“10 years ago, I became a therapeutic mentor for my first client ever. Let’s call him Billy. Billy was a young black man from inner-city Worcester in the middle of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. A child of poverty, a single mother, two younger siblings, and no real direction in his life. He was good at basketball, funny, stylish, and socially awkward as hell. He got a mentor from the organization I worked for back then, which provided support for families associated with the Department of Children and Families in Massachusetts. Often, this partnership with a family meant a death sentence for their nuclear families; eyes in the home, the state breathing down their necks, and a clinical coldness that sent chills down the spines of most of my well-meaning parents I worked with. Fortunately, supervisors, mentors, other clinicians, and clients taught me that a relationship with one person could mean much more than state-led intervention, and more about transformation.

So, Billy was my first foray into what it meant to have a transformational relationship. He reminded me a lot of myself. Awkward, socially anxious, weird in high school, and obviously affected by his home life. But until someone came into his life to ask him, no one had supported the deep emotional landscape that he held but couldn’t express. And thus lay my work.

We went on a car ride, played basketball (poorly by me), sat in the park, talked about girls, philosophized about life after high school, and on one fateful day, separated him from his family. With tears in my eyes, I still reflect on this moment. That boy had been abused, and I had been there to witness his story. His own mother - of course, with her own demons - lashed out in the only way she knew how at the time. And at 7 pm on a Monday evening, he was sent packing for foster homes and temporarily living spaces. His siblings were too.

Luckily, Billy had a happier ending than most kids I met. He was taken in by his parents in Connecticut, given a spot on the basketball team there, and started a new life in a different home.

To this day, I still think of that young man. So similar to me. But so wildly different. I had no idea what it meant to be a young black man from an abusive home. But I did know what it meant to be different, to feel that I had no voice, and to experience pain in a profound way.

Fast forward to the present, I built my practice upon this experience and the urging from other clinicians and supervisors alike to continue the transformational work of what it meant to be in relation to others. Not as some authority, but as a human going through life in tandem with a client. Of course, I had to go to therapy myself to decouple my own issues from my clients - as all good therapists do - but I never forgot the valuable lesson: At the moment that Billy needed it most, someone - a real relationship - was there to help. And thus bore the philosophy I so strongly adhere to: Real Therapy. helps people understand themselves through relationships and helps clinicians use relationships as a tool for change. The human relationship between clinicians and clients is paramount to any modality and new psychological philosophy…”

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