Q&A - Cynthia Young, MSW, LCSW
1. Tell me about the side of you that others may not see- the side that makes you a unique therapist/practitioner/counselor.
I suppose a unique part of me may be my endless ability to see the grey. How this aspect of my personality plays out in life is not always a benefit. Give me only a sketch of a problem and ask me for quick advice -- I’m not your person. Need to partner around designing a new room in your home -- likely never to get done if I’m involved! But there seems to be a small gift in this -- or at least I feel some appreciation for this attribute. I look at things from many angles and seek to understand nuances of communication with greater depth and clarity. In my practice as a family and couples therapist my appreciation for ambiguity and uncertainty encourages various members of a family to feel understood, valued, and held simultaneously, while allowing me to take the various shades of grey and weave them into a common narrative about desires and possibilities for connection and belonging.
2. What was a significant event in your life that helped to shape you as a therapist/practitioner/counselor?
By far, raising my 3 children has shaped me the most in how I practice family therapy. I have learned first-hand how different temperaments and personalities affect how children express feelings, seek reassurance, venture toward independence, and respond in their own unique ways to challenging life experiences. Raising my children, now 15, 17 and 20, has humbled me deeply. I have learned just how difficult it is to get parenting “right” and use this awareness to connect with clients in their varying degrees and expressions of pain, heartache, and determination to find peace in their family life. This awareness allows me to enter into a family’s experience from a place of deep connection, helping to uncover hidden strengths and collaboratively create a path forward into healthier and more satisfying patterns of interaction.
3. What do you think of Tolstoy’s 1877 observation, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." ?
When I think about the concept of happy versus unhappy families, I think more of the continuum of a family’s experience from deep joy to life-threatening despair. So what brings joy among family members? Moments of connection, expressions of love, and family members feeling nurtured by one another. These experiences, to me, are universal indicators of joy and happiness for all humans. And when we think about the many different ways family members interact which can lead to despair, the iterations seem endless. How many ways are there to disconnect from one’s parents? Express disapproval and judgement of one’s children? Ignore or dismiss one’s partner? Many, many ways! I wonder if this is what Tolsoy was thinking about.
4. If you could ask your 7-year-old self for a piece of advice, what would he or she say?
Now we’re going way back! Let’s see...what was I up to at age 7? Those were the days when I played alone a lot of the time. My sister was 3 years my senior and was busy with the girly things in life, but I was fueled by the time I spent outdoors, and was driven by a rich imagination. I spent endless hours digging in the dirt, finding rocks to build things with, making forts in the woods, and climbing trees. So what wisdom would that 7-year-old self impart to me? “Remember to keep your feet bare and feel the earth under you, always find time for being completely alone with only your mind to keep you company, climb as high as you can...and then just a bit higher, and never, ever, stop creating”.
5. What do you do to renew , refresh, or otherwise keep it together?
When I practice what I preach, and afford myself the time to care for myself, I am most rejuvenated by my time at the pottery wheel. There is something about the rhythm of the work that feeds my soul-- cutting the clay, settling in at the wheel, and letting my hands form various vessels. There’s a certain releasing of control that comes over me. I both trust my instincts and skill, while honoring the clay’s ideas about what it wants to become. Letting go of all thought of what is transpiring outside my studio, I allow my focus to be consumed with the sensory input of wet clay turning under my hands, muscles engaged in careful tension with the piece, the scent of clay, the hum of the wheel. I am transported there to a place of calm and peace, and emerge renewed and refreshed.
6. What advice would you give your 16-year-old self?
What a question to ask! This is a tough one. In reflecting on myself at 16, I have a visceral feeling of internal tension about who I was, and how much of myself I showed to others. There was a reservation about me, which was misunderstood over my years. So I suppose, if I had the opportunity to impart some wisdom on my 16-year-old self, I would say, “Hold on to who you know you are, and help those who come into relationship with you along the way know you more deeply”.