Kelly Carlin-McCall: I didn't have a calling to be a therapist. I real...

Working with the body and the imagination - non-verbal ways especially - tap into our deepest wounds and our highest potentials as humans.

Kelly Carlin-McCall

body imagination way

You will be faced with facing all the things in yourself that keep you from knowing who you are, you'll have to stand up to roles and definitions that your family and culture have given you.

Kelly Carlin-McCall

knowing-who-you-are roles culture

I have known know many therapists who come out of Pacifica Graduate Institute and love being both artists and therapists at the same time, like Maureen Murdock. They are photographers and dancers and other kinds of things and therapists at the same time. I think it really makes them a much more interesting therapist because they're so engaged with the imagination and the creativity and the depths of who they are.

Kelly Carlin-McCall

creativity love-is thinking

When I am ever in any situation that's getting too heavy, I lighten it up with humor.

Kelly Carlin-McCall

heavy situation

One of the reasons I picked Pacifica was because, for a lot of classes and for your thesis, you could do artwork because of the Jungian slant of it all, and that really called to me.

Kelly Carlin-McCall

artwork reason class

For me, psychology and art interact and overlap in so many ways. Psychology is the study of the inner life and creativity comes from the imagination and a response to the environment, as you know. So they're both very similar in that way because it's about one's inner life interacting with the environment and what comes from that.

Kelly Carlin-McCall

creativity imagination art

If you're never called, then you don't know any better. If you are called and don't answer the call, then that is the most difficult and painful. If you are called and do answer the call, it is the adventure of your life.

Kelly Carlin-McCall

painful answers adventure

This has been my struggle for years - the pull between wanting to be in the spotlight and yet also to make a difference in the world. Lately I've come to conclude that I can be a "selfish" artist that focuses on issues of individuation, power, and freedom.

Kelly Carlin-McCall

selfish artist struggle

I had a mother complex going on and I was projecting all my negative mother stuff onto her and all of my need for her to love me and to make me whole and to approve of me.

Kelly Carlin-McCall

mother negative needs

[Humor] could be dicey for a therapist and needs to be used very deftly.

Kelly Carlin-McCall

therapists used needs

Creating safety is your first job [as therapist], and then once that's established, you can use many tools to help someone see the folly in their thinking.

Kelly Carlin-McCall

creating jobs thinking

I had a client who just wanted to entertain me the whole time, that is a defense against going deep, in my mind. What happens when the jokester is not allowed to deflect with humor? You then have to feel the pain, and learn that you can survive it. It makes you more resilient and stronger in the long run, and your sense of humor will always be there. Being able to see the funny is deep.

Kelly Carlin-McCall

pain running long

I knew that I was naturally good at [therapy] because I was kind of that person in my circle of people in my life.

Kelly Carlin-McCall

circles kind people

If you can see yourself more than just a victim, aha, now you've got the place to move into that is much more vital and creative and is resourceful than being a victim.

Kelly Carlin-McCall

victim creative moving

When I did my first solo show and it made my dad uncomfortable, I wasn't quite ready for my spotlight moment in my life yet. I didn't have enough sense of myself and self-esteem and confidence: this is when I started looking to get my master's in something.

Kelly Carlin-McCall

dad self-esteem firsts

Coming into Pacifica I knew that I wanted whatever I was going to learn there, I knew I wanted to integrate that into my art no matter what.

Kelly Carlin-McCall

integrating matter art

Going through these academic programs, your job really is to learn how to be a therapist. They're training you to sit in front of clients and it's a serious matter. You're holding people's psyches.

Kelly Carlin-McCall

psych jobs people

Coming out of graduation, I didn't immediately know what direction I wanted to do so I decided to just stay as an intern until it really kind of dawned on me and I felt more compelled one way or the other. So I gave it a few years and then after two years it was really clear that deep down I missed being a full time creative artist. Ironically, I started getting clients who were all in the entertainment industry and a lot of them were in comedy!

Kelly Carlin-McCall

artist two years

I was supporting other people's creative dreams and I wasn't supporting my own. I didn't feel like I could really serve people having that kind of process within me.

Kelly Carlin-McCall

creative dream people

I didn't think I'd be a good therapist. I didn't think I could do both at the same time. Maybe some people can, but I wanted a bigger spotlight and I don't think that's right for clients to have a therapist who wants that kind of life.

Kelly Carlin-McCall

clients people thinking

I didn't have a calling to be a therapist. I really went to Pacifica for a very specific kind of life experience, to really kind of find my path in a deeper way.