Don Norman honored; former students thankful for support
By Tom Ganser
Correspondent
Don Norman described it as “one of the best days of my professional life,” when he was presented with the 2016 Carl A. Whitaker Award at the annual meeting April 3 of the Wisconsin Association for Marriage and Family Therapy in Middleton.
The award, given annually since 1980, recognized Norman’s “creative and innovative contributions to the field of marriage and family therapy and its development in Wisconsin.”
Whitaker, a pioneer in the marriage and family therapy field, practiced in Wisconsin and served as a professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1965 until his retirement in 1982.
“There was the thought that there’s more going on than just the individual. There’s the system in which that person is embedded. Whitaker was one of those in the 1950s and 1960s who began to look at family systems,” Norman said.
Norman has been in practice since 1983, including pastoral duties across several denominations, training and practice as a pastoral counselor, the clinical director of a metropolitan hospital pastoral counseling service and a Military and Family Life Consultant in assignments in the United States and Europe.
For nearly two decades he served as an assistant and tenured associate professor in the Department of Counselor Education at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater where he was department chairperson. He also served as president of WAMFT from 2006 to 2008.
At the award ceremony, current WAMFT president Tammy Conrad said Norman “reminds us to walk in the history and carry the legacy of those who have preceded us.”
She said as a student member of WAMFT, she considered letting her membership lapse when times were difficult for her financially. Learning that, Norman had called her and asked if there was anything he could do to help Conrad get back on track with her professional family.
She said his gentle reminder encouraged her to continue her membership: “Our journey is one of good service, evolving professional development, personal renewal and collegial connections, and this is our professional home.”
Kathy Bates, one of Norman’s former students at UW-Whitewater, shared some of Norman’s insights into working with families.
“Kids don’t change until parents change. I have learned through his wisdom that a good marriage and family therapist is provocative. I love to rile up families and couples, and so does he!” Bates said.
Karen Snider, another former student of Norman, recalled meeting him for the first time during an open house at UW-Whitewater for incoming graduate students.
“He made me feel like I belonged and that if I was accepted into the program, that’s all I needed to know that I was ‘smart enough’ to succeed,” Snider said.
Conrad also shared the enduring vision of Norman held by Jeff Cook, his colleague in the UWW Counselor Education Department, as being “authentic, spontaneous, genuine, generous and caring.”
In accepting the award, Norman described his use of Augustus Napier and Whitaker’s book, “Family Crucible,” in teaching marriage and family therapy courses at UW-Whitewater.
He said it allowed him “to give students a feel for how the system has to be considered when the pathology of one is mistaken to stand all on its own… to have the courage to do what was needed to move the system toward health.”
Norman concluded his remarks by saying: “I must underscore how, whatever small deeds I’ve accomplished for the profession and for the students and people served, it cannot be separated from this organization. As soon as I arrived in Wisconsin in 1998, I sought out a relationship with WAMFT, and was warmly welcomed in.
“I love this organization and will always give thanks for the welcoming (and) encouraging system WAMFT is and will continue to become,” he said.
A graduate of Camden High School in South Carolina, Norman holds advanced degrees from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, the University of Alabama-Birmingham and the University of Mississippi-Oxford.
After retiring from his teaching position at UW-Whitewater in the spring of 2015, Norman has continued his professional life within his private practice in Whitewater (Pastoral & Family Therapy Services) and as pastor of La Grange United Methodist Church.
