Is there ever really anything new under the sun? I was always told there wasn’t. When I was in graduate school, the teachers of my research classes would say, “The idea you want to investigate, your theory, your profound and novel approach, has already been done before by someone probably more qualified, smarter…better looking. There’s nothing new so don’t even fool yourself.” I think subconsciously I took issue with that because it’s so boring not to create something original, and I’m not very good at regurgitating other people’s ideas anyway. When I was twenty however, I only wanted to learn all I could, get passing grades, and start practicing the way I was taught, in a Good Alice manner.

And why would I buck the field of study I had had been in love with since I was six years old? I grew up fascinated and inspired by the everything about psychology, following it with a blind and infatuated trust that held fast—as long as my learning remained confined to the soft bosom of academia and the classroom cocoon.

When I got out into the real world to practice traditional approaches on people though, the shine began wearing off like lipstick in a kissing booth. With each passing year of my therapy practice, I grew more and more fed up with constantly trying to fit square, or rectangle, or triangle, or oblong pegs into round holes of my clients (that came out a little awkward, but you get the message). As much as I wanted to steadfastly ahere to and apply the tried and true gold standard evidence-based treatments, I couldn’t overlook the fact that the proverbial emperor was at most wearing a mankini.

Although a better mousetrap was clearly needed, I knew the tried and trodden paths weren’t going to get me there, because too many for too long had extinguished the insights of “on the map” thinking. Fresh intellectual territory had to be found, so I shoved Good Alice, her starched apron and straight-lined rules aside, and stopped believing the patent office was closed on psychology. Once I let go of what I thought I knew, my hands were opened to receive answers from those who had always been most qualified to teach me--my clients.

Upon leaving the shores of standardized treatments and theories, I was surprised to find myself venturing into the waters of physics, a field far removed from the intangible material in the humanities, and even further removed from my comfort zone. That’s because I always got C’s in the STEM subjects, and never considered myself interested or even capable of applying those hard concepts to the soft canvas of the human mind.

But I overcome those hesitations aside when I saw how the more objective and tangible angles of physics were more comforting, inspiring, and overall better fitting for clients than the traditional angles of psychology. That people seeking counseling would find more solace and footing in physics might seem incongruous, but it took away the self-blame and confusion that “soft” theories of mind create, and revealed the unseen currents pulling and pushing the mind. The experience was a lot like Dorothy stepping out of her little house into OZ, and the world was in color for the first time.