Welcome to Back from the Abyss. I'm Dr. Craig Hecock.

This is the second in a periodic series of episodes about therapists in the abyss. Can you be a good veterinarian if you've

never had pets? Can you be a competent and caring doctor if you've never been hospitalized

yourself? Or more germane to this podcast, can you take people in psychotherapy where you've never

gone yourself?

In today's episode, Dr. Michael Dane and I explore the idea of personal psychological suffering and the hard road of healing as a prerequisite to becoming a fully developed psychotherapist.

Yeah, you know, there are a lot of stories, but there's one in particular story that I had in my career that sort of really changed the direction of my career, sort of deepened it and connected me to things in myself and allowed me to connect with other people in a better way, in a deeper way. So I have been a psychologist for a long time

and have done a lot of clinical work, but also a lot of academic and administrative work

at universities and that kind of stuff. So my career path, more than just being a clinician,

was also kind of directing health centers my career path, more than just being a clinician, was also kind of

directing health centers and counseling centers around the world. I taught at a medical school

for a while. So it was sort of this interesting combination of administrative and academic research

and stuff and also personal. And it was great, work.

It was great.

It was a nice integration.

And then a few years ago, I was diagnosed very rapidly and very quickly with colon cancer.

And it was an interesting time for me. My son was young. He was like 10. And we had just

moved to four Collins. And I was at CSU at that point. And it changed everything. I really moved

things in a very different way for me.

So I got diagnosed.

I got surgery very quickly because it was pretty tenacious cancer.

Were you thinking at that point early on that you might die?

...