I am among those who came across Roy because of the work he developed in PCT. Back in 2014, I was beginning to wonder if my life with autoimmune disease and chronic illness might be better served if I moved my in-person practice to all online. I ran across something with his name attached to it and eventually connected with Roy over Facebook. Eventually my connection with Roy was mostly fostered through email and his online community and team. At this point, I imagine my story mirrors many others. As I continued to converse with him and the other community members he had gathered, it became clearer to me that I would indeed transition my private counseling practice to online exclusive, and I set a date: May 2017. Because of all the resources Roy and the team provided, I closed my office doors for good, and two weeks later had my online exclusive practice running with every piece of solid resource and advise he had shared over the years.
When the pandemic hit, my practice had already benefited from all that training and "practice of the practice." Roy's fingerprint is all over what I do, even down to the simple behaviors I reinforce with my clients to help them engage in safe and confidential online practices. I did not have to change anything about the way my practice ran, nor scrambled to make adaptations -- they had already been accounted for and completed ahead of necessity. I cannot tell you how many times I had stopped in the middle of the day and thought, "I am so glad I met (virtually) Roy when I did."
When I learned news that Roy had passed away, I had been out of town because I had gone on the first sabbatical I had taken in 32 years of working in healthcare, and I am presently still on sabbatical until later in January 2022. But I wanted to take the time to share with those who are leaving memorials what I think we know collectively: Roy was deeply human, creative, funny, flawed, and like us all, we find ways to mask pain. I am grieved to read just how much pain there was, and yet those of us in the practice of counseling psychology are acquainted with this perhaps more so than we ponder in ourselves.
I wish I could go back to a moment of frustration when one of his live webinars wasn't working correctly and half a dozen or more participants were posting comments and questions faster than any single person could handle, grab the microphone, and say, "Roy, it's OK, tech stuff like this happens. Play us your favorite song from Moulin Rouge and take your time." He didn't want to disappoint us. The thing is, he was the farthest from ever disappointing any of us who hung on his every word and benefitted from his skill, generosity, and passion.
When I return to my virtual office after my sabbatical ends, I'll be sorting through the resources he was working on. If his team is reading this, I hope they take to heart what an incredible impact his and their work has had on me. There is a saying that when you save the life of one person, you save the world. That is what has happened here.