Exploring the Life and Poetry of Emily Dickinson

A Riveting Story of Raw Emotion. . . “Dad, I let you down!" Part 2 of 2   Special Announcement  The long awaited Feeling Great App is now available in app stores. IOS and android! Check it out. Take a free ride!

And now, on with the exciting conclusion of the personal work Dr. Jill Levitt and I did with Chris, along with a fabulous followup interview you will hear at the end of the session.

I hope you enjoyed the session with Chis, and hope you found it inspiring. His message of hope and joy could be helpful and inspiring to any of you who may be struggling, and feeling, as he was, that you're just "not good enough." His work is, of course, important from a psychological perspective, because it illustrates the powerful steps of TEAM in a sequence that brought Chris from the depths of despair to the peaks of enlightenment. However, as you will hear in the postscript dialogue, the work for sure takes on a spiritual and mystical quality for sure!

When you hear Chris live during the follow-up interview at the end of Part 2 of this two-part podcast, you will not be disappointed!

Postscript

As I mentioned earlier, I was overjoyed when I learned that Chris had unexpectedly changed his mind and offered us the chance to publish his personal work and provide a follow-up recording of how he’s doing now.

Here’s my email to him just prior to the follow-up recording.

Hi Chris,

I’m assuming that Rhonda will coordinate this and she has us scheduled for this Friday, I believe. When it is 4 PM in your time zone, what time is it in our time zone? Are you two hours later?

I just reviewed my chart notes from a year or so ago, and it will be terrific to reconnect with you. I deeply appreciate the chance to share your session with our many listeners, as it is full of raw emotion and is riveting. You are making a super strong statement to the world, to my way of thinking, and it takes incredible courage to say, “This is me! I am very real, and sometimes very raw!”

I think many people suffer due to thinking that everyone else is somehow “better” than they are, and that they are somehow “not good enough.” That is perhaps the main theme I hear when doing clinical work, and that includes my work with mental health professionals who are equally vulnerable to this kind of thinking.

What triggered your decision to go public, so to speak. And how might this impact your students, and their parents, and so forth?

Hopefully, we can chat this Friday about those and any other questions or topics that touch or interest you. It will be great to get caught up on your past year!

If Jill or Rhonda want to add your thoughts, please do! To me, this is a very significant occasion to have the chance to connect with you, Chris, again! The work you did is among the most powerful and impactful ever in my memory, although every time we do live work it is pretty incredible to my way of thinking, especially when people become “real,” whatever that means!

Humans have a dark side, to be sure to my way of thinking, but something incredibly beautiful and amazing can emerge.

I am babbling so will stop. But I am so excited to talk to you again, Chris!

Warmly, david

Thank you for listening, and please let us know what you think.

if you are a therapist, and want to learn how to do this, consider attending the summer intensive from August 8 to 11, on line, or in person at the South San Francisco Conference Center (ten minutes from the SF airport.) See the details and a link below, or go to www.cbtintensive.com.

Chris, Rhonda, Jill, and David

Click for registration / more information!