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Telehealth Services

Journey to Telehealth

 

SHOCK

On March 16th, 2020, my last client of the day came in at 8:00 PM in Berkeley, CA. I was confused. He was half a couple.

“Where’s your wife?” He looked at me and said, “Haven’t you heard?”

“Heard what?”

“California is shutting down – we are sheltering in place. She is home with the kid. We all have to go home.”

I had been in a room working with folks all day. I had not been out – I did not check the outside world while I was working.

I looked around my office of 34 years. I had scored the dining room in an old Victorian with Big Bay windows. This was my sanctuary along with hundreds of clients and students. I had art and photos gifted to me by clients. My aunt’s writing table sat behind me. The plant some dear friends had given me when I started had been re-potted so many times it now took up the Bay windows.

I turned off the sound machine outside my door and the building went silent. The government of California made it official on March 19th. I never saw another client in that room. I thought of all the therapists who turned off their sound machines and locked their doors. The impact of this was a slow sink, like rain in sand it just kept going down.

 

IMPACT

I learned Zoom in one day – I practiced for only one day. I then went back to work from the most private space I had in my house. I am an electronic dinosaur. I had never used any of this technology. I went kicking and screaming into the digital age. I was scared I would not have the same ability to relate on a screen. However, seeing people on screen was oddly familiar. I had done sessions on the phone with clients who had moved out of my area or were on vacation. But, it was not until I started taking new clients on telehealth that I understood all of the tools I had built out of 30+ years of watching and listening. The curiosity of how people work is available to me in any setting.

One day, after I heard a leaf blower right outside my home office window, I realized I needed to do my work someplace else.

 

RESULT

I moved to the Midwest to be in the middle of the woods with the trees and woodland creatures. I became licensed in Michigan. Currently, I move between California and Michigan. It has become normal to be welcomed into the homes, cars, and offices of clients. I am still an electronic dinosaur who has a love/hate relationship with a device instead of a Victorian office. However, it allows me to do the work I love and I am grateful for that in the peace and quiet of my woods.

“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come.”

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