It’s official! I’m a doctor. Wild. Below are the dedication and acknowledgments from my research:
DEDICATION
This doctoral project is dedicated to my five children, Trey, Avery, Sadie, Raleigh, and Cora. One of you moved through adolescence in ways only MPS II can offer. Two of you I have and am currently riding through the waves of storm and stress with. Two of you are yet to arrive in adolescence. You are my inspiration. I love you all to the depths of my being and want to do everything I can, include learn everything I can, to do right by you. This project is also dedicated to all the adolescents in Western culture, your families and communities, and everyone who has made it through adolescence. It is unjust Western culture has created a period of time dominated by negative stories which come to live us in some way or other, and I want to do everything I can to shift this narrative.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I want to acknowledge my faculty, participants, family, and friends for helping me get this far! To my Chair, Dr. Andrea Holzner, I am so incredibly grateful. She organized weekly group meetings, her repetition and high standards fixed academic writing in my head, and her warmth and encouragement lifted me up when I didn’t know if I was going to be able to figure this out. Thank you also to my incredible committee, Dr. Stacy Benton and Dr. Caleigh Moskal who were timely, responsive, and offered helpful suggestions. Finally, without the therapists and psychologists who participated, this research would not have been possible. Thank you.
Thank you to my mom and dad for your support in my entire academic journey. Mom, for holding high expectations and not accepting less than you knew I was capable of. It is because of you I knew I could do this. Dad, for being my inspiration in this line of work. Not only for answering my endless questions as I was growing up about the clients you worked with, for introducing me to narrative therapy, and for the hours we’ve spent getting excited about therapy, but also for being the only adult I felt truly listened to and respected me as an adolescent. You inspired this topic in me. Mom and dad, you both taught me to fight for justice. To Stephen Madigan, thank you for organizing the Vancouver School for Narrative Therapy trainings. It is there I met David Marsten which led me to Los Angeles. David, my time at Miracle Mile was a dream come true. Thank you to my one and only sister who has done ALL of life with me, I love you Michie, and thank you to my friends, Mia, Michelle, Firouzeh, and Tovah for supporting, suggesting, and being by my side. Thank you Nate, for your endless listening and practicing of my defense. Finally, I am deeply grateful to California Southern University for your excellent faculty, support staff, and learning platform. I have learned so much and am very excited to take my learning into the rest of the world and life with me.
