A Brief Personal Meditation About Failure and Defeat

Abstract

Failure and defeat create despair, but can also create new ways to imagine our therapeutic work with people. This essay explores one approach to understanding this idea.

Keywords :

• failure
• defeat
• despair
• clinical supervision
• poetry
• imagination
• therapeutic alliance

THE AUTHORS

James J. Clark, LCSW, Ph.D. is currently Director of the School of Social Work at the University of Cincinnati, and was on the faculty of the University of Kentucky for over 20 years. He has conducted funded empirical research and has published in the areas of forensic mental health, substance use and misuse, child traumatic stress, community mental health services, and clinical theory. He is a clinician, educator, and researcher. Jim lives with his family in Kentucky.