by Luba Palter, MFT

Happy New Year everyone!

I hope you found moments of joy and beauty while being surrounded by your community.

Impulse is starting off the year with some changes. Amber Trotter, Psy.D. and Mariya Mykhaylova, LCSW are moving on after years of steady contribution to Potential Space. I wish them both success in their next ventures. Three new staff writers are joining us: Christi Baker, AMFT, Lila Zimmerman, AMFT, and Lisa Koshkarian, Ph.D. I am excited to discover what they will create.

I am asking the writers to focus on the theme of stories this year. I am curious about what stories you/your clients are living inside of, what stories you/your clients/the world cannot think about, what stories humans are still processing, and what stories are conscious and what stories are taking shape in your body and psyche unconsciously. Inspiration for this theme is a quote by James Baldwin from Another Country (1962):

The occurrence of an event is not the same thing as knowing what it is that one has

lived through. Most people have not lived – nor could it, for that matter, be said that they

had died – through any of their terrible events. They had simply been stunned by the

hammer. They passed their lives thereafter in a kind of limbo of denied and unexamined pain.

And lastly, we are still looking for submissions for our Who is NCSPP? column. Let’s take the mystery out of who our members are! Show your brave faces to your community! If you are feeling any reservations or unsure of what to say about yourself, write to me at lpalter@ncssp.org and I will help you.