Therapist Introduction: Glen Watkinson

My Clinical Self

I’d love to share a few things about my clinical work here, although if you’d like a closer look after reading, you can check out my bio. 

It feels important to share that it’s a weird thing trying to split myself up into “clinical” and “personal” versions. I think many clinicians would agree. I do my best to tread this boundary well and with professionalism, while also maintaining a healthy level of skepticism about if it’s really possible or at times even appropriate. One of my supervisors once said—and I’m paraphrasing here—that “if our society as a whole truly knew how wonderful it feels to simply slow down, listen to each other, and respond with care, we would need many fewer therapists.” This is more or less what I hope to do as a clinician. 

Something magical seems to happen when we give ourselves permission to share our honest experience with someone who would love not just to know about it, but to share in it with us. This magic has been given many different names throughout the history of the psychological, philosophical, and spiritual fields, such as ‘connection; unity; liberation; freedom; healing; recovery; release; safety; resolution; peace; feeling seen and understood;’ and so many more. But suffice to say, the felt phenomena associated with each of these words is undeniable: the body softens, the breath slows and deepens, the mind clears, the spirit rises, and space opens for hopeful possibilities. Though maybe just for the moment, we feel better—even good—and like ourselves again. 

It may not come as a surprise, considering the devastatingly beautiful visual themes and branding on this website that I am a Lord of the Rings fan (as I write this my hand is on my heart and it is bowing low to the magnificent work of Jules McDonald at Goodwell Studio). There is a passage in Tolkien’s writing that was actually a major catalyst to my becoming a therapist years ago, because it captured with words my own experience of healing with the help of therapy several years ago. I’d like to unashamedly share it with you, even if LOTR content makes your body sag with boredom:

When Sam awoke, he found that he was lying on some soft bed, but over him gently swayed widen beeches boughs, and through their young leaves sunlight glimmered, green and gold. All the air was full of a sweet mingled scent. 

Full memory flooded back, and Sam cried aloud: ‘It wasn’t a dream! Then where are we?’

And a voice spoke softly behind him: ‘In the land of Ithilien, and in the keeping of the King; and he awaits you.’ With that Gandalf stood before him, robed in white, his beard now gleaming like pure snow in the twinkling of the leafy sunlight. ‘Well, Master Samwise, how do you feel?’ he said. 

But Sam lay back, and stared with open mouth, and for a moment, between bewilderment and great joy, he could not answer. At last he gasped: ‘Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?’

‘A great Shadow has departed,’ said Gandalf, and then he laughed, and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days upon days without count. It fell upon his ears like the echo of all the joys he had ever known. But he himself burst into tears. Then, as a sweet rain will pass down a wind of spring and the sun will shine out the clearer, his tears ceased, and his laughter welled up, and laughing he sprang from his bed. 

‘How do I feel?’ he cried. ‘Well, I don’t know how to say it. I feel, I feel’ – he waived his arms in the air – ‘I feel like spring after winter, and sun on the leaves; and like trumpets and harps and all the songs I have ever heard!’

If you’re able to let yourself feel into this little passage, I’m afraid there will be little else for me to say in terms of conveying what I hope to accomplish as a clinician, other than doing my best to help facilitate this feeling with the people I meet. 

I’d like you to know that regardless of the way you feel now—regardless of what has happened to you and the symptoms that rob you of your vitality, and however deep, dark, jagged, and alone the trauma keeps you—it is possible to feel like Master Samwise again. I deeply believe this. I have seen it and felt it happen, and I would not do this work if the possibility wasn’t true. You deserve, at very least, to feel hopeful about feeling better. If you can’t right now, I will feel hopeful for you until you can. 

Social Location 

It feels important to locate myself. I am a white, hetero-cisgendered man (he/him). I’m a first generation Canadian settler (coming from middle-class parents born in the UK), and a loving husband, father, son, and brother. I am an able-bodied millennial who grew up farming and landscaping in mostly conservative rural Ontario before learning how to live a city life in young adulthood. I came into Christian spirituality as a curious adolescent, while I now experience spirituality much more broadly, eclectically, and inclusively—an empirical mystic, you might say. 

It is an ongoing practice of mine to recognize that I hold almost all of the layers of privilege possible. I very much desire to use the power I have wisely, for the good of those around me, and wherever possible, to privilege the voices of those who have less social power. For me, this practice includes undoing the layers of whiteness, racism, heteronormativity and homophobia, colonization, oppression, patriarchy, and capitalism that I have found to be woven into my bones.

I am wildly affirming of all my friends, siblings, and people in the 2SLGBTQIA+ community. Please don’t let the MDiv scare you—I was called a heretic several times in seminary and I still smile widely when I think about that. I happily do not mind what people think about who I love. 

I am only just beginning to learn and unlearn the ways my body holds and carries forward the intergenerational and systemic traumas of oppression to Indigenous people and people of colour in Canada. I am committed to anti-racist living, even though I am sure I do not yet know what that truly looks like. 

Lastly, if you are reading this and you find yourself cringing because you are located in a much different social place than me, I’d like you to know that I respect your cringe. I have no interest in polarizing the world more than it already is. I’d so much rather have the chance to stay connected long enough to understand our differences and recognize how we are very likely fighting for the same things, although in different forms—a better life, peace, the needs of our families, freedom, bigger joy. Or, in the words of Master Samwise, ‘for everything sad to come untrue.’ 

Just Me

Where to begin!

I’ll keep it simple and use bullet points, in no particular order:

• A cup of tea (Yorkshire, Thompsons, or Tetley, with some milk) will restore my spirits almost immediately
• On the side, I am a musician and audio engineer—playing and making music is where I feel most easily myself 
• I absolutely love cooking
• I am hopelessly in love with all of my friends
• If I’m reading or writing, it means I’ve found some space for myself 
• When I can get to them, exercise and playing sports help me feel like a kid again
• Many years of rugby and martial arts played a joyful and important role in my social development, teaching me invaluable lessons in emotion regulation, conflict management, working with people (mainly men) who use violence, the role of the body in boundary setting, and relational conscientiousness
• Mindfulness meditation, yoga, exercise, music, mysticism, affective neuroscience, and astrophysics are powerful sources of grounding and liberation for me
• I feel truly loved and understood when people show it through teasing, pranks, and jest 
• My all-time favourite TV shows include Taskmaster, Toast of London, What We Do in the Shadows, The Bear, IT Crowd, Matty Matheson’s YouTube channel, Broadchurch, and Shetland
• I am grateful to love and be loved by my small but fiercely devoted family—they are the joy and support of my heart, and the wind in my sails