Pauline Vaughan's Classification
Pauline is from Nova Scotia - a bluenoser. She said growing up she had a strong sense of community and learned the importance of volunteering. She had 5 brothers and her parents were a little unsure how to deal with a daughter and she spent some time at a convent school. Though she didn't care for it much, the nuns there were also very service oriented. She helped out at the Halifax Civic Hospital which has a long term care wing for those with psychological problems. She became interested in their stories - how they came to be where they were. The nuns also practised silent retreats through the year and that led her to meditation and zen.
When she went to university she started in psychology, turned to history and then journalism and became the first female editor of the school paper. She worked as a journalist and then at the CBC doing documentaries. Her husband to be was doing publicity for the Atlantic Symphony so their jobs brought them together and they've been married 35 years.
Her husband joined the federal government and they moved to Kingston. She went back to university there and they started a goat farm for milk and angora wool. Her studies moved back towards psychology and when she finished at Queen's she went to Antioch College in Ohio. This college opened as a multi racial institution before the civil war and was still a hotbed of liberal thinking in a generally conservative midwest when she went there. She graduated with a Masters in Clinical Psychology, studying fibromyalgia.
She reviewed the different types of psychotherapy, looking for a school that she felt comfortable with. In the 60' and 70's there were lots of therapists moving beyond Freud and Jung. She gravitated to Gestalt which encourages individuals to realize more fully who they are and to develop and awareness of their present experience to empower them to make choices. People often get stuck on their past and they focus on that which limits their future.
She found this exciting, going back to the stories to hear the places where people had got themselves stuck and helping them move on. She spent 5 years at the Gestalt Institute in Cleveland and spent 20 years practising in Kingston. She feels health care is a right and works with people of limited means to ensure they get the help they need. She instituted several group therapy sessions in partnerships with doctors which were then covered by OHIP.
Through the 80's and 90's a lot of people were dealing with issues of abuse, depression, personality disorder and anxiety and she was kept busy. When Mike Harris started closing psych wards a lot of therapists were put out of work and established private practices, compteting for patients. She had noticed that a lot of physical problems were related to mental ones and started searching for a modality that worked with these kind of mind/body problems and found Traditional Chinese Medicine. This sees harmonies in the body that have an emotional effect, for instance a sufferer of long term pain from a soft tissue injury due to an accident might also be suffering from anxiety related to the accident. If she can relieve the anxiety she might be able to help reduce the pain. She includes accupuncture and dietary treatment as required.
Her husband was recently transferred to Penetanguishene and Pauline tried opening a Clinic in Toronto and commuting but she found this 'not pleasant'. She placed an ad locally and had 5 patients and word of mouth has kept her busy since, for which she's grateful. She takes about a quarter of her patients at reduced fees and tries not to turn people away. She hopes to get them back to their lives and to being productive again. She hired an apprentice last year who helps in the herbal pharmacy which is a great time saver as each prescription is unique and often requires hours to make.
During all this she and her husband have raised 3 wonderful daughters - one is in Alberta with her husband and their daughter. The other two she's looking to marry off. There were questions about dowries.
Steve thanked Pauline for joining the Club and for her presentation.