By: Dr. Panicha McGuire, LMFT, RPT-S™
For me, stepping into advocacy, education, and supervision did not happen all at once. It happened slowly, through relationships, through mentorship, through being challenged and supported by people who fundamentally changed the way I think about this work.
This field often places a heavy emphasis on credentials, theories, and expertise, but some of the most meaningful learning I’ve had came through watching how people move through the world. How they advocate. How they lead. How they hold boundaries. How they care for others without abandoning themselves. How they stay critical, relational, creative, and human within systems that often reward the opposite.
The people named here shaped not only how I practice clinically, but also how I understand leadership, supervision, education, community care, and the responsibility that comes with occupying space in this field. Some taught me courage. Some taught me sustainability. Some taught me how to trust myself. Others reminded me to slow down, question systems, stay grounded in community, or make space for authenticity.
This is not an exhaustive list, nor is it meant to position any one person as solely responsible for my growth. Rather, it is an acknowledgment that none of us develop in isolation. We are shaped in relationship, and I think there is value in naming the people whose influence continues to live in our work.
Haylin Dennison, LCSW
When you meet Haylin for the first time, there’s no mistaking how passionate she is. It’s not subtle. You can feel how much she cares about the work and about creating real, systemic change. What stood out to me wasn’t just what she built, but why she built it. There were no affirming spaces for the community she cared about, so she didn’t wait around for someone else to fix it. She became that space. And not only that, she continued to grow it by training and supervising other clinicians so that the work could extend beyond her.
Meeting Haylin has shifted something for me as I stepped into advocacy, supervision, and education. It made it clear that sometimes there isn’t a space for the people you care about. And if it matters enough, you must be the one to create it. Not just doing good clinical work behind closed doors, but being more visible and more vocal about what I believe in. Naming the gaps in our mental health care system, even when it would be easier not to. There’s a level of confidence and courage she carries that challenged me to take up more space in that way.
I carry that into Living Lotus as the goal of creating space for queer, neurodivergent, BIPOC kids like myself didn’t come from a business plan. It came from recognizing that many of us were never fully seen in the systems that were supposed to support us. Haylin is a solid reminder of why this work matters, especially when it’s hard.
Spill the Tea Café is a teen-focused trauma-informed mental health clinic that incorporates youth-led peer support, located in Hawaii.
Lesson: If no one else is going to do it, sometimes it has to be you.
Anjelica (AJ) Ochoa, LCSW
AJ supervised me when I was early in my career as an MFT trainee at Rady Children’s. I had come from an academic environment where things felt structured and predictable. I knew how to do well in school. Clinical work was different though. I remember having a panic attack my first week. Sitting in a room with actual clients, especially kids, was nothing like what I had practiced in class. Sessions didn’t go according to plan. The structure I relied on didn’t hold the same way.
AJ met me where I was. She started me with cases that aligned with my experience in autism, ADHD, and developmental concerns, but she didn’t keep me there. As I grew, she pushed me to expand. I used to call her office constantly for guidance. And then at some point, maybe around six months in, she just… stopped answering. Not in a neglectful kind of way, but in a very intentional way. She made me sit with it, figure it out, and trust myself. She knew before I did that I could handle more than I thought. And she didn’t rush in to rescue me from that discomfort.
At the same time, she had my back in a way that made it possible to take those risks. In multidisciplinary team meetings, educational meetings, group supervision, I knew she would back me up. She trusted my clinical intuition and helped me trust it too. She also taught me how to set boundaries in a system that doesn’t encourage them. “Never work harder than your client.” That’s something I still hear in my head regularly. Along with, “when you leave work, hang your shit up on the shelf.”
At the time, I was the kind of trainee who would get to work before everyone else, sometimes before the doors even opened, and leave after everyone else. I thought that was what being a “good” clinician looked like. She showed me that wasn’t sustainable, and more importantly, it wasn’t necessary to do good work.
She also pushed me to think more strategically about working within the healthcare system. Documentation, access to care, navigating a system that is often deficit-based. She taught me how to work within those constraints in a way that still supports clients, especially when it comes to making sure people don’t lose access to services.
There are a lot of gray areas in this field, and she didn’t pretend otherwise. She taught me how to navigate them thoughtfully. Even now, I notice her influence in how I pace myself, how I trust my instincts, and how I hold boundaries around my work.
Lesson: Trust your clinical judgment, don’t overfunction for your clients, and learn how to navigate systems without losing sight of the people you’re serving.
Rady Children’s Hospital, San Diego Outpatient Psychiatry
Dr. Marianne Miller, LMFT, PhD
I started my master’s program two days after my 21st birthday, so from the beginning I already felt a little out of place. Most of my cohort was older than me, more established professionally, or returning to school mid-career. Grad school itself came with a lot of pressure and a lot of unspoken expectations about what a therapist was “supposed” to look and act like.
Then there was Dr. Marianne Miller. One of the first things we bonded over was Doctor Who, which honestly says a lot about her. She showed me early on that professionalism and humanity did not have to be opposites. That there could be joy, humor, personality, and authenticity even within rigorous academic spaces. At a time where I felt pressure to perform professionalism in a very specific way, she consistently made space for me to be an actual person. And that mattered more than she probably realizes.
I was navigating burnout very early into this field. There were moments where I cried in her office feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, and unsure if I could keep up with the emotional demands of the work. She checked in on my mental health often and in a genuine way, not in the performative “wellness” way academia sometimes does. She also helped me begin to unmask by modeling what it would look like to bring your own personality into your work.
Graduate school can be brutal about conformity, especially in this field. I remember being told during my first week of grad school that I wouldn’t be able to be a therapist if I kept my pink hair. There were complaints and critiques around “professionalism,” including things like how I dressed or expressed myself, rooted in really rigid and often Eurocentric expectations of what competence is supposed to look like.
But Dr. Miller had my back. She saw my worth beyond all of that. She knew I was a capable clinician regardless of hair color, presentation, or whether I fit into the traditional image of a therapist. She stood by me through faculty complaints and consistently reinforced that my authenticity was not incompatible with being effective in this work. I think that support changed the trajectory of how I developed professionally.
Because now, years later, the very things I was criticized for became part of what allowed clients to find me. The clients who seek me out are often neurodivergent, queer, highly masked, questioning, alternative, or people who never saw themselves reflected in traditional therapy spaces. They come in and immediately know they do not have to perform normalcy with me. And honestly? That matters more to me than fitting into an outdated mold ever did.
Dr. Miller taught me what it looks like to have someone in a position of authority truly get down to your level, advocate for you, and remind you that you do not have to abandon yourself to belong in this field.
Lesson: Authenticity is not incompatible with professionalism, and the parts of yourself people tell you to hide may become the very things that help others feel safe with you.
Dr Kim Van Dusen, RPT-S
I still remember my first Intro to Play Therapy class with Dr. Kim Van Dusen like it was yesterday. Up until that point, so much of grad school had centered around traditional family therapy theories and models. We were learning Bowen, Satir, Whitaker, Minuchin, CBT, all the foundational theories you’re expected to know in MFT programs. And while I could understand and appreciate them academically, play therapy was the first thing that fully clicked for me in a way that felt natural and intuitive.
It made sense to my brain and it also made therapy feel alive. I remember sitting in that class feeling like, “Oh. This is it.” It integrated so many things I was already naturally drawn toward, creativity, experiential work, symbolism, connection, storytelling, sensory engagement, meeting people where they are rather than forcing them into purely verbal processing. And honestly, it was fun.
Dr. Van Dusen also taught me something incredibly important early on: you do not need perfect conditions to do meaningful work. A lot of community mental health spaces and underfunded programs are not built with play therapy in mind. Sometimes your “office” is a converted closet, a shared room, or whatever space you can get access to that day. Instead of treating that as a reason not to do the work, she taught us how to adapt. How to make a portable play therapy kit in the trunk of your car. How to stay creative and flexible within systems that often do not prioritize expressive or child-centered approaches. She helped me understand that innovation in therapy is not always about having the best resources. Sometimes it is about being willing to think differently and work with what you have.
Looking back now, it’s funny to think about because that class opened an entire path for me professionally. At the time, I just knew I loved it. Now I’m an RPT-S supervising and training others in play therapy myself. Dr. Van Dusen was one of the first people who showed me that therapy could be experiential, creative, adaptive, and deeply relational all at once.
Lesson: Good therapy is not about having perfect conditions. It’s about creativity, flexibility, and meeting people where they are.
Dr. Sesen Negash, LMFT, PhD
If you took one of Dr. Sesen Negash’s classes, you already knew you were not walking out with an easy A. And honestly, I respected that. She challenged people to think critically in a way that went beyond memorizing theories or repeating the “right” answers back. Her classes demanded rigor. You had to defend your ideas, question your assumptions, and be willing to pull apart your own work over and over again. Even when you thought you had considered everything, she would push you to look again.
A huge amount of my ability to critique research and think analytically comes from her influence. She taught me how to interrogate not only other people’s research, but my own thinking too. What are we missing? Who is not represented here? What assumptions are we operating from? What systems are shaping the conclusions we are drawing? That way of thinking fundamentally changed how I engage with this field.
Especially now, in a time where so much mental health information gets flattened into quick social media soundbites, I appreciate even more how much she emphasized depth, nuance, and accountability in scholarship. At the same time, I looked up to her deeply as a woman of color in academia and clinical work. This field is not easy to navigate as a person of color, especially when you are trying to challenge systems while existing within them. Seeing her take up space so confidently as a clinician, researcher, professor, supervisor, and community leader mattered to me. She modeled that you do not have to minimize yourself to belong in these spaces.
What I also appreciated about her was that her work was never disconnected from real communities and real systems. Whether through her research on post-incarceration family dynamics, sexual health, or Black mental wellness initiatives, there was always an awareness of context, culture, and systemic barriers. She did not approach research as something purely academic or detached from lived experience. I think that influence shows up heavily in how I practice now. In how much I value integrating critical thinking with cultural responsiveness. In how I question dominant narratives around pathology, diagnosis, professionalism, and “evidence-based” practice. And in how seriously I take the responsibility of continuing to learn rather than assuming expertise means you stop questioning yourself.
Lesson: Think critically, question your assumptions constantly, and do not shrink yourself to fit into spaces that were not built with you in mind.
Micaela Magazzu-Alaman, LMFT
Micaela is one of my closest friends, but she has also deeply shaped how I understand care, presence, and sustainability in this field. She has this softness and grounding presence that makes people feel safe almost immediately. I genuinely seek her wisdom often because she has a way of cutting through noise and bringing things back to what actually matters. I call her my equilibrium because she keeps me balanced and reminds me to slow down when I inevitably start moving too fast.
And if I’m being honest, I need that reminder constantly. I am absolutely the type of person who will forget to take breaks, overload my schedule, and convince myself I can push through exhaustion if the work matters enough. Most recently, she told me to start blocking random days off in my calendar ahead of time. Such a simple thing. Almost painfully obvious. But it’s also exactly the kind of thing I would not naturally do for myself. That’s part of what I admire about her. She doesn’t just talk about care theoretically as a therapist. She lives it consistently and leads by example.
She’s also incredibly intuitive. She somehow always knows when something feels off, even before I fully realize it myself. More than anything, Micaela taught me that it’s okay not to know everything. In this field, there can be so much pressure to have answers immediately, to fix things quickly, or to move into problem-solving mode before fully understanding what’s happening. She helped me learn how to sit with uncertainty instead of rushing to resolve it.
Sometimes you are confused. Sometimes you are lost. Sometimes you do not know the answer yet. And sometimes the most important thing is simply being present long enough for clarity to emerge.
She is also someone who deeply embodies community care beyond the therapy room. Her work is rooted in intersectional feminist and liberation-oriented frameworks, but what I appreciate most is that she actually lives those values through grassroots organizing, collective care, and community engagement. There’s integrity between what she believes, what she teaches, and how she moves through the world. She reminds me constantly that healing does not happen in isolation. And honestly, she is one of the few people I feel completely safe unmasking around.
Lesson: Slow down, stay present, let yourself not know sometimes, and remember that care is something you practice, not just something you preach.
Dr. Erica Wollerman, PsyD
By the time I worked with Erica, I was coming out of community mental health feeling deeply burnt out. I had spent years in underfunded systems where the work was meaningful but exhausting. The pace was relentless, the emotional load was heavy, and a lot of the time it felt like clinicians were expected to keep functioning no matter what was happening personally.
Working under Erica’s supervision felt like a breath of fresh air. What stood out to me immediately was how much she genuinely cared about her supervisees as people, not just as clinicians producing work. She took the time to get to know us outside of the clinical setting and understood something that honestly sounds obvious, but often gets lost in this field: you cannot be an effective clinician if you yourself are not okay.
Whether it was encouraging mental health days, checking in during major life changes, or allowing flexibility for me to pursue academia and finish my dissertation, she adapted to the needs of the supervisee rather than expecting people to force themselves into one rigid mold of productivity. That flexibility mattered a lot to me during that stage of my life and career.
I also learned a tremendous amount from watching how she led as a practice owner. Thrive is clearly something she poured herself into, and you can feel that when you’re there. There was intentionality behind the culture she created, the way staff were supported, and the way authenticity and humanity were allowed to exist within a professional environment. I think a lot about leadership differently because of her.
Not just supervision in the technical sense, but what it means to hold responsibility for other people well. How to create an environment where clinicians feel supported enough to grow. How to balance accountability with care. How to remember that the people working for you are still human beings navigating their own lives outside the therapy room.
She also modeled a kind of authenticity that challenged a lot of the more rigid messages many of us were taught in training. There was warmth, humor, openness, and humanity in the way she approached both therapy and supervision. That gave me permission to continue developing my own style instead of feeling pressured into fitting a mold, and a colder or more distant version of a therapist. Looking back now, I can see how much of my own approach to supervision and leadership was shaped by that experience.
Lesson: Good supervision is not just about clinical growth. It’s about creating environments where people feel supported enough to sustain this work without losing themselves in it.
As I continue growing into advocacy, teaching, supervision, and leadership, I find myself returning to these lessons often. Not because I have mastered them, but because I am still actively learning from them. I also think there is something important about acknowledging lineage in a field that can sometimes encourage individualism or the illusion of being “self-made.” The reality is that much of who I am as a clinician exists because people took the time to invest in me, challenge me, support me, advocate for me, and believe in me at different stages of my life and career. My hope is to continue carrying these lessons forward in the way I work with clients, train clinicians, supervise associates, teach students, and build community through Living Lotus. And hopefully, to be that kind of person for someone else someday too.