Okay, it's time for me to lean on this group and take a huge leap of trust. Many of you have been very open and vulnerable with me, and painfully honest about things in your life, and I've made sincere efforts to be uplifting and gentle with you in those moments. I need to open up and share something very painful as well, hope for the same understanding.

I'm at a very tough point in my life right now, and it's got me twisted in knots. I can't sleep, barely eat, have constant headaches, and feel terribly, terribly embarrassed. But I'm going to share why.

I've mentioned that like anyone, I too have critics and people who despise the methods and reasons for what I do. To some of you this has been surprising and you've given me gracious statements of support, and it's meant more than you know. My technique of working with rape survivors has a good track record with a tremendously high success rate, to the point that I've often been the "last resort" therapist that other therapists refer clients to when progress stalls. My methodology for treating rape PTSD has become the default training for therapists in our state, and I am often sought by peers to consult on cases. But by no means does that mean I enjoy total approval. My methods are not typical, and I tend to practice with books of research in one hand and my open heart on the sleeve of the other. I actually ENDORSE forming emotional connections with clients in a career field that has typically been stoic, detached, and very disconnected from its clients. As expected, this has brought on all sorts of speculation - and even condemnation - about the rationale and substance of my warmer and more personally-engaged collaboration with the clients I work with, both men and women.

My approach is controversial because I see rape work as more than a basic clinical counseling business. I engage in boisterous and irreverent speech to decompress after hard work. I give hugs to someone in tears who asks. I have at times opened my home for meetings with survivors in support groups. I would offer my homemade cookies to a patient's ailing mother. I sit at the graveside and cry with a patient of a deceased toddler. I hold the hand of a patient in ICU as she vomits from an overdose. I invite women to come into the sweat lodge for cleansing, and even offer to drive them there if they are shy. I sit all night with someone who had just been raped again, and we cry together until dawn. I am not embarrassed to use the taboo word: you are my FRIENDS, my equals. And this mindset of wanting to treat the whole person in a congruent relationship has done wonders for countless clients of mine, but also raised the ire of critics who call into question the ethics of such conduct--"friends? LOVE? Surely that means you are exploiting these people!"

Were I to engage in more typical therapy--"And how does that make you feel?"--in hourly increments until insurance ran out and then passed my clients along, I would doubtless have a long career. A dull one, and one without the same spectacular outcomes, but safe and inconspicuous. I do practice "outside the box," and make efforts to follow a sincere value that seeks the well-being of the client, and that's why I seek constant feedback to know that she or he feels at ease and well-served by what we work on together. My conduct with my clients is, and always has been, impeccably moral, but like all humans doing difficult work it is also marked with occasional mistakes, errors, judgment blind spots, and failures. We all do that, but somehow we manage to accept that as part of life and continue on. However, in my profession a critic can recite every mistake made in a year, and NONE of the achievement, and those blunders become the entire estimation of your worth as a person and professional.

To me, that is very sad because even those persons who would like to draw upon my mistakes and errors to degrade my work and character are persons that I respect and maintain a genuine care for. Not one molecule of my body would like to see harm come to them; I just don't have it in me to spite or condemn them. I got into this work to uplift the worth of ALL persons, and that has never excluded persons who might criticize and misjudge me; they are children of God, and so am I, and neither should be devalued.

But being a creative, and sometimes misguided, man in this risky field brings about a constant watchfulness, because frankly it IS unusual for a male to specialize in working with rape trauma. Consequently, my stupid mistakes aren't seen merely as the evidence of misguided-but-sincere humanness, but as pathology, coercion, and values run amok...after all, there HAS to be something exploitative about a man who wants to work with traumatized women, right? When he says he cares about them, what does he REALLY want? Is he just using them to make money on a book?

Well, I have spent over a decade creating a very respected reputation. My colleagues respect me, and nearly all of my former patients disagree with my critics and defend that my character and methods have been honorable and positive. I am ready to defend the work I do, the reasons why I do it, and the methods I use to do it, to ANYONE, and I am not ashamed of the things I do in my work with survivors of rape and sexual abuse. I know full well I am a man ripe with failings and defects, but I also know that none of them outweigh my genuine care for the people who trust me in this work.

But this week, something very tragic has happened...My mom called me, and told me that she has just received a terminal medical diagnosis, with no treatment options.

Some of you have met my mom at the Survivor's Retreat: she is gentle, very loving (perhaps that's where my character defect of the same stripe comes from), very patient, she respects people, and she adores my wife and our two little boys. But she has learned that her body systems are all failing, and the doctors do not have any further methods to treat her. They advised her to simply focus on the quality of the time she has left.

Suddenly, everything is in perspective for me: who CARES what some angry critic says? So WHAT if a family that I tried to support and respect thinks everything I did was vile? Suddenly I remember that life is about more than pleasing a Board, or having 100% approval from everyone. I love my mom, and I know I am going to lose her.

My mom is at peace with this, she said, because she sees how tremendously happy Tonya and I are together, and how good we are to our children. We don't have much--we barely make ends meet, we have no health care, no college fund, no savings--but my kids have happy lives. And this has led me to make a very tough decision.

I need to focus all of my emotions, my energy, and my time on taking care of my mom and my wife and kids. I don't have much in the way of material resources, but I need to use what I have left to support my mom and spend as much time with her as possible. I cannot bear up the emotional burden of doing clinical counseling at this time because I am not able to devote my full affection, skill, and energy to those who deserve it. So I am going to ask my licensing board to accept a voluntary surrender of my license, agree to cease practicing clinical social work for an interim, and redirect my life ENTIRELY to my family's needs and my mom's care. I will answer for the criticisms made of my work and life, but not with an intention of "winning" by proving my critics wrong. Frankly, on some matters they might even be right. But I don't care; I need to redirect my focus toward my mom.

That does not mean I am leaving anyone here! No, in fact I feel more affirmation of my personal values than ever, and I am far from "burned out." What it means is that I will seek another field of work that permits me to align my emotional energy more appropriately, and not have to constantly fend off arguments that the work I try to do is wrong. I love this work too much to see it pulled to bits with animosity, but I also love my family even more.

I will remain here, remain positive, and we WILL continue to have our retreats! This does not change my values, or what it means to be me, and the fact that I truly respect and care for you all. I am simply choosing to change my professional life in a way that allows me to still serve and love others, but won't ask me to distribute my energy so scarcely to my family during our time of hardship right now.

In the meantime, money is not an issue. 'Cause hey, we got none! We have enough to sustain our lives and health, and not a penny more for waste. Tonya and I will talk at great length about our living plans, and how to offer best care to my mom who lives in another state.

I hope I have not disappointed you, and perhaps you might give our family some prayers. I have never been as happy as during my many years as a therapist, and it is not easy to voluntarily offer to walk away from such a source of joy and amazement. But my heart, my conscience, and my values persist, and I have no intention of being any less available, loving, appreciative, and loyal to those who know me.