24 Nov Autobiographical Statement for CIIS
I’m applying for a doctoral program and they require an Autobiographical Statement. Here’s my life organized as a progression toward a PhD:
Perhaps being born into an all-American dysfunctional family is an auspicious beginning for a future psychotherapist. It took the next fifty years to overcome my childhood trauma in therapies of all types, leading me to explore a plethora of healing modalities both mainstream and alternative. Some of the positive values I received from my family of origin are the pursuit of higher education (both of my parents and paternal grandparents were educators), feminism, the importance of keeping a fit body, and ease and comfort with travel.
Our family crisscrossed the U.S. twice and back in a VW van, hitting almost all the states and most of the landmarks. I think this and the fact that I was a nerdy child who escaped from my difficult life into the world of books led me early to the conclusion that one’s own way of seeing things is not the only way.
During my 20s, my first boyfriend introduced me to Ram Dass’s Remember Be Here Now which set me off on the spiritual and psychological journey I am still on. After my B.A. in English, I worked at the only thing that degree prepared me for — waitress — which supported my search into all things spiritual/alternative: Eastern religions, yoga, the occult, Aleister Crowley, tantra, psychedelics, astrology, tarot, Rolfing (received the full ten sessions), the Alexander technique (ditto), fasting, colonics, juicing, raw foods, acupuncture, dance, the Enneagram, TM, Twelve-Step programs, and many years of psychotherapy.
When I saw an ad in the Whole Life Times for the accredited program in Transpersonal Psychology at JFKU, I knew what I wanted to do with my life. I enrolled, moved to the Bay Area, and absolutely loved the program – I had found my tribe. Promptly two days after arrival I met a fellow student who became my first husband and lifetime friend. He needed to move to Seattle, so we finished our degrees at Antioch University which accepted our transfer credits and allowed us to specialize in transpersonal.
I worked in community mental health, then found out that while I was making $18K a year, a similar position in a psych hospital paid $30K which seemed like a no-brainer at the time. It wasn’t that I ever particularly wanted to work inpatient with the mentally ill, it became the next phase of my career because it seemed I had a knack for directing and growing programs. Thus began a twelve-year stint in psychiatric hospital administration which included, in addition to directing programs, traveling nationally to consult. Most of this period I felt lost and hopelessly off-track, but as I didn’t know what else to do, I kept doing it and stockpiling money. During these years I was always living a double life – it wasn’t safe to talk about anything I was interested in, and as I don’t watch football or nightly TV, they knew I was not one of them. I did acquire good business skills which have been of great benefit.
The hospital phase of my career blessedly came to an end, and I decided to take a travel break. I expected to be gone six weeks and returned six years later. One of my destinations was the Osho ashram in India. I had become a sannyasin of Osho in 1985 and planned to visit for a week or two. I ended up staying a year in a full-time immersion in tantra and meditation. I was on staff at the ashram Mystery School as an astrologer and as an assistant leading groups. I lived a tantric lifestyle with anywhere from a thousand to five thousand people a day, all on a spiritual path, meditating, and working on themselves. For a long time, only until after my life got even better, I considered this the best year of my life.
I met my second husband there, moved to the Bay Area, and began my private practice in the evening while working a day job for managed care companies. I also completed five levels of the Sex, Love and Intimacy trainings offered by the Human Awareness Institute which had a powerful impact on my future life and career choices.
I returned (solo) to Los Angeles in 2006 and founded and directed The Transpersonal Center (originally The Transpersonal Counseling Center). While handling a full-time caseload (“I Googled ‘transpersonal’ and it seems you’re the only game in town.”}, I also hired over ten interns over the years and supervised them to licensure. I had had a mission to be able to offer services to clients at all price-points, and thus was able to provide that. Also during that time I gave workshops to clinicians on how to get on and work successfully with managed care panels which I turned into my first book Fill Your Practice with Managed Care. During this time I was active with my local chapter of the California Association for Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT) and was elected by my peers to serve on the state board. I started my publishing company, Green Tara Press, and put out my second book Shortcuts to Mindfulness: 100 Ways to Personal and Spiritual Growth in 2014. During these years of private practice I was adjunct faculty at JFKU, the University of Phoenix, and the Chicago School for Professional Psychology.
My career was going well, but my personal life was not. Although I had healed my chronic depression, I had not met my life’s dream of a conscious marriage. I felt extremely lonely and adrift, so I decided to master the dating and mating process, which as a spiritual person was quite a challenge. My third book Tantric Dating: Bringing Love and Awareness to the Dating Process chronicles and teaches the method I developed. Today Tantric Dating is consistently selling over a hundred copies a month on Amazon, and I have been conducting well-received monthly workshops on this topic for several years, introducing tantric principles of relating to single people looking for love.
Through my Tantric Dating method I met and married my husband, Greg Lawrence, who has a booming practice as a psychedelic integration coach. We now teach tantra workshops together, and are currently in the process of working with a team that helps teachers put their courses online.
I published my fourth book Guide to Spiritual L.A.: The Irreverent, the Awake, and the True in 2020. During the pandemic I also completed my Certified Master Practitioner of NLP and a half-marathon. (I previously completed a full-marathon in 2010.)
I’ve long been passionate, and perhaps a bit obsessed, with the study of spirituality, psychology, and the further reaches of human development. One of the talks I give is Tantra and the Psychedelics of Sex which quotes Jenny Wade’s work. Another is MDMA and Couples Therapy in which I take the research on MDMA for PTSD treatment and propose a model for the use of MDMA with couples.
Today, my career consists of twelve to fifteen weekly psychotherapy clients, writing my next book, teaching, making videos for my YouTube channel, and giving workshops. My husband and I are always saying, “I didn’t know it could be this good.” It’s hard to imagine being happier, but I am open to it.
© 2021 Catherine Auman
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