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About 4 years into graduate school, I found myself one morning at a sex workshop in a San Francisco hotel conference room. It wasn’t too far out there, buuuut it was kinda out there. My interest in incorporating topics of human sexuality into my clinical work was growing, as was my wonder and incredulity at why it wasn’t a core part of training for clinical psychologists in the first place. But that’s another blog post…
I had started to look for some non-traditional self-directed educational opportunities, which led me to attend an intro to Orgasmic Meditation. The content of this seminar would also need to be the topic of another blog post, however what I will say is that I was very quickly struck by the diversity of the workshop attendants and my simultaneous realization of how insulated I had been since the beginning of grad school until then, moving in and out of different circles of psychologists only. Sure I had my non-psychology friends, but in terms of any type of new learning or exchange of ideas, it had been clinical psychologists, and only clinical psychologists for a while. So I set out to diversify.
One of my most enriching experiences to date of engaging with non-psychologist, awesome, and inspiring others has been a Book Club, formed with other ex-pats in my temporary home of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Together we are a Captain of the U.S. Coast Guard, a crew member of the U.S. Coast Guard, an accounting consultant, an MBA student, a CDC Health Educator, and myself, a clinical psychologist.
We meet every 1-2 months. We alternate reading fiction, and non-fiction, and we rotate who picks the book for the next reading. So far we have read the following:
1. Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What it Means for Modern Relationships by Christopher Ryan & Cacilda Jetha
2. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
3. Anthem by Ayn Rand
4. Who Speaks for Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really Think by John L. Esposito & Dalia Mogahed
Why An 'Integrated' Book Club is Great for Self-Care:
1. It gets you out of your 'psychologist' mindset. As a psychologist, I tend to ‘process the hell’ out of everything. And when I’m with my psychologist friends and colleagues we tend to ‘process the hell’ out of everything (no offense intended to any of my fellow psychologists who are reading this!). This is what we are trained to do. Now not that book club is not analytical, but it is so refreshing to have thoughtful and fun discussions on diverse subject matter with people whose thoughts, opinions, experiences, and approach to thinking are so different from my own. How can you challenge your 'psychologist' mindset from time to time? Who might you want to reach out to or spend time with?
2. You read books you might not read otherwise. Reading for pleasure really changed for me when I entered grad school. If I was doing it for fun, I wanted to only do the beach read, escape fantasy, and magical realism type books that I had always loved. I did not want to stray from my comfort zone – The Hunger Games, The Magicians (highly, highly recommend these by the way!), re-reading lots of Isabel Allende. I love these books and these types of books; they are entertaining and thought provoking in their own right. But I was missing out on all other types of reads. With the alternating fiction and non-fiction of Book Club, plus the fact that I don’t pick the book each time, I’m exposed to so many new, interesting, and entertaining texts. What types of books do you tend to read? Which new ones would you like to try?
3. You get to laugh and spend time with friends. This one is the most important. Sometimes there's meetings where some of us haven't read the book in its entirety, but its no pressure. In the midst of life that's filled with deadlines, never ending to do lists, and extreme focus on productivity and output, we take it easy in Book Club. At the end of the day it’s just nice to have time carved out to bond with friends over a good meal and a good (half a) book. What's the next fun thing you have planned in your life?
I love psychology. I love being a psychologist. I write this on the eve of my last Spring Consolidated Business Meeting of the American Psychological Association where I will be surrounded by many of my beloved psychologist colleagues all weekend long. Eating, breathing, and sleeping psychology.
And last night I went to Book Club. #balance