American Made: The Heart of a Healer

By Dr. Rachell Anderson

In an effort to help with the care of her aging mother, Dr. Anderson retired from her professorship and closed her forty-year-old clinical psychological practice in a northern city and returned to live in her hometown on her familys rural farm in the Mississippi Delta.

Culture shock and struggles to overcome forced her to reflect on her southern roots and accept Americas ideals and gifts she received from her parents that helped her become a successful person in spite of difficult conditions. Crossing the color line of her youth, her love for helping others, involvement in the womens struggles for equal pay and black peoples struggles for a decent education, and teaching students to live better lives are contained in the mix.

This memoir shares stories by Dr. Anderson and her youngest son, Steven. His are about the effects of her struggles on her growing family.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524540890

Dr. Rachell Anderson

A licensed clinical psychologist in Mississippi and Tennessee and Illinois, a professor emeritus of University of Illinois at Springfield, and author of ten books, Dr. Anderson ran a private clinical practice in Springfield, Illinois, from 1974 until she retired in July 2008. In the practice, she provided psychological assessments; individual, marriage, and family therapy; and psychological education programs to people with mental illnesses and emotional pain. She is credentialed by the National Register of Health Service Providers in Psychology. For twenty years, Dr. Anderson taught clinical courses to graduate students in the Department of Human Services (HMS) at the University of Illinois at Springfield (UIS). She spearheaded the redevelopment and accreditation of the HMS program and served as its chair from 1999 until 2006. Before joining the faculty at UIS, Dr. Anderson taught at several community colleges in Rockford and Springfield, Illinois, and worked as a juvenile probation counselor in Oklahoma, as an intake and placement counselor in East Saint Louis (Illinois), and as a school counselor in an adult education center. She received her doctorate of psychology in clinical psychology from the Adler University in Chicago, master’s degrees from Northern Illinois University and from the University of Illinois at Springfield, and a bachelor’s degree from Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Arkansas. Throughout her career, she lectured widely and served as vice president and later chair of the publications committee for the North American Society of Adlerian Psychology. She founded the Central Illinois Society of Adlerian Psychology, served as copresident of the Central Illinois Psychological Society. She is a member of the American Association of Black Psychologists, the National Organization of Human Services, the American Psychological Association, and North American Society of Adlerian Psychology. Dr. Anderson has received many awards for learning, teaching, healing, and serving in her field. She was honored with awards from the Committee for Children for twenty-five years of dedicated services on the family stress consultation team. She was selected by her peers to receive the university’s Pearson Faculty Award for sustained excellence in teaching in 2006. This honor carried a substantial monetary award of which Dr. Anderson used a portion to donate books (Responsible Children in Today’s World) to fifty day care centers in her home state of Mississippi. Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers, and Who’s Who Among Outstanding Americans, and Who’s Who Among Outstanding Executives are among the many. Dr. Anderson has authored ten books. Her most recent publications are Cultivating Cotton: From Field to Runway, Before Our Eyes (a chronicle of the healing advantages of watching psychotherapy between a client and a therapist in an open forum), The Legacy Continues: Writing Healing Stories. Since retirement, Dr. Anderson served as the poet in residence at the B. B. King Museum and served on the boards of trustees for Northwest Mississippi Community College and the Mississippi Writers Guild. She volunteers clinical hours weekly at the Church Health Center in Memphis. She teaches the Writer’s Workshop for the Mississippi Writers Guild at the Tunica Museum, coled the Poetry Connection (a poetry writing group at the Unitarian Church in Memphis), and has served as president of the Alliance group at her church. She writes a Family Matters article that’s published in several newspapers, magazines, and on a website in the UK. She continues to study, write, and publish. Dr. Anderson grew up in Tunica, Mississippi. She has a very large extended family in Tunica County. She is the mother of three grown children, has four grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

Book preview

Copyright © 2016 by Dr. Rachell Anderson. 747483

ISBN:   Softcover     978-1-5245-4090-6

             EBook          978-1-5245-4089-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 09/15/2016

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Contents

Preface

Chapter 1 A Woman to Remember

Chapter 2 Occupational Hazards

Chapter 3 The Heart Of A Healer

Chapter 4 Domestic Tranquility

Chapter 5 A Lifetime of Learning To Listen

Chapter 6 Here’s To A Beginning

Chapter 7 As the Orange Peel

Chapter 8 It’s Complicated

Chapter 9 Irreconcilable Differences

Chapter 10 Days of Reckoning

Chapter 11 Sitting In Silence

Chapter 12 Coming Apart At The Seams

Chapter 13 Fraying Around The Edges

Chapter 14 The Crazy Times

Chapter 15 Trials and Errors

Chapter 16 Leaping Before You Look

Chapter 17 On Whose Shoulders?

Chapter 18 More Than Meets The Eye

Chapter 19 Should Old Women Wear Skinny Jeans?

Chapter 20 My Own Tomatoes

Chapter 21 Coming Full Circle

Chapter 22 Life’s Lessons

Preface

I think of life as a series of stories and have learned that it’s not the stories that’s important but how we use them to make our life. Our stories can embolden us or defeat us. The readers of these stories are encouraged to examine their own stories and decide how they are using them.

While working as a professor at the University of Illinois at Springfield, I began each class of new graduate students by introducing myself. I’d share aspects of my upbringing, my educational and employment history and what it took for me to have the privilege to stand before them and share my knowledge. I’d challenge them saying If I could do it, you can too. The results was that during the 20 years I taught there, more of my students completed their master’s degrees and went on for doctorates than had happened in the history of the school.

In this book, I am at it again; using myself as a model for what’s possible when people struggle to achieve against all odds. The book is meant to record aspects of my life to encourage future generations, who, when faced with obstacles will find the courage to hold on to their dreams and persevere in education and in life in spite of the difficulties they may encounter.

Many people have misconceptions about the psychological profession. After practicing and teaching in the profession for more that 50 years, and retiring to the state of Mississippi where the need is great and the stigma is greater, I wrote this book in an effort to humanize the profession to encourage young people to consider the joys and the struggles of working in the psychology using their humanness to help people.

In my work, I provided counseling for individuals, couples and families. I addressed issues including depression, motivation, restoration, anxiety, stress, relationship issues, communication problems, grief and much more. I understood that entering therapy is not easy decision for anyone. I dedicated myself to taking care to help people get the psychological help they needed to heal the pain and get on with a happier more productive life.

The career choices a person chooses affect their lives, those of their family members, friends, and all whose lives they touch. The two generation’s points of view regarding gender expectations, relationships issues, women’s rights, cultural changes in America and the meaning of life are provided.

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Chapter 1

A Woman to Remember

From Steven

My mom is hot. Not in the way you’re thinking. No self respecting son would think of his mother that way. No, what I mean is the heat she generates as she puts one foot ahead of the other and quietly pushes to make the world a better place.

Born just after World War II to poor farming parents in Mississippi, my mother grew to be an amazing lady. She told me she grew up believing that in America, with hard work and persistence, every child could grow up to live a successful, productive life. The more I learned about the history of her home state, the more miraculous I found that way of thinking.

On her parents farm, the‘49 Ford tractors replaced the mules that were used to till the land and harvest the crops. Electricity replaced kerosene lamps in most homes, most black children were in schools (even though they were segregated and held in churches) and the Civil Rights Movement was moving right along.

By 1960, when she graduated from high school, she thought the sky was her limit. The United States was on the verge of a major social change. People who had been ignored and discounted began more forcefully and successfully to assert themselves for the rights for which their tax dollars already paid. My mother believed in the environment of possibilities. She believed she was free to chose the life she wanted to live and thrive and had dreams to be all that she could be (even though she had to leave Mississippi to get it done.)

In college she joined the lunch counter sit-ins to demonstrate for equal access under the law. And, laughingly, she claimed to have led demonstrations against the college rule forcing female students to wear hats and gloves to Sunday evening vespers. The United Methodist Church with which the college was affiliated was open to the request. No more hats or gloves were required for all female students.

The State of Arkansas though, was unbending when, married and pregnant, she completed her course work in teaching and applied to the school district to do her student teaching. By law, no pregnant woman was allowed to work in the public school classrooms. This ended her immediate hope for a career in teaching, but not her resolve challenge unfairness and to help others.

Her first professional job was as a counselor in the Juvenile Court in Oklahoma helping young girls and their families find a better footing in the world. She loved the work, found her calling, and began studying for a Master’s Degree.

While the war in Vietnam was raging, Mom had married her college sweetheart who, as a 2nd lieutenant