Susan Reuling Furness Services
Individual Therapy
As a licensed professional counselor, I think of myself as a team player – a member of Your Team. As a client, you and your concerns will always be treated with the utmost measure of confidentiality, dignity and respect. My job, as a precise and meticulous listener, is to help you find the inconsistencies and stuck-points in your story. As you trust me with the honest truth of your situation, we will team-up to find effective new thoughts and behaviors. In this way, we will find solutions which fit with your principles and values. I work with men and women, teenagers, and children. My practice specialties include Depression and Anxiety, Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Personal Relationships, and Business-Relationships, Grief and Loss, Parenting and Step-Parenting, Childhood Trauma, Aging, Stress Management, and Self-Confidence.
Marriage & Family Therapy
Susan Reuling Furness and her husband, Timothy J. Furness, provide a co-therapy approach to solution-focused marriage and family therapy. Meeting as a team with couples and families, Susan and Tim provide counseling that explores and resolves differences without gender bias.
Our work with couples and families focuses on improving communication, resolving specific concerns, and enhancing the strength of your family system. Tim and I appreciate the unique and sensitive nature of family conflicts and agreements. Our work with you is individualized to meet your personal situation and needs.
Consultation for Organizations and Businesses
Teambuilding and Conflict Resolution Services Over the past decade and a half, Susan has served many Treasure Valley businesses and organizations. These include St. Lukes Regional Medical Center, Idaho Power, Healthwise, Anser Charter School, Boise Public Schools, Nampa Public Library, Boise State University, Treasure Valley Community College, and Boise City. Susan served as Facilitator for the Mayor’s Task Force on Police and Youth Relationships in 1998.
As a Certified Professional Mediator, Susan serves to improve workplace communication and build harmonious, productive work teams. Susan and her partner, Tim Furness, frequently work as a team to resolve organizational conflict. Their consulting practice services, listed below, range from short in-services to week-long seminars.
- Teambuilding retreats and seminars
- Conflict resolution and mediation for management or employees
- Keynote presentations
- Staff retreats
- Supervisory consultation
Teambuilding and conflict resolution work is always designed to meet the needs of the group or organization. To better understand the needs of your group, a no-cost preliminary meeting will be arranged.
Journal Writing and Poetry Therapy – The Write Path
What is The Write Path?
“Writing in a journal will relieve the pain and confusion for anyone who will pick up a pen or pencil. As a group leader, I watch pens scratch words of disillusionment, secrecy, and shame. Writing helps soothe these dark, dark feelings. Paper and pen carry the writer toward hope and creativity… I trust writing to the bottom of my toes.” – Susan Reuling Furness, The Writing Group Book “Climbing Out of the Snake Pit.”
Journal Writing
Like medicine, journal writing improves mental and physical health. The Write Path offers encouragement for you to discover self-confidence, and uncover potential. Writing alone, but in a group, you will examine your past and present, and find helpful new directions. What you write will never be criticized. No experience or expertise is required.
The Write Path Journal Writing Classes are designed to enhance individual self-expression and growth, The Write Path invites you to write your way home. Susan Reuling Furness is a Registered Poetry Therapist who weaves the art of personal writing with the art of healing. Susan founded The Write Path, journal writing groups for healing, personal growth, and creativity. You will also find Susan teaching principles of personal writing at Barnes and Noble Bookstore on Milwaukee Street in Boise and as part of the Vital Longevity Project in Boise.
Working within the framework of the National Association of Poetry Therapy, the Write Path journal-writing circles help adults, children, and professionals discover confidence, mood management, and tools for optimistic living. As a group facilitator, Susan makes wellness and growth seem as simple as picking up a pencil or pen.
For more information about Write Path classes, visit www.writepath.org
Poetry Therapy
“Writing . . . has been a sturdy ladder out of a deep pit.” – Alice Walker
When I tell people that I specialize in poetry therapy, some say, ”Can you ever cure a poet?”… “Do people get better if you speak in iambic pentameter?”… “I needed years of therapy after failing Poetry 101.”
In truth, poetry therapy is a certifiable expressive therapy. You’ve heard of its granddaddy, Art Therapy. Perhaps you know the cousins, Music, Dance, and Drama Therapy.
Poetry Therapy uses literature for healing and personal growth. Historically, the first Poetry Therapist on record was a Roman physician by the name of Soranus in the first century A.D., who prescribed tragedy for his manic patients and comedy for those who were depressed. It is not surprising that Apollo is the god of poetry, as well as medicine, since medicine and the arts were historically entwined. Also known as bibliotherapy (a term used more frequently in the 1960’s and 1970’s), this expressive group therapy opens the door to healing through the words of poets and writers. Think of a poem as a condensed story.
Because of its brevity, the poem contains heightened emotions and compressed meaning. In a poetry therapy group, the leader chooses exacting poems (and other written expression) to help group members explore a new attitude and a sense of hope. Group members find new meaning for troublesome events. Group members build improved life stories. A journal writer will find his or her own creative voice in a safe environment. Even a simple list can become a poem. The group member speaks unspoken words, unheard feelings and thoughts. Writers find intuitive solutions. Written responses are voluntarily shared with the group, and they are never critiqued. Sharing helps the writers trust their voice and their unique way of seeing things. Natalie Goldberg, author of Writing Down the Bones, says it well:
I work with people to write first thoughts – the place where energy is unobstructed by social politeness or the internal censor – a place where you are writing what your mind actually see and feel, not what it thinks it should see.
Poetry therapy circles are not like school. The group leader never asks group members to find the “true meaning” of a poem. The focus stays with personal meaning. “Which words in this poem speak to you?” is a frequent question in an individual or group session. “What feelings do you experience when you hear these words?” Poetry Therapy invites a guided journey to integrate the past, present, and future. It opens the door to awareness and appreciation for the self and for life itself. Learn more about Poetry Therapy at www.writepath.org