HONOR YOUR MENTOR PROGRAM
Contest Entry Requirements
2012 Winning
Essay
2012 Honor Your
Mentor Essays
2011 Honor Your
Mentor Essays
Make A
Donation in Honor of Your Mentor
Honor Your
Mentor Contribution Listings
The Group Foundation for Advancing Mental Health officially launched the “Honor Your
Mentor” program in the fall of 2009 as a campaign of appreciation,
recognizing mentors and emphasizing their importance in fostering the
personal and professional development of group psychotherapists. It is
an opportunity for individuals to express their personal appreciation
for their mentors and the direct and indirect gifts they have given
them.
A highlight of the program is an essay contest in which entrants honor
the mentor of their choice. Each year, entries
are evaluated and the winner is chosen by the Group Foundation’s Scholarship
and Awards Committee.
Entry requirements are
as follows:
- The essay should
honor an individual who was significant in your life; perhaps a
grandparent, a professor, a colleague, a giant in the field, a
childhood friend, etc. (The definition is purposefully broad with
the key component being that they made a difference in your life.)
- The essay should
be no more than 300 words and highlight the significance of this
individual’s impact on you.
- The essay must
be submitted to the Group Foundation electronically by
November 15, 2011 to
dfeirman@agpa.org.
- All entries will
be evaluated and the winner chosen by the Group Foundation’s Scholarship
and Awards Committee.
The
winner and their mentor, along with the all the other honored
mentor/mentee relationships,
are recognized at the Group Foundation's Luncheon during the AGPA Annual Meeting. The
winning essay is then published in the spring issue of the Group
Foundation's
newsletter, Group Assets.
Additionally, all
the Honor Your Mentor essays for the contest year are published later on
the AGPA website for the appreciation of the membership as well as a
source of motivation for future contests.
This year’s inaugural Group Foundation Honor Your Mentor initiative received
enthusiastic response from the AGPA membership. Prepare to be inspired
as you read the 2010 winning essay first and then the full collection of
this year’s heartwarming essays!
* **
The 2012 Winning
Essay
Keith Rand in
Honor of Priscilla Kauff
Honoring my Mentor:
Priscilla Kauff, Ph.D., DFAGPA
Little did I know when
I enrolled in the Washington School’s two-year National Group
Psychotherapy Institute in 2004 that my group work, indeed all of my
clinical work, would go through such a radical revisioning. I had
merely expected to develop a deepened level of competence as a group
leader. But when Priscilla Kauff was invited by Macario Giraldo to
present one weekend, and within only a few minutes of her speaking to
us, I knew that she was someone very special.
Whether it was her
warmth, the certainty with which she cleaved to her theory, or the
clarity with which she explained working analytically as a group
therapist (in itself, a radical idea to me, given what I had heard about
contaminating transferences in my studies at a Los Angeles
psychoanalytic institute), she had me in the palm of her hand. I leaned
towards my friend and whispered, "I'm not sure if I want to be in
treatment with that lady or whether I wish she had been my mother."
Several months later
in Austin, I enrolled in Priscilla's workshop, The Group from Hell, because
one of my three groups WAS that group. The level of competence in the
room intimidated me, but Priscilla was very encouraging and by the
workshop's end, much of my anxiety had dissipated. She recognized in me
something I couldn't see clearly in myself, something to do with my
readiness for more complex thinking about group process than anything
I’d previously known. This is the true mark of a mentor – seeing your
potential in a way that outstrips your own self image.
Despite our living on
opposite coasts, she agreed to consult with me by Skype, which I’ve done
for the last five years. My work has deepened enormously, my group and
individual clients have both benefited from the change, and I have moved
towards my goal of becoming more of a “master group therapist”. She has
cared about me personally, has encouraged me to step out -- to supervise
a student in China and to teach and supervise more -- but mostly she’s
loved me into a better group therapist. I am and will always be
eternally grateful for Priscilla’s mentoring.
-
Keith Rand, LMFT, CGP, FAGPA
* **
The 2012 Collection of Honor Your Mentor Essays
Robert Schulte in Honor of John Dluhy
I want to recognize John Dluhy, M.D., CGP,
FAGPA as a mentor who has been instrumental in my development as a group
therapist, writer and theater director. I also want to recognize John
for his personal authenticity and passionate commitment to his own work,
whether he’s in the consulting room, classroom or on the stage. I’ve had
the considerable privilege of witnessing John practice in all three
venues. His example of excellence is a universal kind of mentoring that
is a gift to anyone who has the chance to work with him.
Although John has opened many professional
doors on my behalf, it is our ongoing collaboration as founding members
of the Red Well Theater Group, a troupe of Washington, D.C. therapists
using theater to teach principles of dynamic group therapy that
continues to be of singular importance in my professional life. The
RWTG project, with all its attendant risks and opportunities, has been
bolstered by John’s unique blend of talent, personal example,
intentional mentorship and collegiality, for which I am deeply grateful.
John has been acting in plays, television and films for over sixty
years, an impressive shadow professional career that he has pursued
concurrently with his primary professional career as a psychiatrist. He
is a past president of the Mid-Atlantic Group Psychotherapy Society and
is highly regarded as a longstanding faculty member at AGPA Annual
Meetings. He is well known for his many contributions in the fields of
psychoanalytic psychiatry and group therapy as a leader, teacher, writer
and master therapist.
Members of the group therapy community
know of John’s acting talents through RWTG performances at AGPA and
other conference settings. His character roles have included Marc in
‘ART’, Don in Rounding Third, Edward in Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me,
Charlie in Off the Map, Howie in Rabbit Hole, Van in Dog Sees God:
Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead and Alan in God of Carnage. Behind
the scenes, John has been instrumental in helping shape our unique
project of using performances, workshops and play reading study groups
to learn about dynamic group therapy. Beyond his acting gifts, John’s
enthusiasm, attunement and commitment to the process of developing a
cohesive work group have been very important to our success and
longevity. I watch. I learn. I marvel.
I’d like to share a personal anecdote as
testament to John’s abiding interest in the professional growth of this
colleague. A few years ago I was invited to submit a journal article
for a special issue of Group on the topic of Lacan and group therapy.
Even thought I had not yet written for publication, I accepted the
invitation confident that the nearly two years to deadline would be
enough time to ensure success. Wrong. My premise of using the stage play
‘ART’, by Yasmina Reza, to illustrate Lacanian concepts applied to group
therapy turned out to be something akin to a novice skier choosing a
black diamond ski-mountain to make his first downhill run! After
struggling for a year to produce about twenty pages of text, I finally
had the good sense to read the first draft to John for comments. After
reading aloud the first two pages, John commented, “wow, that was really
nice”. Emboldened, I continued on with the next eighteen pages. Let’s
just say the published version kept the first two pages unaltered. I
went home that afternoon and decided to delete the last eighteen pages,
with a calm acceptance that something different was needed and that I
would find it. John knew me well enough to balance his response to the
full breadth of my paper with a sensitivity that avoided the pitfalls of
shame and defeat but with a fully informed and educative approach that
would guide me down the unfamiliar and very slippery slope of academic
writing. His very disciplined yet compassionate guidance was vintage
Dluhy. John also knew the play ‘ART’ very well, having played all three
roles of Marc, Yvan and Serge in various repertory productions and
rehearsals for the Red Well Theater Group. John’s breadth of knowledge
about group therapy, theater, and Lacan is encyclopedic, and I was the
beneficiary. The article was successfully published in the March 2010
issue of Group. I presented John with a framed copy of the article’s
cover page with a note of sincere thanks.
When I recently watched John deliver
Marc’s final monologue in ‘ART’ at a performance for a Saint Elizabeth
Hospital Residency Training Day, I felt an extra poignancy knowing what
I had accomplished with his mentoring guidance. From the audience I
watched John transform Marc’s contempt for a painting he did not like or
understand into a humbling moment of self-recognition and courage. I
watched. I learned. I marveled.
MARC:
“Under the white clouds, snow is falling. You can’t see the white clouds
or the
snow. Or
the cold, or the white glow of the earth. A solitary man glides downhill
on his
skis.
The snow is falling. It falls until the man disappears back into the
landscape.
My
friend Serge, who’s one of my oldest friends, has bought a painting.
It’s a canvas
about
five feet by four. It represents a man who moves across a space then
disappears”.
(Reza,
1996).
I am
honored to know John Dluhy as mentor, fellow thespian, colleague and
friend.
Bravo,
John!
Please direct ALL inquiries and application materials to:
Group Foundation for Advancing Mental Health
25 East 21st Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10010
Telephone: 212-477-2677 Toll-Free: 877-668-AGPA (2472) Fax:
212-979-6627
Email:
dfeirman@agpa.org
To make a
contribution to the Group Foundation for Advancing Mental Health,
click here to complete a
Group Foundation
Contribution Form.
The online Scholarship Applicant Profile document was
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