We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Angela Caldwell. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Angela below.
Angela, 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.
I studied to become a therapist after failing at a couple of other careers, because I found that no matter where I was, I was good with people and interpersonal dynamics. I could see things happening between people that others couldn’t see, and I imagine I was blessed with this gift because I came from a difficult family myself. In therapy school, however, I was presented with several options for a professional identity: I could become a psychoanalyst and delve into the deepest parts of the human psyche to uncover secret motivations for why someone made the decisions they did. Or I could become a behaviorist and root myself in learning theory, narrowly focusing on how someone had learned what they learned and what I could do to modify that learning. But I happened to be in my own intensive therapy while I was in school, and the majority of my therapy was focused on the wounds that had been inflicted in my own family, both on me and by me. To be honest, I hated my story. I hated what I was discovering about the truth of my family, and was bound and determined to fix it. So I spent the better part of a decade working with my family, member by member, to heal old wounds and resolve old conflicts. And it worked. Despite alarming levels of abuse, denial, manipulation, and cruelty, we were able to overcome. We buried about a million hatchets (we’ve still got a million left to go), and our relationships are stronger and closer than they have ever been. And that was it! If I could do this with my intensely challenging family, surely I could help other families do it too. I had found my purpose–family therapy–and threw myself into it with every fiber of my being.
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?
I am the Founder and Director of the Caldwell Family Institute, and we are doing something pretty out-of-the-box. On the surface, we are simply a group of talented family therapists and coaches who help families work through stress and conflict. That part’s normal. What’s not normal is how we do it. Rather than follow the traditional model of old-fashioned therapy where you sit with a therapist at weekly appointments and talk about your feelings, we use a “full court press” strategy to help families make the necessary changes faster. Sound intimidating? It probably is at first. At CFI, you don’t have just one therapist or coach. You are actually assigned one lead clinician who works with the family all together, then you are assigned additional “auxiliary” therapists or coaches who work one-one-one or one-on-two to focus on personal resentments or fears that stand in the way of true change. Your personal therapist then attends all family sessions with you, so that your views are supported and represented, almost like a mediation process. We have found that attacking the problem at multiple angles simultaneously (there’s your full court press) allows us to shorten the duration of therapy, and resolve several problematic dynamics at the same time, making therapy faster and cheaper.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
The first quality that has helped me immensely is going to sound really counterintuitive, especially coming from a therapist, and that’s emotional detachment. I know it seems backwards, but the more I stay detached from my client’s experience, the better I can see the whole picture, and therefore be of more help. Emotional detachment also helps me to not invest in any particular outcome, and if I can resist that urge, my client can exercise true autonomy in their decision-making, free from a therapist’s influence. Clients shouldn’t be swayed by their therapists to go in one direction or the other, and when that happens, it’s often because the therapist has become too emotionally involved. Our job is that of a torch bearer, not a navigator. Holding that in mind maximizes the effectiveness of the therapy, because our clients get the satisfaction of exercising control over their own lives.
The second quality would have to be skepticism. I learned the hard way that if I take what my clients are saying as gospel, then I form opinions (sometimes entire narratives) about a person or people I’ve never met. In many cases, I would later meet this person that I had already decided was terrible, and be embarrassed to discover how one-sided and incomplete my view was. Years of experience taught me that believing only half of what my clients are telling me is not only prudent and respectful of other people, but allows me to point out possibilities and opportunities my clients don’t recognize because of what they have stubbornly decided about other people. Staying skeptical of what I’m being told serves as a constant reminder of how much I don’t know, thereby positioning me to effectively challenge my clients’ rigid beliefs.
Lastly, I have worked very hard in recent years to develop a generous sense of forgiveness. Forgiveness for humans being human. Forgiveness for flaws and mistakes and poor judgment calls and moments of weakness. Forgiveness even for intentional acts of harm. Humans are careless and impulsive, fearful and defensive, and the more understanding and acceptance I have for that, the better I position myself to help them rise above it. Forgiving others for their human nature makes them more receptive to my point of view, and often more likely to experience the appropriate remorse and shame that will allow them to start healing whatever caused the infraction in the first place.
I’m realizing that the qualities and skills coming to mind all come down to humility. Emotional detachment takes my ego out of the equation by placing control in the hands of my clients. Skepticism is a powerful check against my natural tendency to make assertions and assumptions. And my ability to forgive has often come from a recognition of my own failures and bad habits. I guess my advice for incoming therapists would be to take a daily dose of humility, and remember that we’re all humans who know only part of the story and are filled with imperfections. Now, go and do your job from that position and see how much more powerful your work becomes.
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
I am always looking for therapists and coaches to join the team, but we have a very particular style that isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. While we are, of course, kind and respectful toward our clients, we do not place rapport at the center of the therapy. Instead, we trust that the rapport will come from the confidence we demonstrate in our approach, and the consistency with which we challenge our clients. We believe in direct communication, even of uncomfortable observations, and that it shows a client that we respect their intelligence. We believe that healing family wounds does not mean becoming a mother or a father figure, but rather keeping a healthy distance from our clients that allows enough room for the actual mother or father to step in and give it another try. We believe that improving a client’s self-esteem does not happen with the therapist’s words of encouragement, but with a thoughtful confrontation of a client’s inauthenticity.
This means that we are not looking for the stereotypical therapist who simply validates and nurtures. We are looking for people who are both comfortable with confrontation and skilled in quelling anxiety during the confrontation. We are looking for people who can balance uncomfortable conversations with a hopeful optimism and faith in the family’s ability to heal themselves. If this describes you, then we are dying to meet you! Reach out to the institute and tell us more about yourself.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.caldwellfamilyinstitute.com
