SG: I am a person who is growing and evolving. I am a person who is developing and exploring. I am a person who is intellectually curious and interpersonally caring. Professionally, I identify as being a counselor first. In fact, I belong to a group called Counselors Anonymous (CA), which was originated by some of my graduate students in 1990. As a member of CA I always say before a speech or presentation: "Hi, my name is Sam and I'm a counselor". So that is how I define myself professionally. The way I achieved this identity is a bit circuitous. However, it is probably not that different from the routes many other people have followed. I have found the journey of life interesting and intriguing but seldom linear.

SG: I think my initial agenda in development was loaded in terms of my family history and the geographic region where I grew up. Historically, I am the grandson of a Baptist minister for whom I was named. He died 6 months before I was born and has always been an invisible, larger-than-life influence on me. When I was growing up my parents and maternal grandmother would always tell me stories about him. Since that time, I have read other accounts. The overlay of religion, spirituality, and the importance of doing something meaningful in life was reinforced continuously in my life by not only family history but by the geographical fact that my family lived on Church Street in the Atlanta suburb of Decatur, with the city cemetery literally at the end of our back yard. It seemed natural to me, with all of these factors and the name "Samuel" (which means called by God), that I was going to be a minister. I went through undergraduate school with that plan in mind and was a history major with an eye on the influence of the past. I then entered Yale Divinity School, and was confronted with the theological and social action issues of the present.

However, midway through Yale, I gradually realized that I was not going to be a minister. It was not a good fit. Fortunately, while traveling back from New Haven to Atlanta, I stopped to see one of my former college professors at Wake Forest University, Dr. Tom Elmore. After listening to my angst about where I was headed vocationally, he said: "Why don't you try counseling?" He meant: "Why don't get career counseling?" I did not pick up on that subtly. I thought he meant I should consider taking counseling courses to see if I liked them. Hence, I entered a counseling degree program the next fall. I loved the courses, the program, and the profession. That was 1971. My passion for and involvement in counseling has continued since then.

SG: I think I have contributed in several ways to the profession of counseling. One has been through leadership, such as being president of the American Counseling Association and two of its divisions. Academically, I have been both a generalist and a specialist. That combination is seen in the fact that I have written an orientation to counseling text as well as books on group work, family therapy, community/agency counseling, counseling theories, a counseling dictionary, and a text on the creative arts in counseling. Creativity in counseling is something I'm really immersed in. I think this interest in creativity has an impact on everything I write, do, or say.

SG: Creativity was not a topic in counseling when I was being educated as a counselor either. I initially learned it from my clients. They brought in poems, plays, pictures, and music that were creative and that they found therapeutic. For instance, I had a client one time play out his life on a guitar. As this kind of phenomenon happened repeatedly, I thought: "If my clients are bringing me creative material, there must be something to it that they find helpful and healing." Although I was uneducated on what creativity was, I began to explore the field. I took courses both in the arts therapies and in creativity every place I could find them. I think creativity, which I define as doing something new and pragmatic, exemplifies what clients do when they are getting better. They construct a new person within themselves who is able to live productively.

What clients do when they are growing is parallel to what one of my children, Nate, did when he was young. We were playing baseball in the front yard, and basically he wanted to play by the rules of three strikes and you're out. The first pitch he swung at and missed, as he did on the second pitch. Finally I threw him a wonderful pitch — slow and right down the center of the plate. He swung again but he still missed. Bowing his head and dragging his bat, he started walking away from home plate when all of a sudden he perked up, came back, put his bat on his shoulder and said: "Dad pitch it again, I'm a new person". I think our clients tell us "I'm a new person, I'm a new man, I'm a new woman" when they utilize creativity in their lives or when we help them as counselors find the creative aspects of themselves.

SG: I think it was when I finished my Army obligation. At that time there was a John Denver song with the lyric: "He was born in the summer of his 27th year, going home to a place he'd never been before. He left yesterday behind him; you might say he was born again. You might say he found the key to every door." I was literally 27, going from Fort Lee, Virginia, to Greensboro, North Carolina to a place I'd never been before when I heard that song. I had a type of epiphany during the song. It hit me that I was entering a new life — not as an historian, a minister, or a first lieutenant -- but as a counselor. I was all new all over again -- a person with potential and that ability would either come to the forefront or not as I began working in mental health. I think many insights and creative moments have come since that time. This type of newness has been especially prevalent when I have faced adversity. Maybe that is because difficulties challenge us to be more than we have been before.

I never wrote much, especially poetry, before I became a counselor. However, after becoming deeply involved in the profession, I found my voice through a pen, a computer, and sometimes behind a podium. I think in working with clients and in working with other counselors there is always something novel, interesting, and exciting going on. When I am open to listening, seeing, and feeling what is happening in the lives of my clients and in my own life, I am constantly confronted by surprise — a newness in my life.

SG: I think the fact that I write poetry in one of those new aspects of my life that still surprises me. However, I think what writing poetry has taught me is that there are probably more dimensions and layers in my life than I may have ever thought there were. While we may at times all want to be multi-layered, complex, and dynamic like the world around us, I think poetry helps me phantom the depth or shallowness of my life at particular moments in time. I am somewhat of a stoic. Poetry has made me realize I have feelings below the surface and that I need to express them in other ways than just through the written word. The singer Gloria Estefan has a poetic verse that conveys the sentiment that words can get in the way of relationships. But in writing poetry, I find that words lead to new dimensions, new feelings, and new or renewed relationships with myself and others. They help me empathize, as well as conceptualize, who I am, who others are, and what is happening in the world.

SG: I grew up in the segregated South, a vanilla society that was tragically flawed. Until I was in my teens, I accepted that world. I was too naive to do otherwise. However, when Martin Luther King started leading marches in Atlanta, I started reading about him and what was happening because I was a paperboy. Besides reading about what was happening, I also listened to the radio and saw events on television. I began to think about the world in different ways and see it more colorfully literally, figuratively, metaphorically, qualitatively, and quantitatively. People's experiences, especially those of African American descent, were drastically different from mine. I think more than anything, the multicultural movement starting with King, has made me realize how unjust and unfair life can be if we do not address cultural issues in sensitive and sensible ways.

SG: I think one of the things that will probably happen in counseling is that this generation of counselors we are educating now is going to be much more sensitive to multicultural and social justice issues than any group that has come before. They are more representative of who we are as a country. I see young counselors, regardless of background, much more involved in multicultural counseling and in social justice because many have diverse histories, acute sensitivities, and skills. A number have seen injustices and want to right them.

I think we're getting closer to being more open as a profession to one another as people and more concerned with issues that are paramount. I also think counselors through advocacy and other means are helping to open up society as a whole. There are many worldviews coming to the forefront of counseling and more counselors are willing to both listen and act in regard to matters that make life better for everyone, not just one segment of society. If we're to be effective as counselors we have to not only be involved with the worlds of our clients but to be active in the world of legislation and community action. By being aware, attuned, and proactive we can model for our students what a fully functioning counselor and human being is in a society of many cultures and much need.

SG: I was thinking of Cool Breeze the other day, and actually writing about him. He was a young African American boy about my age when I was growing up. We would play touch football on Saturday mornings when he would come over to the high school where I was a football manager and doing the laundry for the football team after Friday night games. I think of him in regard to where his life and my life are now and where they have been. I thought he had so much potential. He was very athletic. He would run past the rest of us because he was so fast and we would feel the cool breeze that trailed behind him. Yet, I know that despite his talent, he probably never got the chances I did. Every time I think of him my heart aches. I have cold chills as I'm having right now because I think the life of human beings is too valuable to waste, and we wasted so much in terms of Cool Breeze and his generation because we did not give them chances to grow and develop. Even now we waste people's lives, for example, immigrants, when we put up false barriers in front of them. I think that is just the wrong thing to do in the wrong way. It is a tragic situation and a travesty in regard to what our society should be and could be.

SG: First I'd say go to the Microtraining web site. I think the people who are interviewed on the site have an engaging way of making us think about our lives and this world. I think we also have to read books and articles by professionals like Allen Ivey, Derald Wing Sue, Patricia Arredondo, and others who have written in the multicultural area. We need to see their videos, too. We also need to engage ourselves in multicultural experiences that expand our worldviews and sensitivity. If I am not willing to engage in friendships and in cultural experiences that lead me past my culture then I am somebody who probably will never grow.

One of the things I did when I was in college was to live in an African American neighborhood in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. That was in 1966. It was not a popular thing to do but one of the reasons I did it was so I could be a more authentic and open person. That experience taught me much more initially than reading anything about African American culture. We have to take opportunities to get out of our comfort zone and get involved in the lives of others through reading, viewing, and daily living if we are going to increase our multicultural and social justice competencies.

SG: I think probably my initial challenge was just getting into the field. I earned my Ph.D. when there was stagnation back in the late 1970s. It took me two years and about 200 letters to get three interviews and two job offers initially, even though I had been published in counseling journals by that time. I think persistence was one of those things that kept me going. I was determined. My parents were encouragers, too. My Dad, with whom I had a close relationship, would always say to me in jest: "Sam you know you can't be a promising young man forever. You've got promises to keep." I think my stubbornness and the encouragement from my family-of-origin have probably served me well through the years. I think wrestling with my limited past and beliefs in order to be more open to possibilities is another challenge I have overcome and one that will always be with me.

SG: In the 1970s when I entered the field of counseling, creativity was not in the mainstream. In fact, it was not on most people's radar screens. I can remember one very famous counselor, whom I will not mention, chiding me for promoting creativity. His point of view was that data told the whole story of a person and counselors should not be concerned with creativity. However, I listened to my clients more than authority figures or those who were discouraging. My clients input made me realize that creativity, especially the creative arts, can make a huge difference in people's lives. Ironically, the research now is showing that. The data are in. Writing, drawing, listening to music, courting humor, dancing and moving, and other means of being creative help people live healthier, happier, and more balanced lives.

SG: I think one of the things I am encouraged about in counseling is that we are doing more research that is specifically geared towards creativity and the place of creativity in promoting wellness in people's lives. I am encouraged by the founding of the Association for Creativity in Counseling (ACC). The ACC has brought energy and focus to the field of counseling in regard to creativity. Their journal, Journal for Creativity in Mental Health, is both interesting and insightful.

SG: I do not think you can define everything by research. However, I think you can define many things that way. We need evidence-based treatment data to help us as counselors know what to do, when, and with whom. Otherwise, we are not a profession. At the same time, there is a certain art to counseling that I think we should keep in mind. I think we always have to be respectful of both sides of the coin of counseling — evidence based treatment data and creativity.

SG: I always find it hard to talk about myself. I prefer that others do the evaluation. They can be more objective. As a former history major I think it is easier to study events and people when they are in the past rather than in the present. However, if pressed, I think I've given the field of counseling some good leadership, especially as president of the American Counseling Association. I think I have modeled openness, growth, and emphasized the importance of relationships with people over relationships associated with pieces of paper. I have added a touch of humor and some sensitive poetry to the field. Not everything is serious or prosaic. I have been a synthesizer of the literature too. I think that shows up in my writing of books and articles. I love to write. It is not a chore. My endorphins kick in and actually after an hour or so of writing I have a kind of mental high. Maybe that is why I have been able to be prolific and contribute in many areas.

SG: I would say that counseling is a fantastic profession. As a professional counselors claim your identity -- use the noun "counselor" first -- before employing other modifiers to designate your specialty. That may help you not only in your own life, but it may also be useful to you in working with other helping professionals and clients. It may make relationships easier. I would also say get to know people who are different from you, radically different from you, as well as people who might be similar to you within the field. Read the literature outside of counseling as well as that within. Read works by Shakespeare, Cervantes, and other great writers because they say a lot about human relationships that we do not convey in the same way in counseling. Start and keep a research agenda or a counseling practice with a focus. Realize you cannot help everyone. Bemoan that fact but celebrate the reality of who you can help and be diligent in that service.

SG: I think teach what you have a passion for and what you know through research and life experience. If you do that, it comes through. We cannot specialize in everything, and so if you have something that really turns you on in the counseling arena, I think that is the subject matter to teach. I think incorporating your intense interests and knowledge in counseling with life experience and research, will lead you and those with whom you work to a richer and more rewarding life.

Leave the rest to other people. We can learn from each other and be both teachers and students simultaneously. Like I said, we cannot do everything and so doing those things that we have talent, passion, and time for will work best for us and those we serve.

SG: Thank you. I have appreciated the questions and the time you have taken with me. You've made me think. I've learned from you as well as from these reflections.