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My name is Angela Lamson and I am a licensed marriage and family
therapist who has the honor of serving as the President of FSN-ENC.
There are so many personal and professional experiences that led me to
FSN but I will start with the year 1996 and my first therapy experiences
at a children's cancer program with patients and their siblings. I was
given the gift to be with 200 children aged 5-18 years of age. It was an
incredible opportunity to allow children to be teachers and adults to be
learners. Through each child's experience and wisdom I learned to
reposition my life priorities. It was through this program that I met my
current husband, who had also served as a counselor.
In 1999, I moved to North Carolina to start a faculty position at ECU
with the mission and passion to create the first medical family therapy
doctoral program in the nation. This program was created to teach future
medical and mental health providers that illness, health, and loss occur
in the context of a family and when a diagnosis, trauma, or loss enters
an individual's life, everyone who knows or has been touched by that
person is influenced in some way. My journey led me to two different
routes of interest: 1) I began working with individuals, couples, and
families who lost a child due to miscarriage, stillbirth, or while their
child was in the NICU by establishing the FIND HOPE support group, and
2) I began educating and providing therapy to medical and mental health
providers who had a child die while on the NICU, PICU, or PEDS units.
Fortunately, both of these interests have been nicely tied to the
mission of FSN-ENC.
In 2003, I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. My husband and I continue
to learn more about ourselves each day as we take one more step on the
journey of parenthood. We continue to strengthen ourselves by attempting
to love each moment of each day. I'd like to end by extending immense
gratitude to FSN and FIND HOPE... these families have taught me to be a
better person, provider, wife, woman, and mother. |
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