Meet Brian Luhmann, Psy.D

 

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Brian Luhmann, Psy.D. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Brian below.

Brian , we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

As a psychotherapist, professor, over-thinker, and husband, I have always wondered about this question, which has been a theme of daily life. So please bear with me if I seem to go long and tangential with this one. Since adolescence, I have found brief moments where everything feels right with my place in the world, and I am on the “right” path with everything flowing. Alas, a sense of Purpose! Then, as surely as it came, something would challenge it, and I would be back on my search for purpose, feeling like I was working out of sync with my natural abilities. This process has led me through some incredible highs and lows, traveling to places I have never imagined and endless people who have left lasting impacts.

I generally considered myself a shy and introverted person, so taking in a conversation and learning how to respond with the least words possible was a habit. In doing this I found that people would let me know I was easy to talk to, and they felt heard when we spoke. I never thought much of it, and just thought it was just from my genuine interest in the stories we all have. It wasn’t until a Deputy in Florida pointed out that this ability can be put to great use in psychotherapy, that I even considered it much as something that can be helpful outside of social settings.

I know an interaction with a Deputy on my journey for purpose, might need some additional explanation. I had just graduated with a B.S. in Psychology with a minor in Economics, during the 2000’s economic crisis. My goal was to go into a master’s degree in I/O Psychology (workplace psychology). I wasn’t accepted to the programs I was seeking and ended up getting into a Master’s in Experimental Psychology program in Florida. The only job I could get was a front desk clerk at a small hotel during the graveyard shift. I quickly realized I could not keep up with the demands of school after working all night, and I dropped out of the program. Defeated, I stuck with working at the hotel and attempted to figure out what was next for me. I was just dealing with whatever chaos arose in a hotel off I-95 in the middle of the night. Every so often there were escalated conflicts at the hotel, mostly between family members, and I would work to de-escalate the situations by listening. In several of these instances, the Sheriff’s department would show up. Following one of these conflicts, the Deputy talked with me and let me know that usually, when they respond to these calls, it is a disaster, and usually the lobby is destroyed. He noted that when I am on duty, nothing is destroyed or damaged. So we talked about how I talk and listen to them, which seems to de-escalate the situations. He then asked if I considered working as a counselor. He then suggested I look into it, as whatever I do in these crisis situations is something that is needed in the field. At the time, I had fears about working with people with mental health issues, but I started challenging it with what the Deputy had said. Eventually, I realized I didn’t want to stay where I was without purpose, and I applied to several counseling programs. I then found myself moving to California and going to school for a Master’s in Clinical Psychology, Specializing in Marriage and Family Therapy.

It was at this point everything started clicking and it felt like I was able to go with my natural abilities instead of resisting them. I was learning how to work with people and families clinically, and seeing how to use my natural ability to help others more than I would have thought possible. During this time, my Aunt Mo (Executive Director of Sandy Feet Initiative) taught me to surf and helped me to find a flow to day-to-day life which helped to ease my overthinking. I just kept finding myself thriving and looking for more ways to grow and help people. More and more, I developed a sense of purpose I was intoxicated with.

During my time in the Master’s program, I studied abroad in Thailand. We studied medication and yoga for therapists and worked with an orphanage. Before the trip I was working as a counselor in an elementary school. Working with the orphanage challenged my sense of purpose, and if it was enough. In my overthinking state, I decided I wanted to see if teaching other clinicians would be a way to expand the impact on the world. This led me to start my Doctorate of Psychology (Psy.D.) in Marital and Family Therapy degree.

At this point, my thirst for knowledge, life, and fostering relationships kept growing. And it felt right. It was at this point I met my wife Dr. Crystal Ishihara (CEO of Ishihumann, Inc., and @ishihara.ink). Crystal was/is also an over-thinker and strives to improve the lives of others through each interaction. She helped me and continues to support me in having purpose, in and outside of work. After graduating with my Psy.D., I focused on earning clinical experience to get licensed as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and teaching in a graduate clinical psychology program. Using whatever extra time to travel with Crystal to see the world and build our own relationships with those in our lives.

After earning my LMFT and getting married to Crystal in the same year, I was fulfilled but still looking for growth in purpose. This is when I was recruited to teach part-time at Hope International University (HIU) in their Master’s MFT program. Though starting this additional experience I realized that this drive to support those training to become psychotherapists is something that is more important to me than I previously realized. So, I continued teaching graduate courses and expanding my experience as an LMFT in various clinics. Eventually, I decided the best way to focus on teaching was to open my own therapy practice so I could set my own schedule and work with students more readily.

With Crystal supporting this change (even helping by building the website and creating a logo, letterhead, and business cards), I started The New Normal Mental Health Services in January 2020. As we all know what happened in the following months. Fortunately, higher education was able to still engage online, and I found myself busier teaching more classes and supporting more students than ever. This was then followed by Summer 2020 when there was a surge in people seeking psychotherapy. I found myself working with both students and clients through the most stressful of times and found I was able to feel mostly in sync with my abilities and engage my sense of purpose with fulfillment.

A few years ago, HIU announced they were going to start a DMFT program and asked me to be a full-time faculty to help develop and teach in the program. I generously accepted this opportunity to not only support clinical students but also help build a program to train them. This is what I had been searching for!

Fast-forwarding past the stressors of building a doctorate program to having a couple of graduated classes completed, I have found myself reflecting (aka over-thinking) on my purpose. That was until I was asked by Dr. Laura Steele, Dean of the College of Psychology and Counseling at HIU to a panel of faculty: “What do you enjoy about teaching in the DMFT program?” My immediate response was that I wanted to exact the most change possible, and to me, that means being a part of not only training the clinicians but also the future leaders of the field. My answer surprised me. To that point I never considered that not only is that what I have wanted, but it is what I am doing. Since that moment a few months ago, I have noticed a great feeling of being content. I feel more present and engaged with friends, family, clients, students, and myself. I have finally been able to trust myself and flow with my abilities, instead of fighting against them. I can see my purpose and I am living towards it.

From this, I feel like I have more recently settled into a period of acceptance of myself and security for what I see as my purpose:

To exact as much impact as I can helping others foster relationships with themselves, others, and the world around them.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

This may seem out of place, but the thing that I have had the most with recently is being a Voice of Shame on the animated series “Oh, Bubba!” (Season 1, Episode 4: Oh, Book Club Amazon Prime Video & YouTube]; and Christmas Special [YouTube]). When the creating team Jen Ha Lu, Ralph Lee Miranda, and Daisy Miranda, asked me to be a Voice of Shame. I laughed about them asking a psychotherapist to be the role of Shame, and then just had the best time recording the parts. It has been an awesome experience seeing how my professional experience can be used in a creative space. I have had a blast with them. Being brought into their wide circle of artists and friends, anything seems possible.

Professionally, I am working to grow my psychotherapy practice, The New Normal Mental Health Services. Currently, I am working on merging collaborative efforts with Dr. Crystal Ishihara (of Ishihumann, Inc., and @ishihara.ink) to add team building, creative works, and expand consulting to services that we can offer to the community. Over the next year; I hope to bring on additional therapists and start building a training program for Associate Marriage and Family Therapists (AMFTs) to earn their clinical hours while working rotations in the various areas of the practice. The idea is to help therapists get hands-on experience running all the different aspects of a psychotherapy practice. Running a practice is not something that many programs are able to cover in their curriculum; however, it is something many graduating therapists aspire to learn. Part of this expansion will be a training and certification program for Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR). EMDR is an evidence-based therapy to treat trauma, for which I am currently an EMDR International Association (EMDRIA) approved consultant. The training and consultations needed for certification can be quite cost-prohibited. With it being an effective type of treatment that clients are looking for, I want to help make this more accessible for therapists. I just want to see therapists gain comfort in running their practices, getting the support for evidence-based practices, and, through that, be able to provide the best care to our clients and communities.

As a Professor at Hope International University’s (HIU) Doctorate of Marriage and Family Therapy (DMFT)
program, I am looking forward to another incoming class of students to support their journey to being leaders in the MFT field. Outside of the classroom, I have been working with the Trauma Response Network (TRN) to help work towards a model for EMDR research, to help provide direction and ease of reaching the wider academic audience with the good work EMDR therapists are doing across the world. I am excited to see how this develops and impacts global communities over time.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Listening, Trusting, and Trying.

Listening for me is observing. I was told that even as a baby, I would just watch, listen, and take in people and the world around me. I now know this as curiosity which I am able to enjoy and now use in everyday life. I cannot count the number of times I have listened/observed something, and then I am speaking with someone, and I pull some seemingly random information (which I did not consciously know was there), and it is a helpful piece of information to relate around. This is something that just seemed weird to me before, but more recently, I have found that it is a part of me that when I Trust in it, I am able to enjoy the interconnectedness of my experiences.

That leads me to Trust. Trusting myself is something I used to struggle with. The anxiety around making a correct decision would leave me in analysis paralysis (honestly still does from time to time). However, when I step back, relax for a moment, listen to my intuition (aka my gut), and trust it, everything seems to go well. Growing up, my parents both constantly ensured that I had “a good head on my shoulders” and that if I trusted myself, I would end up where I needed to be. I fought this for a long time, but when I slowed down my critical thinking by “zooming out” to the big picture, I was on the path I needed to be on and can Trust myself to keep Trying whatever I am doing.

By Listening and Trusting the stage is set for Trying. I find myself more and more able to keep Trying new things and let the knowledge and my abilities navigate whatever it may be. Through my Journey I have constantly found a drive to Try. My parents raised me with a “at least try it once” mentality, which has led to being a Wanderlust. Over time this has led me to be opportunistic and “yes” to new experiences that arise. This has led me to adventures all over the world. From driving cross country alone to drinking Arak with a Balinese healer to surfing 3 oceans, jumping off the Victoria Falls Bridge, proposing on the Great Wall, getting a doctoral degree, becoming a therapist and professor, launching my own practice, and even recording the voice of Shame. All is possible only because I kept Trying and learning through each and every experience (good or bad), which I can take forward to shape the next parts of my life.

My advice is to learn to Listen to your gut/body and what others see in you as strengths/abilities. Trust in those strengths by slowing down mental comparing to others. Comparing will sow distrust in yourself and can result in fighting against your abilities. Try opportunities that come your way. By Trying, you can learn about how to use your abilities in a way you may not know existed.

What was the most impactful thing your parents did for you?

My parents valued my brother and me being exposed to the world and the experiences through travel, cultural events, participating in sports, music, nature, really everything. They also made sure this was done while being goal-oriented. Both my brother and I were in the Boy Scouts of America. On both of our routes towards earning Eagle Scout we learned to plan, manage, budget, and execute events/trips/projects. What happened as a result of this was learning how to problem-solve situations, in the direction of small and large goals. It helped foster what my parents called “stick-to-i-tive-ness, that as long as we stick with it, we can eventually figure out what we need to.

This led to having some working knowledge about a lot of different things. For a while, I felt like this led me to be the Master of None. However, I have found that these values and experiences have shaped me to be able to relate to others through sometimes these random nuggets of information I have picked up along the way. Whether it is actually having been to where they are from, knowing someone from that general area, or having a point of reference for something they do or a group they are a part of, it all helps build rapport and start a conversation. I can now see that it has been an essential ability of mine all throughout the various points of my Journey.

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Image Credits

Dr. Crystal Ishihara (New Normal Logo)
Ralph Lee Miranda (Oh Bubba Lu! Poster)

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