Autobiographical Sketch

This paper provides an overview of my experiences related to psychology and psychotherapy. In this paper I describe my psychotherapy experiences as a client with Carl Rogers, Rollo May, and Albert Ellis, among others. I also describe my encounters with interesting people like Jay Haley, John Lilly, Will Schutz, and Stan Grof. These experiences helped form my current way of thinking about psychology and psychotherapy. I grew up in a middle-class family in Nashville, Tennessee. I had an older brother and a younger sister, and my parents seemed to have a good relationship. While growing up I did not know anyone who was obviously “mentally ill” and no one in my immediate family got any professional counseling. My father provided counseling for people at church in his role as a minister. He had a master’s degree in education, and in midlife he became a certified school counselor and worked as a counselor for many years. I had good relationships with both of my parents and both of my siblings. When I was eleven years old, one of my uncles and his wife were killed in a car accident, and my parents volunteered to became the guardians for their two children, my cousins, and they came to live with us. As a family we took a couple of cross-country road trips to visit the national parks and camped along the way. While I was in elementary school, I remember people being afraid of nuclear war with the Soviets, and we practiced how to “duck and cover” in case a bomb was dropped