expressions, dark eyes, and elegant dresses. And like any good fan, I wanted to know everything about her. What I found (and rediscovered in embodying her for this project) was a multifaceted woman and a feminist ahead of her time.

Never really considered a major star in her day, Brooks is now most famous for her lead roles in Pandora’s Box (1929) and Diary of a Lost Girl (1929). In these films, Brooks epitomized the flapper style on screen. This style was emblematic of the “New Woman” of the 1920s that pushed gender roles and shed the restrictive laces, corsets, and hoops that dominated women’s fashion at the time. 

Not only was Brooks radical in dress, but she was unafraid to cross powerful men in Hollywood - turning down deals with major studios to live and work in Germany. Moreover, her acting approach and choice of projects marked a trailblazer spirit. Brooks was a pioneer of naturalistic acting, predating Marlon Brando and James Dean by decades. Her portrayal of female sexuality on screen also pushed boundaries. In Pandora’s Box, she played one of cinema’s first bisexual characters. Off-screen, she had multiple romances with directors and co-stars, Charlie Chaplin and supposedly Greta Garbo included. 

By the time Brooks was in her mid-twenties, her movie career was already over. Despite her youth while active in front of the camera, she defied the stereotype of the naïve ingenue. Rather, she was noted for her fierce intelligence, which I so respect. She reportedly read the work of Schopenhauer on set (this tidbit gets me chuckling). Her 1982 memoir Lulu in Hollywood also revealed a mind and voice that could understand and articulate the language of film on par with the most celebrated critics.

I thoroughly admire her different-ness and complicated nature. A trailblazer. An underdog. A sex symbol. An intellectual. A style icon. A woman comprised of many parts - both messily human and otherworldly in her own way. Henri Langlois, one of the founders of the La Cinémathèque française, famously said, "There is no Garbo, there is no Dietrich, there is only Louise Brooks.” I couldn’t agree more.

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HERE'S HOW YOU CAN PARTICIPATE IN DRESSEMBER WITH US:

Give! Visit our Dressember page and make a donation. It's that simple and no sum is too small. Truly.

Follow! Be sure to follow us on Instagram and our blog throughout the month of December. 

Share!  Help us spread the word. You can do this by sharing our social media posts or links to our Dressember fundraising page.

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Taz Morgan, MA, is a Marriage and Family Therapist Intern, IMF #99714, working under the supervision of Vanessa Spooner, PsyD. She has trained in Depth-oriented psychotherapy and works with adolescents, adults, and couples. 

Click here to learn more about our Los Angeles psychotherapy services.

Humans of MHT: An Interview with Allison (Allie) Ramsey, MFT Intern

We are launching a new series at our practice called “The Humans of MHT.” The idea being...healing happens in the context of real relationships, real people. Not perfect, unknown others, but people engaged in life and meaning-making just like you. 

We'll be releasing one interview a month, so you can get a glimpse of the humans that sit in the chair across from you. Check out our first interview with Allie Ramsey, our Clinical Care Coordinator and Marriage & Family Therapist Intern. She's got some great thoughts on what it means to be human.

- Michelle Harwell, LMFT  

Meet Allie Ramsey, Marriage and Family Therapist Intern and Clinical Care Coordinator at MHT.

M: Well, hello Allie!

A: Hi!

M: You are our first human therapist of Michelle Harwell Therapy! So how does your humanness show up in the therapy session?

A: One of the biggest ways I notice my humanness showing up is the fact that I feel very impacted by my clients stories. They really influence me and help me to think about life more complexly. Life is so packed with meaning and intensity. Getting to step into that with my clients as a fellow human means I get to live very richly with them. It is very fulfilling.

M: You are saying something about a contemporary view about how we think about change in therapy. Old models would see the therapist as an observer or objective voice that is separate from the client. But you are talking about about a very different view.  That there is something two person going on in that, your clients, even though you are there and focusing on their story, you are also a part of it. And you are impacted by them. Alot of times clients don't know that they impact us. That we carry them. That we are inspired by them. That we are touched and moved by them and changed. That our clinical work can enhance our own lives. And I think because of that, we can make change. It is the very fact that we care and can be impacted means it is a real connection.

M: The other thing I was thinking about was some of the aspects of your humanness that is impactful to me. That draws me to you...One aspect that comes to mind when I think of you is kindness. That is an attribute of your humanness that is impactful to me. There is an author named Adam Phillips and he defines kindness as the ability to ones own vulnerability in ourselves and that of an another. To be connect and to stay soft, open and tender. I think about that, when I think about you.

A: So for those who will be watching and don't know. Being from Washingtion and moving to LA, something I have bumped up a lot against is a pressure to be more sophisticated then I am or a little more in the know then I tend to be. I've come to value a lot of this as there is so much artistic vitality in LA culture. But sophistication is something I keep running up against because I don't feel like I am a very sophisticated person. Its just not part of my soul. ButI feel some freedom in trusting in being kind as enough.

M: I think you are talking about how you come across in groups. I experience this with you. When you don't know something or when you are not sure about something, you are apt to say it and be in your authenticity with a kind of grace, curiosity and silliness that invites people to be along for the ride. I think you have a real inviting presence.

M: Is there anything people would be surprised to know about you?

A: Most things probably...One thing people would be surprised to know is that for most of my life ant through college I was a collegiate level sprinter. Although I don't think I look or present that way anymore. I don't look nearly as fierce as I used to. But there is a part of me that pretty competitive and enjoys the intense part of life. I have a need for speed.

M: Laughs.

A: You wouldn't catch me going fast in my Prius though.

M: Its funny. I knew you were an athlete but what is new to me, but it makes more sense, that there is an internal competitor.

A: Oh, yes. There certainly is.

M: Laughs

A: I'm not sure how it shows up these days. It shows up in little ways. I'm looking for more outlets. I'm joining a kickboxing community because, you know, you got to get a little competitive somewhere.

M: I think we need an MHT games night. A team game night so we can really see the personality come out on our team. We need to do our developmental assessment with all the therapists.

A: My frustration might be kind of low. There is this one game my husband really likes. He goes deep. There is this game we play together that cold war, very long, narrative based game. And we had been playing for about an hour and it was demanding all of my mental capacities and I lost. I said, "I can't talk to you. I have to take a shower." That's the level I can get to.

M: I love it. It's a little Brombergian self-state. A little island that gets activated around competitiveness. I need to know this side of you more. It makes me happy to know that there is this intense person in there.

M: So finally, what does humanness mean to you?

A: One of the first things that comes to mind when I think of humanness is worth or value. I think being human mean having an immense amount of worth and value. Being worthy of a lot  of honor. That is one of my central organizing thoughts as a therapist, that my main job is to honor the person I am with. Somehow for me that captures what it means to really care and give my very best to each client that I sit with. To try and step into their shoes and try and understand what it means to be them, what they experience. Humanness means be worthy of that. Being worthy of being understood.

M: Beautifully said.

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Allison (Allie) Ramsey is a Marriage and Family Therapist Intern, IMF #94391, working under the professional supervision of Michelle Harwell, PsyD, MFT 50732. Allie works with individuals on a broad range of issues, including anxiety, depression, relational challenges, faith integration, divorce, and aging. 

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 Dr. Michelle Harwell, PsyD, LMFT is an expert trainer, respected speaker, and licensed therapist in trauma and attachment. She is noted for her specialization in areas of development, attachment, trauma, and neuroscience, and her ability to communicate complex topics with clarity and humor. Michelle completed her PhD in Psychoanalysis from The Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis. She received her BA in English Literature from University of Oklahoma, MA in Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary, and MS in Marriage and Family Therapy from the Fuller Graduate School of Psychology.

Clothed in Authenticity

Authenticity. For some reason, this word made me think of clothing. Maybe it's because I'm from Washington state, and I find myself breathe a little deeper when I land back in the Seattle airport and see all of my frumpy-looking kin. Clothes are a big deal, here in Los Angeles. And while I at first poo-pooed this, it's actually caused me to reflect on the value that clothing choices can have.

Clothing can be used as a mask, something we hide behind. It can be used as a dream, something we use to believe in ourselves a little more (“Dress for the job you want!”). It can be used to communicate something to others or ourselves.

I think this is especially clear in adolescence. In adolescence, we sometimes use clothing to “try on” different parts of ourselves in different seasons. Perhaps this year, I'm going to try on my ability to take social causes seriously. Or perhaps, I'm going to try on the dark feelings I have – reveal my ability to feel the sorrow and heaviness of being on this earth. Or maybe clothing isn't much of a conscious decision for me at all this year, and that's a way I can try on a part of me as well.

I asked Ron Ben, Art Director, about this, and he comments, “I have always believed that clothes reflect your emotions or where you're at in life. Some people don't care what they wear, some people care greatly, but if you take a look at both you can see where they are in their life.”

So, thanks, LA. You've taught me that clothes go a little more than skin deep.  

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Allison (Allie) Ramsey is a Marriage and Family Therapist Intern, IMF #94391, working under the professional supervision of Michelle Harwell, MFT 50732. Allie works with individuals on a broad range of issues, including anxiety, depression, relational challenges, faith integration, divorce, and aging. 

A Place to Dwell: An Interview with Annie Choi, Owner of Found Coffee

Annie Choi, Founder and Owner of Found Coffee in Eagle Rock, Los Angeles. 

Lauren: I’m with Annie Choi from Found Coffee here at Michelle Harwell Therapy....Well, Annie it’s so good to meet you.

Annie: So lovely to meet you, too

Lauren: So we’re talking a lot about the idea of home here at MHT and we’re wanting to know how you came to find a home at Found. So, to get started, maybe you can just tell me a little bit about what drew you to pursue 3rd Wave Coffee and eventually establishing Found?

Annie: Actually that’s a really great question because I was in the process of switching careers - I was working in entertainment and I was working post-production. And so for me, something that’s really important is storytelling. And so I thought “OK I’m going to tell stories in TV.” And when I was working in post-production, I was actually behind a screen for 12 hours a day with headphones, so it ended up being very isolating and lonely. And I’ve always wanted to open a coffee shop - going to coffee shops and coffee shop-hopping has been a hobby for me.  So, when I entered coffee, the first two weeks of being in coffee I felt like my lifelong friends.

I think it’s because just being in the service industry, too, people are welcoming and they know about customer service. And so for Found I wanted definitely to create a space where people were comfortable.  And I think also the church for a really long time has been a place where people have been able to find community.  And I think LA has changed and I go to church, but I feel like as I was working in coffee, I found a lot of regulars found community in the coffee shop. And so I wanted to create that kind of vibe and that kind of atmosphere at my own coffee shop.  And I think Eagle Rock is the perfect place for it because everyone here is so supportive of small businesses and I have SO many regulars. And I think the regulars are the heartbeat of my coffee shop, they allow me to pay my guys, they come every day, we know their kids, we know their dogs, so I think in that sense for Found I wanted home for a lot of people. And a cup of coffee is very comforting.  And I think that too creates a sense of home and a sense of familiarity. And so I was really excited to do that and it’s kind of evolved to be that for a lot of people, especially in this kind of community.

Lauren: Beautiful - how you’ve been able to transfer that desire for community into your passion for coffee. Can you tell me about the first cup of coffee you really enjoyed?  Where was it? Who was with you?

Annie: So, I didn’t actually start drinking real coffee for a while, until I was in college. I can’t tell you when I had my first cup of coffee but I can tell you my best cup of coffee.  When I was switching careers, during my gap year, I went to Costa Rica on my own and went to a coffee plantation and I had the best cup of coffee in my life. The beans were grown there. And I like to put sugar and milk in my coffee sometimes, and the sugar was grown there, they had a sugar plantation, it was crystalized there, too, the milk was milked from the cows on the farm...So it was just this natural, everything organic, wonderful cup of coffee that I had gotten from the source. And I realized how much work went into it and so that’s definitely - it was just - it was so incredible. 

Lauren: Yeah and I feel like that ties into community, too.  It’s not just an isolated cup of coffee.  There are people who harvested the beans, there’s folks who milked the cows...

Annie: The family who owned the farm...yeah they put a lot of hard work into it.

Lauren: In this day and age, and especially in Los Angeles, 3rd wave coffee shops have become a place for people to meet, artisan coffee is a common topic of conversation, it’s even a listed interest in many instagram bios…what is about coffee specifically that you feel draws people together in Los Angeles?

Annie: Well, I think 3rd wave coffee just started to explode in the last 5 years. Thankfully, there have been coffee shops for ages and ages, but I think specialty coffee, because there is such craft and care that goes into the product -   a lot of specialty coffee shops are independent, mom and pop shops - because of that I feel that a lot of people in LA, especially, know what is a good product.  They also want good product and quality.  In 3rd wave coffee there’s just so much effort that goes behind it.  I don’t know if anyone has explained to you what 3rd wave coffee is, but this is what I tell my guys whenever I interview them.  First wave is instant coffee, mass commodity delivered to your home, immediately available.  Second wave is the fast-food culture of coffee.  3rd wave is where you’re actually caring about the origin of the bean, everything is hand crafted by the cup. And so there’s a lot more care that goes behind it. And I think because of this artisanal food movement, there’s so much love that goes behind it, there’s a lot of passion.  People are drawn to that.  Because they know it’s been made with love. 

Also, I think with Found, especially, - I was instilled with this knowledge when I was working in my first coffee job - my old boss told me, “You can’t teach personality.” And I think customer service is a big part of my shop in the sense that all my staff, they’re very kind people.  They’re very warm.  Thankfully I have control over who I can staff.  I think people are drawn to that too.  With other shops, I hear this a lot, “I hate it when in 3rd wave coffee shops, the baristas are so snobby.” Whereas for me I don’t like to say that we’re “coffee snobs,” we’re “coffee enthusiasts.” With my guys I stress to them that they be friendly.  In the interview process I see if they have a good heart.  With the bigger chains, it’s harder to handpick people that are good-hearted because they have so much volume and they just need people to work.  Whereas for me, I’m definitely smaller and I get to choose. And I’ve told my guys too it’s really important for them to develop relationships with the regulars.  To know their first names, you always get their name. 

Lauren: It’s not just the product they’re getting, but there’s a human behind the coffee and what the human is showing is love behind the coffee. There’s passion.

Annie: It’s the connection.

Lauren: Beautiful. Well, when I was hearing you talk, I was thinking it sounds like coffee is sort of a means to an end - coffee is the means, and the the end being community, human connection or - home.

Annie: I like the way you put that, it’s actually right on the ball.

Lauren: We’ve been reading a psychoanalyst called Robert Stolorow, here at MHT and in his works, he writes about the importance of finding a relational home.  He shares about, and I’m liberally paraphrasing here, how mismatched or shattered pieces of our story need to discover a home within relationship - with friends, families, coworkers, communities.  How do you feel Found coffee represents a kind of home for mismatched pieces in that way?

Annie: Hm. Well, maybe not mismatched pieces, but the vast array and types of people that you meet in a coffee shop are so different. I think being a coffee shop owner, I get to meet these people, and their stories all add to mine. I love hearing people’s stories and where they’re from and I think behind it all is that everyone struggles, everyone struggles well, everyone has joys, too.  And so I tell this to my staff, “if you have a rude customer, give them the benefit of the doubt in the beginning.  You don’t know their story, you don’t know if they’re having a bad day.” 

The type of people, the network of people I meet, they are the mismatched pieces, and the connection between them all is that they are human.  I am so thankful because I get to meet so many different types of people. Something I like to do, on a personal note, is to connect people to each other. So, for instance, we had a guy who was a recruiter at an entertainment studio and I know that my friend has been wanting to animate forever and so I connected the two.  And I asked, “Can I do an intro?” And they both were like, “Yeah!” 

And then also on the other hand, too, I think coffee shops are a really special place where people who are on the shyer side, I get to bring them out.  We have a little bar area and it’s three seats, it’s very close to the barista making the drinks. When I first opened, a girl, I could tell was into coffee, but she didn’t want to talk.  And as she came every other day for weeks I got to know her, I slowly got her to talk, and then I realized she wanted to intern at Found.  So I interviewed her and she is one of my best now.  I told her on the first day, “You need to learn how to need to talk! It’s ok to talk.”  And she said, “I know, I know. I’m a little shy.“ And I said, “That’s ok. We’ll find a way for your passion to come through, too.”

Lauren: There are people who have their own unique stories as customers. They feel care in the product, or they feel the care in customer service, they’re understood, there’s a patience there.  We’re all human.

When I think about coffee itself, it draws to mind aspects similar to community - it is warm, comforting; it perks you up when you’re having trouble getting through your day; it is rich and flavorful - even to the last drop.  What do you consider on a daily basis (from coffee composition to design of your space to interactions with people) that helps Found Coffee consistently feel like home for your customers?

Annie: When people ask me why I call Found Coffee "Found," I have two main reasons, and then a third one.  First one is that a lot of things in my shop are Found.  They are vintage, upcycled.  They have been loved, and they will be loved again.  Secondly, I want community to be found, it’sa very big thing for me.  In the beginning I had one communal table, now I have two.  I’m really eager for people to meet each other and not to be a Laptop City.  I love introducing regulars to each other, because then they know the person in their own neighborhood. It’s really great! The third reason why I called Found Coffee “Found” was because I really found who I was in the last 5-6 years, and one of those parts is I found myself in coffee.  And I think with all these elements, the communal tables especially, that’s a big part in just providing a space and a place where people are able to find each other in community.  It allows for people who haven’t seen each other in a long time to meet.  And I think also with the design of the shop, it’s not 30 single tables.  I also like to keep it very bright.  You see some coffee shops, they’re darker, they’re a little more somber.  For me, even the espresso machine is yellow!  I think the reason is, you know a lot of Subway restaurants are painted yellow, the walls yellow because it invites people.  For me, I took that into consideration for the machine, the main workhorse of my shop, so people feel welcomed, feel invited.  And then yeah, it’s just a place where I hope people feel comforted in that everything is close, you don’t feel like you’re stepping on each others’ toes, but also, you have people are nearby. 

Lauren: There’s so much there.  There’s a sense of closeness with the people you are with, there’s also space to be who you are, and there’s also space to connect. There’s intentional space to connect, where you turn to your right and there’s a person that you can connect with.

Annie: Also a big thing for me is displaying local artists on my walls, allowing creativity from the community to be displayed.  They’re all local artists I’m really proud to say that.  For instance right now is a family.  The father took black and white photos, their 3 year-old girl drew on them and the mother is a weaver and she wove those pieces.  Even in the artwork, I hope to convey family. You know?

Lauren: That’s a huge part of home, it feels like family. There’s elements of that.

Annie: And I think also, our regulars see the same baristas every day.  And so, that is actually intentional, too.  So they don’t feel, for instance, out of place.  I’ve been very fortunate my current staff has been with me for a while.  They’ve actually maintained regular relationships with the locals so that’s really exciting to me, they ask how they are, I think some have friended each other on Facebook.

Lauren: There’s so much thought that went into designing this. You get an amazing product and a sense of connection in a city you so often get lost in. 

Annie: I think something God has gifted me in as an entrepreneur is I am able to create spaces that gather people.  And so I love, I used to hate when my worlds collided, but now I’m just like OK fine you guys have gotta meet each other, so I love that Found is a place where people can just come together.  Something else, is I used to be an event coordinator, and so because of that experience, too, I know what draws people in.  I don’t want my space to feel so cluttered where people feel uncomfortable but where it feels airy, it feels light.  It’s not too over-designed.  Keep it simple so people can do their thing.

Lauren: They can be themselves.  I’m even thinking about the brightly lit space at Found, you can actually see one another, you can actually be curious about the people around you.

Annie: Right, something that I really value is transparency, the reason why my bar is open is you get to see how your coffee is being made from the bar so if people have questions, I’m not gonna look down on you. I don’t know everything, but if you want to learn about coffee and how it’s made and what temperatures it’s at, etc, etc, we’re totally open to tell you, and also to talk about it with you.  So I think people see that, too.  They see that, “Oh, they’re not going to look down on me because I don’t know a lot about coffee.” So specialty coffee -  because it’s a bit more particular, a bit more crafted - it can seem daunting to people.  But I tell my guys, “Be open to it.  Talk to people - they want to learn.” You can tell when people are really eager to talk to baristas and we just engage them in conversation.  So it’s just about being transparent about what you do know and what you don’t know. 

Lauren: If someone is curious you’re responsive to them.  Well it’s been such a pleasure hearing more about your story.  Is there anything else you’d like to add about Found Coffee?

Annie: Yes, something that is really important to me is I don’t want Found to be a place where people feel awkward and excluded.  I am actually quite sensitive to that.  I want to be inclusive.  That’s a big part of community.  And I think community is not defined as a people who are all uniform, and the same.  I think coffee is really lovely because most people love coffee, and we have something to offer most everyone, even with tea, we have tea too.  I feel like it’s a simple meeting ground where people can engage and have a similar interest with people that are different from them.  Community is basically broken people or people who have different stories coming together.  That’s my community at Found and I am super thankful.  

Annie Choi is the founder and owner of Found Coffee in Eagle Rock, Los Angeles. She is also the co-founder of FrankieLucy Bakeshop, a collaborative coffee and pastry shop that will soon open in Silver Lake, Los Angeles.

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Lauren Masopust, MS, MFT Intern has extensive experience working with young adults, adolescents, and couples, and specializes in areas of trauma, identity development, and multicultural issues.

The Radiance of Relationships

“...sturdy relationships can hold just about anything...the kinder, rather than nicer, friendships are brave enough to share a flashlight so we can take a honest look at what’s true about ourselves...”

can·did
/ˈkandəd/

Did you know the word “candid” derives from the Latin root for “extreme radiance?”

At first it sounds really beautiful - sunshine, starlight, bright and shining faces. We find ourselves completely known. This is the place where we build intimacy with one another. But then after a while the extreme radiance starts to feel a little…extreme - office fluorescents, migraines, the inquisitor’s spotlight. Some days, burying your head in a pillow in a dark room feels safer.

That’s it. I think our brains really want us to feel safe. And it really wants us to feel known. In this push and pull, we navigate our daily relationships.

"You laugh at my nerdy joke?" Lights on.
“You criticized me in front of everyone in the meeting?” Lights off.
“I’m not sure I want you to see that part of me.”  Let’s dim the lights a little.
Come closer…no…too close.  

It’s ok. We’re doing the Goldilocks: too hot…too cold…now that’s just right.  It means we’re exploring. It means we’re in a relationship. It means we’re alive.

I think sometimes we can apply unnecessary pressure on ourselves to try to be completely open with other people.  Maybe the relationship doesn’t need to dive deeply so quickly.  And I think we can apply unnecessary shame for being too open with others.  Like surgeons, we sometimes need those spotlights to shine into dark places so that we can heal what is wounded and birth new life.  

Regardless of what lumens we choose to shine on different parts of ourselves, sturdy relationships can hold just about anything. The healthy ones want to soothe those sunburns from those extra-candid moments. And the kinder, rather than nicer, friendships are brave enough to share a flashlight so we can take an honest look at what is true about ourselves and the resources around us. Together, our eyes adjust to the brighter light, until the path forward becomes clear.

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Lauren Masopust, MS, MFT Intern has extensive experience working with young adults, adolescents, and couples, and specializes in areas of trauma, identity development, and multicultural issues.

Clinical Candor: An Interview with Dr. Karen Maroda

M: I'm at the tail end of my analytic training and I’ve become fascinated by how my mind has shifted in the process of training. How in love I am with this process, this way of thinking but how inaccessible it feels to the masses. I don't think it has to be. My idea with my newsletter and blogs, similar to analysis, is how can we think more complexly about simple ideas and think more simply about complex ideas. Karen, I think you excel at this. You have a great ability to speak about ideas in a really clear and approachable way. Before we jump into the idea of candor, can you give us an idea of how you got interested in psychoanalysis.

K: My mother, who we did not have a college education, was naturally psychologically minded. She would observe our emotions and if it wasn't clear to her what I was feeling or why, she would inquire. She would say, “Well, Karen you seem a little down or you're not as lively coming home after school. Did something happen?” She always knew of course. She was very intuitive. She was just asking, “did I want to talk about it?” So, in a sense, my mother was psychoanalyzing me from the time I was young and inducting me into the whole notion that you don't just accept what someone says at face value, that you should trust your feelings. I think that my mother introduced me to the whole notion of trusting my emotional intuition and that asking someone about what they were feeling was an expression of love.

K: It’s been life pursuit, a way of being. I was speaking in Indianapolis a few months ago and I was pleased to hear a candidate talk about psychoanalysis not simply as a profession, it’s a calling. It’s a life.

Dr. Karen Maroda

M: Yes! I had this experience when I was developing as a young clinician where I would get around analysts and I couldn't always keep up with the terminology used but their minds were so alive to me. They had this spontaneous quality. It reminds me how you shared the origins of the word candor is candid which evokes a sense of freedom and spontaneity. There was a flexibility and freedom to explore, play and reflect that was more than the sum of its parts. And I could just feel the difference between their mind and my own. It's a way of thinking and being that that evolves overtime...

In your paper on counter-transference, you talk about how clinicians, by our nature we are often empaths. We feel, we care, we listen but we are not very good at being direct or honest both clinically and in our lives.  How do prepare your client for the role of honesty in therapy?

K: Well, most people don't really understand what an analytically-oriented treatment looks like. I tell them the three basic rules are: they have to show up, they have to be as open as they reasonably can be given that no one is completely open, and they have to pay. (laughs)

M: (laughs) Good basics.

K: Then I usually explain about transference. That any of their feelings toward me are not out of bounds. Anything that comes up and particularly anything that's repetitive that they're feeling either positively or negatively toward me is important for them to express.

M: This idea of having candor, of being direct, the fear is, in speaking up, you might shut the client down. How do you negotiate this: keeping lines of communication open given that generally the analyst is in a position of some kind of power?

K: The idea is there’s candor and then there’s candor.  You know what I mean?  You don't just blurt out anything that you may be thinking which is like, “Boy, was that a stupid thing to do.”

M: Right, right.

K: So I take a moment to gather my thoughts and think about how it fits in the context of the person. I seek to complete the analytic task to gain perspective on their behavior historically and currently. But you know if somebody did something really stupid then I am more likely to say, “Well, it seems to me that this behavior had a pretty bad outcome for you. You know, probably not one of your finest moments.” (laughs)

M: (laughs)

K:  I use humor a lot. It cuts the tension. I'm agreeing that they screwed up without saying you're screwed.

M: I'm thinking about this on two levels: what are you trying to create within your client through the use of candor; what are you hoping that they bring into their lives through this process? The other part I'd love to hear more about is, the fact that our patients don't just want empathy, or I should say, sympathy, they also crave sincerity. There's relief when we can speak directly to all parts of the self, even negative ones.

“Being authentic without being insulting or cruel. Finding a way to constructively give feedback, whether positive or negative. So the positive isn’t too over-stimulating or generate too much expectation of a repeat performance. The whole notion of not waiting until your own feelings are so intense that you have trouble managing them and being in control of them when you’re talking. It’s easier to be honest when you’re in control of how you feel. Most people white knuckle it.”

K: Absolutely. I think people want feedback. Particularly, as I wrote in “The Power of Countertransference” if they are seeking it, then I don’t understand why you would not be responsive to a direct request for feedback. I think where we get into the delicate issue is when you're not sure, or when the patient is provoking possible feedback but not asking for it directly. Then you have to explore it and make a decision which may or may not include asking them if they want feedback. I think it's a no brainer when the patient is literally saying I want to know what you are really thinking or feeling about me?

M: Yeah, yeah.

K: For example: most of my clients become much more successful as a result of their treatment and they want to know am I going to resent them? Especially if their parents were very competitive with them. If they are too successful will I try to destroy them, take it away?

M: So what do you think benefits your clients in being able to ask you those questions in terms of their growth and development?

K: I think it gives them a tremendous confidence in their own intuition because I think one of the greatest contributions of neuroscience and the whole notion of unconscious to unconscious communication, is that clients already know what we are feeling. We already know what they’re feeling. I think the art is to determine, ultimately, what's most beneficial to actually discuss to get to the bottom of what’s going on. What's important to the work and what isn't. Will some of our ideas, notions shut down the patient experience, I think inevitably yes! That's the nature of relationships, whether it's analyst and patient or mother and child or spouse. There are ways you just cannot relate to someone else or you can't promote it.

M: A client having to contend with the real you rather than just feeling it.

K:  You know, I successfully treated someone with severe borderline personality disorder. That was where I first experimented with expressing rage. She thought everything was somebody else's fault. She would talk about her husband and blame the poor guy for everything. He was responsible for every feeling she ever had. She wanted me to endorse that. That he wasn’t sufficiently empathic but he was!  He martyred himself for her, whatever it took. She really needed somebody to stand up to her.

M: You made a comment about our culture not leaving room for negative emotions. I see this an an epidemic in parenting. We've got the hover parent generation where parents can't give feedback to their children or they have to sandwich it with so much goodness. To me, it's about emotional clarity, right? Sometimes it's not about positive or negative. It's about being clear with emotions and our intentions.

K: Yes. Being authentic without being insulting or cruel. Finding a way to constructively give feedback, whether positive or negative. So the positive isn’t too over-stimulating or generate too much expectation of a repeat performance. The whole notion of not waiting until your own feelings are so intense that you have trouble managing them and being in control of them when you're talking. It’s easier to be honest when you’re in control of how you feel. Most people white knuckle it. Neuroscience shows us that negative emotions are rarely outside of our conscious awareness. (They are felt and known even if not explicitly acknowledged). So we need to talk about it….

M:. You alluded to something earlier that I’ve been processing for a while, personally. I have a tendency at to be effusive with my language, you spoke to how we can say something positively in a way that is not too overstimulating.  Candor is about being clear in feedback. I have an awareness  of my tendency to slant towards hope and it has impact. Not always negative but I have to watch it. The truth is I have these little awareness all the time in session and I think ‘bookmark’ I need to go back to that. But how often do we, have the internal candor to take a deeper look?

K: Bookmark is a great word. That’s the beauty of the whole analytic approach. You bookmark it and you're curious about it. You don’t just blurt it out to the patient. You bookmark it and think about it. You wait to see, is this more about me or more about the patient. Because transference is repetitive, it will always come up again, and you don't have to figure it out in the moment.

M: So, what I hear is with candor, there's a certain amount of measure. Working towards an internal space that is curious. Curiosity to pay attention to the tiniest movements inside, an internal honesty that translates to a clinical (relational) honesty. 

So with enactments, there can be a dishonesty there. I mean, of course, we fall into things but I think you're putting more onus on the clinician to pay attention. 

K: Absolutely, and I think that if you look at the literature most of the enactments are not positive, they’re negative. But if you have transcript of sessions you would see there are just as many positive enactments as negative going on, but we don't yet care about those. Because those generally are not disturbing the universe of the relationship. (laughs)  I will notice with a patient that I really like or admire we do this little mutual admiration thing, you know? It is a sense a form of acting out. A little flirtation, something.

M: This is where the awareness comes in. How much of that is unconscious to the analyst?. There's a part of you that's just feeling good and maybe another part has the passing thought..I wonder if this is something?

“Be thoughtful, of course, but be courageous. If you have any anxiety when you’re practicing, that’s good...Take risks. If you’re never afraid and you’re just offering soothing, comforting things you’re probably not giving the person everything that person really needs.”

K: Right, it depends. If it’s happening too often (repeating) then it's like OK, well, wait a minute.  The enactments that we talk about in literature are mostly negative ones. I have yet to talk to a therapist where they were not aware of some negative feelings before the enactment. An enactment comes typically after an impasse that’s lasted a minimum of days if not a weeks or months. The impasse is broken by an enactment or treatment is destroyed by the enactment. I think that since I started using self disclosure regularly I have almost no enactments. I currently have one patient I have regular enactments with on a regular basis because she cannot accept negative emotions mine or hers. She simply won't allow for an emotionally honest exchange. You cannot eliminate enactments with everyone.

I think if you are sitting harboring negative feelings and thinking about them, no treatment is taking place. That’s why my new line I'm going to be using a lot in my next book is, “what is the analyst’s fiduciary responsibility to the patient? (laughs) What is clinically beneficial and to what extent are we stealing their money? When we sit white knuckled and think ‘this guy is a pain in the ass.”

M: Well, it’s another aspect of coasting in the counter-transference right?

K: Yes, like what you were saying about parents being overly effusive or overly positive. Therapists do this too. They try to be super positive or uplifting and affirming. Of course we want to do that to a point but that's not really what most people come to treatment for. Most people who have a lot of positive attributes and good relation skills get reinforcement in the world. They come to us to help them work through the obstacles and the negative behaviors that they can't work out anywhere else and the pain.

K: Right. I was thinking about submitting a presentation to Division 39, “Did Winnicott kill psychoanalysis?”

M: (laughs) Oh no!

K: Of course I’m tongue and cheek but we are so enamored with good enough mother which is about always being positive,  always being the cheerleader. I think most therapists are so masochistic and they allow patients in small and large ways to be abusive towards them...

M: Yeah I thought that that is what is revolutionary about your paper. In the first paragraph you talk about why as therapists we're drawn to this profession to help but simultaneously you are calling out our own masochism.  The way we feed off our ability to hold pain in the service of someone, to contain, soften…

K: To be saint like.  We're so overly invested in ourselves being the perfect mother to all of our patients. As if  the perfect mother is somebody who would just lie down, puts up with everything. It’s not.

M: Well, thank you for jumping in with me to explore the concept of candor and your clinical practice. Your mind is so alive. It’s been a pleasure.

K: You know, I end my most of my lectures with this:  Be thoughtful, of course, but be courageous. If you have any anxiety when you're practicing, that’s good.

M: Ah! I love that.

K: Take risks. If you're never afraid and you're just offering soothing, comforting things you're probably not giving the person everything that person really needs.

Karen Maroda, PhD is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and a board certified in psychoanalyst by the American Board of Professional Psychology. In 2012, she was elected Fellow status by the American Psychological Association for her contributions to psychology on a national level. She is also a Fellow of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis. She has been in private practice for over 30 years and lectures nationally and internationally. She is the author of three books, several book chapters, and numerous journal articles and book reviews. She is passionate about the change process and has made it her life’s work to innovate psychodynamic techniques, making the process more interactive and collaborative. 

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Michelle Harwell, MS, LMFT is an expert trainer, respected speaker, and licensed therapist in trauma and attachment. She is noted for her specialization in areas of development, attachment, trauma, and neuroscience, and her ability to communicate complex topics with clarity and humor. Michelle is currently completing her PhD in Psychoanalysis from The Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis. She received her BA in English Literature from University of Oklahoma, MA in Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary, and MS in Marriage and Family Therapy from the Fuller Graduate School of Psychology.
 

Playing a Different Tune

I love to play piano.

I remember the piano I grew up with: the ivory keys, chalky under my fingertips, and the horseshoe notch on the tip of middle C.

The piano was a phenomenal outlet.  It still is.

I don’t know if you ever play piano, but imagine this: playing piano from a place of blame. Picture yourself when you’ve just had it. You just can’t even. The world is going to crap, your dry cleaner ruined your interview suit, you’ve been audited for no good reason, your kids are being bullied, your partner did not stop doing that thing you cannot STAND...

“ Instead of getting stuck in the Blame Game where it’s you vs. me, how about we create space for us to carefully experience ourselves and our relationship from a different angle? How about we try a third way?”

WHAT. IS. WRONG. WITH. EV-ER-Y-ONE

Piano strings trembling, box radiating, sound waves bouncing off the smooth walls, in a grand crescendo until - resolution.

Blame. As much it doesn’t feel good to blame, it feels good to blame.

Songs are beautiful in that way. You play and play all the feelings, the instrument simply listens, and you, almost always, come to some kind of resolution. All on your own.

This principle doesn't work so well in relationships. And it's one of the reasons why I love working with couples. When a couple comes into the room, it’s like opening up a piece of music.  We stumble over the notes together, we find the affect, we determine the cadence, and before we know it, we’re in a full blown situation where the couple is enacting the very issue they are coming to see me for. And much of the time what they’re coming to see me for involves blame.

Hard blame. The fiery hot blame that spews steam from our ears.  The ninja-quiet blame that sneaks up and cuts us open, so quickly you question if it actually happened. The pedestal blame that points a finger from an ideological monument and leaves us feeling small.  Sometimes, it even feels better to blame ourselves and crumple into shame than it does to walk through the pain.

Listen. We all do it. It just looks differently.

A couple comes in with a song, a way of desperately trying to connect to one another, and the song often does not sound the way they want it to.

WHAT. IS. WRONG. WITH MY. PART-NER.

or

what.is.wrong.with.me?

are usually the songs that gets sung.

It’s either you or me. I get it. It feels good to find the cause of something painful.  Blame perpetually hunts for a culprit, where it can give birth to contempt, shame, and moral superiority. And when Baby Contempt is born, the research shows the relationship is in trouble: a roll of the eyes, a scoff of disgust, a correction of a person’s grammar, a questioning of a person’s upbringing...

Blame closes down the conversation. It darkens our vision of what is actually going on between us. It prevents us from taking ownership of our own stuff.  It turns a dialogue between two fleshy humans into an assailment towards an inanimate object.

Our goal is to open, loosen, and lighten what is going on inside of us and between us. Instead of getting stuck in the Blame Game where it’s you vs. me, how about we create space for us to carefully experience ourselves and our relationship from a different angle?  How about we try a third way?

When we step outside the Blame Game and into dialogue, we develop stronger empathy and personal responsibility. We stumble along until we meet a safe kind of humor and laugh with the parts of ourselves that got us so riled up in the first place. Instead of performing a solo rage onto the smooth, hard keys of a piano, we find ourselves in an authentic duet: giving and taking, listening and speaking, back and forth, two fleshy humans singing together the song of connection.

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Lauren Masopust, MS, MFT Intern has extensive experience working with young adults, adolescents, and couples, and specializes in areas of trauma, identity development, and multicultural issues.