{"id":35380,"date":"2020-09-11T03:35:49","date_gmt":"2020-09-11T10:35:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=35380"},"modified":"2020-09-10T11:05:07","modified_gmt":"2020-09-10T18:05:07","slug":"want-to-be-a-therapist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2020\/09\/11\/want-to-be-a-therapist\/","title":{"rendered":"Want to be a therapist?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Avrum Nadigel\u2019s latest book, which he co-authored with the late Dr. David Freeman, is aimed at people contemplating a career in family therapy. (photo from Avrum Nadigel)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Therapist Avrum Nadigel\u2019s latest book hit the shelves this month. Co-authored with the late Dr. David Freeman, Where Would You Like to Start: A Master Therapist on Beginning Psychotherapy with Families<\/em> is structured as a conversation or interview between veteran therapist Freeman and then-newish therapist Nadigel.<\/p>\n

Nadigel is a family marriage therapist based in Toronto. Originally from Montreal, where he had worked for the Jewish community for years, he moved to Vancouver for a spell. It was here that he met Freeman (who passed away in 2010).<\/p>\n

Freeman had brought in various therapists to speak on marriage, love and respect at different events. Attending these lectures, Nadigel found what the therapists had to say \u201credundant and I didn\u2019t find it very helpful for me. I had a pretty severe case of fear of commitment, and they all rambled on about the same thing. But, when David spoke, it blew my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

About a year after hearing Freeman speak, Nadigel met, online, the woman who would become his wife, Dr. Aliza Israel. \u201cShe is from Vancouver, but was staying in Toronto at the time,\u201d said Nadigel. \u201cNow, we\u2019re married and have three kids. And that all started because of David\u2019s talk in Vancouver. David\u2019s talk introduced me to a type of therapy called family systems theory.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Nadigel read many books on the topic, including Freeman\u2019s, which made Nadigel rethink his previously held suppositions about relationships and marriage. \u201cI changed the way I practise with my own clients,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Nadigel moved to Toronto when he was accepted into a residency there. He started up a private practice and began to look for someone to mentor him. At his wife\u2019s suggestion, he reached out to Freeman in Vancouver, who, although semi-retired, was happy to supervise Nadigel via Skype.<\/p>\n

Nadigel recalled some of the game-changing ways in which Freeman changed his way of thinking.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was single, if I felt anxious or not good in a relationship, I was taught that this meant there was something wrong,\u201d said Nadigel by way of example. A relationship \u201cshould be lovely, giving and with good communication, but, as soon as I get anxious, I bolt. Then, David comes around and goes \u2026 \u2018Perhaps your own internal states of anxiety have nothing to do with the people you\u2019re dating, but with your own internal struggle itself.\u2019 It really changed how I saw discomforting feelings in intimate relationships. It helped me sit with them longer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thinking about his eventual marriage to Israel, Nadigel said, \u201cI often think back to that time and think, \u2018How did all this work?\u2019 Maybe, it was one part luck, one part theory and one part having a good therapist in my corner.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to Freeman\u2019s counsel, Nadigel has done much study on family systems, notably he did post-graduate training with the Western Pennsylvania Family Centre, which teaches Bowen family systems theory, as formulated by the late Dr. Murray Bowen, a psychiatrist and founder of the theory.<\/p>\n

Recalling his conversations with Freeman, Nadigel said, \u201cDavid was very worried about two things. Number one, that people were focusing too much on hacks and behavioural changes, and that the system was much more powerful than that \u2026 and that the system would often, not always, but often, thwart any attempts the individual would try to make the change. So, he was very concerned that there were so few therapists offering a larger perspective about human suffering.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe second thing he was very worried about \u2013 I think this is because he was a grandfather at the time of his death, he had two grandkids \u2013 was about the disconnect from wise elders in society. I think that\u2019s really coming home to roost right now, the fact that we have the hashtag on Twitter, where it says, \u2018BoomerRemover.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people are thinking that, well, it\u2019s good about this coronavirus \u2013 it\u2019s going to kill off all the old people and there\u2019ll be more condos. I don\u2019t know what the hell they are thinking but we really do see the elderly as an inconvenience in a lot of cases, and David thought this creates an impoverished culture \u2013 that, when you think of traditional society, it\u2019s the elders who share life lessons that can only be acquired over time, through adversity and history. You can read a book, but it\u2019s very different if an elder tells you what it was like to survive the Blitz in Britain. And David thought that young people in their marriages were impoverished, because of their lack of connection.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, with those two things,\u201d said Nadigel, \u201cI thought, maybe, if I can somehow convince David to write another book, I could be the young green therapist and he could be the senior guy. He could speak to me and motivate the next generation of therapists.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought to myself that it should be snappy and quick.\u2026 I threw him the idea and I think the same day he got back to me and said he thought the format\u2019s viable \u2013 except that, in this case, it would be Skype calls between a young therapist and a senior therapist\u2026. We quickly started working on this once a week.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen, David had the manuscript and was going on vacation,\u201d said Nadigel. \u201cWe had a few more chapters to write; he really liked where the book was going. Then, I got an email from him, a very brief email, which was odd, because he was much more verbose. It just asked if I could call him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought, that doesn\u2019t sound good, that maybe he was going to say the book sucks. I called, and it was his now-widow [Judith Anastasia], who answered, and she said, \u2018Avrum, I\u2019m sorry to tell you, but David died of a heart attack while we were cycling in Croatia.\u2019 I couldn\u2019t believe it. It was a crazy summer. My dad died, my son was born and David died.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"image<\/a>Several years later, with Anastasia\u2019s blessing and to honour Freeman\u2019s memory and work, Nadigel started to complete their book.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe book gives you a taste of a master therapist, to experience the wisdom and thinking he brought to thousands of families and couples he\u2019s worked with over 40 years,\u201d explained Nadigel. \u201cAnd, once you finish the book, you might feel it\u2019s your responsibility now to go and further your training in this area.<\/p>\n

\u201cDavid\u2019s life work was helping people understand that, if you want to do well with your own personal goals and struggles and gridlock, you have to understand what you\u2019re up against,\u201d said Nadigel. \u201cAnd you don\u2019t do that by just talking about your neurotransmitters and serotonin and dopamine, or meditation\u2026. It\u2019s about certain ways of the here and now, that you either distance or connect through relationships that are happening right now \u2013 that are happening with your mother, your father, your sister, your aunt, your cousin. The work is staring you right in the face right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Family system coaching, consultation or therapy, said Nadigel, is based on \u201cthe theory and the road map of going back and reworking through some of the gridlock in your family. And those people who are successful at doing something and thinking differently [about] their problems with their relationships \u2013 siblings, spouse, kids, whatever \u2013 [are] bringing those successes to every relationship. And that does not happen in the clinician\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlso, this type of therapy understands that human beings don\u2019t get into problems because of their thinking \u2013 they get into problems because they are flooded with feelings\u2026. It tries to promote good thinking to balance out strong feelings, toward being a little more strategic in how you conduct yourself in your relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Nadigel himself is an example of how the approach can work.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve often thought that, if I was reading about this book, the interesting angle I always found \u2026 is that I was a punk rock alternative musician in Montreal. I was commitment-phobic and really saw marriage and family, marriage considerably, as the death knell of all that\u2019s good in life \u2013 [that it\u2019s] boring and sucks the nectar out of a good life. Then, David comes along in Vancouver and he just creates a profound paradigm shift in me, and I have come to a wildly different understanding. I\u2019ve become a marriage therapist myself, a father, all this kind of stuff, so a pretty fundamental transition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was one of these people that, once upon a time, really had a strong distaste for the very thing I\u2019ve embraced,\u201d said Nadigel. \u201cIt really is all credit to this one little talk in Vancouver in the JCC. There\u2019s hope there. It doesn\u2019t take years and years. It could be a 50-minute talk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nadigel has created a blog and podcast to support the new book. To access it, visit nadigel.com\/start<\/a>. Electronic and hard copy versions of Where Would You Like to Start<\/em> are available at amazon.ca<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rebeca Kuropatwa <\/strong>is a Winnipeg freelance writer.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Avrum Nadigel\u2019s latest book, which he co-authored with the late Dr. David Freeman, is aimed at people contemplating a career in family therapy. (photo from Avrum Nadigel) Therapist Avrum Nadigel\u2019s latest book hit the shelves this month. Co-authored with the late Dr. David Freeman, Where Would You Like to Start: A Master Therapist on Beginning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35381,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[784],"tags":[4827,1654,1997,8727,6277,4688],"class_list":["post-35380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","tag-avrum-nadigel","tag-david-freeman","tag-mental-health","tag-psychology","tag-relationships","tag-therapy"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}