Teaching...

The teaching I do continues to go very well. In every sense, my regret is that I never started teaching earlier in my life. But, it certainly comes at a time when I need a career rejuvenation.

I teach at the Graduate School of Addictions at a well-known treatment program in the mid-West (they refuse to allow me identify them in my blog - such is the way of massive bureaucracies). This graduate school class in Group Therapy Theory and Practice has 23 students from around the world. They are all adult learners who are highly motivated and passionate about their chosen career. They will all become licensed alcohol and drug counselors when they get their Master's degrees. And, they are a joy to be with every week.

Of course, it's immodest of me to say (but this is a blog, after all, and I guess I'm supposed to brag a bit!) but I have become an expert in group psychotherapy. I've practiced it with my patients for the vast bulk of my 24-year career and this has taught me quite a bit about how you use my skills as a therapist within the context of group therapy work. But, I have also studied this subject thoroughly and know about the cutting edge theories and practices that make group therapy a powerful intervention for people with addictions. Group therapy is not what many people believe it to be: Group experience does not rely on "spilling my guts" in front of people like many who have either never done group work or fear it believe. Instead, it relies on working in the here-and-now of the present moment that the members find themselves in the group room...working on relationships that people have to one another and presenting or solving psychological problems through those relationships. My students are learning about ways they can make this kind of therapy effective in peoples' lives and it is gratifying to see them change during the semester.

I also teach at Augsburg College - or, I used to teach there. The semester ended last week for the Principles of Psychology course I taught to undergraduate students. Now, I've moved on to teach psychology to prisoners inside one of the state's maximum security prisons at Stillwater through Augsburg where the prisoners will get their degrees. I start the semester in June, and I will have 23 men to teach then. I am very much looking forward to the experience of teaching inside a prison. The last time I was in one was when I worked in Massachusetts inside a maximum security prison as a drug counselor on a unit with 61 men. That was a difficult job in that you were really in an adversarial relationship with the prisoner and there was constant tension. Now, with the teaching, I am no longer in a confrontational position with prisoners - I am there to help them learn and this will be quite a difference from my past experience.

By all accounts, I am a good teacher. The student evaluations that follow each semester from all my students have been very good, if not glowing. The Dean's at the respective schools are very pleased that they essentially took a risk with me because I have not had that much teaching experience, and that this risk has paid off for them because they find me to be a really good teacher. That is incredibly gratifying to know. I feel blessed with skills that make me a good communicator and I have empathy for people wanting to learn. Couple that with a passion for both topics, group therapy and psychology, and I am able to motivate students to learn the material.

This all comes at a time in my life where I am struggling with my counseling job. I really dislike the administrative atmosphere I have to function in at the treatment center where I work. There is an institutional snobbishness about the place where I work that is not backed up by performance: The place has ingrained administrative procedures and norms that are imposed on counselors because "we are the best" or "we know this works" when neither of those statements is really true. I think the place does injustice to patients sometimes when it has high caseloads, refuses to allow patients to determine their own need for a level of care, and treat counselors poorly because they are at the bottom of the pecking order. But, I know, this is not really any different than at other places that treat addicts and alcoholics.

I think the real problem is me. I have been on the front line of addiction counseling now for 24+ years. I have always pushed aside opportunities to supervise other people and eschewed other management responsibility in agencies where I worked. This has led me to now be in a subservient position where I am not able to effect any institutional decisions, and have no power. Couple that with being so burned out that I am crispy around the edges, and I have to work very hard every day to not express my true feelings and just march along to the drumbeat. I think my attitude suffers also because, as my friends and colleagues begin their retirement years, I am stuck having to work four jobs at my age. This leads to resentment and I have to work every day on not allowing that to run my emotional life.

So, the teaching is the fresh air I need to breathe every day that sustains me. In the classroom I am relevant, purposeful, necessary, powerful, and in control...all qualities I cannot realize in my day job. I am grateful for that because some people don't even have the opportunity to realize those qualities in their work life. I just hope I can continue teaching into my very old age.

All the best,

Roger W.