Exploring Life & Business with Ramon Presson, PhD, LMFT of The Marriage Counseling Center of Franklin

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ramon Presson, PhD, LMFT.

Hi Ramon, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’ve been a marriage & family therapist now for three decades. I knew from the time I was 16 years old that I was going to be counselor. How many kids do you know who have a subscription to Psychology Today magazine? But that was me. I was a basketball and tennis playin’ wanna-be counselor. I had a very official-looking engraved nameplate put on my bedroom door that read “Dr. Ramon Presson.”

My friend at school, Mark Preston, nicknamed me “the youth group shrink.”

I don’t recall giving great advice, but I did genuinely care about my friends, and I think I was a good listener.

Maybe I learned early on that being seen and heard and feeling accepted and understood is deeply meaningful for all of us. Joseph Pine, not a therapist, said, “The experience of being understood, versus interpreted, is so compelling you can charge admission.”

Giving someone our undivided attention is the foundational feature that says, “You matter. Your presence matters; your experience and story matter; your thoughts and feelings matter; your hopes and fears matter; your ideas and dreams matter. All of it matters because YOU matter.”

By the way, you don’t have to be a professional counselor to give people the gift of attention.

Another significant factor in my becoming a counselor is where I grew up—in Winston-Salem, NC, and within walking distance of Calvary Baptist Church. I was 14 when I met the associate pastor, Dr. Gary Chapman, who two decades later would publish what has become the best-selling marriage enrichment book of all time, The Five Love Languages. 

After I completed my Master’s Degree in counseling at Florida State University, I returned to Winston-Salem and served on Calvary’s staff as an associate counselor in the community counseling center that the church had established. 

Dr. Don Mann was my clinic supervisor, and he profoundly shaped my thinking and practice as a therapist and was a role model to me of a good man, husband, and father. My parents divorced when I was 6, and I was raised by a single Mom who never remarried. I’m forever thankful for Don, Gary, and Dr Mark Corts, who were like father figures to me. Sometimes grace comes to you in the form of gifts you didn’t ask for or even know you needed.

I’ve also been a writer since childhood. I remember getting an award from the county school system in the 3rd grade for a poem I wrote. I’ve journaled consistently since I was a teenager. I have a small bookshelf at home entirely filled with five decades of my journals. 

Getting to co-author a trilogy of books with Dr. Chapman was an extraordinary opportunity I never imagined possible. That collaboration has opened up several additional doors of writing and publishing opportunities for me, for which I’m grateful.  I’ve published a dozen books and I’ve been writing a twice-monthly newspaper column in the Nashville area for the past 15 years. 

In summary, I’ve been a counselor and a writer as far back as I can remember, and I foresee continuing to do both in some form until I take my last breath. 

By the way, my wife, Dorrie, is a counselor. A career counselor, and truly one of the best in Tennessee.  We’ve been married 35 years. I’m so glad we got the extended warranty. We have two extraordinary young adult sons, Trevor and Cameron. 

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a smooth road?
In the opening lines of Dante’s Inferno, the author writes, “In the middle of the journey of my life I found myself in a dark wood, and entirely lost the straight way to me.” That was my 2004. 

I didn’t have a history of depression, so I felt completely blindsided, and I was also very confused and scared. When you feel deeply depressed long enough, it becomes difficult to imagine ever feeling better, and you’re afraid you won’t get better. When you’ve been stuck in Oz long enough, you wonder if you’ll ever make it back home to Kansas. 

It got so bad that I had to be hospitalized. That was completely necessary for my survival and yet very difficult to accept. I once said to a staff member, “I can’t believe I’m in here. I’m a therapist. I shouldn’t be here.” Not only was I immobilized by my depression, I felt a tremendous amount of shame because depression was immobilizing me. I especially felt embarrassed and shame about being hospitalized. I want to be quick to add that no one else was shaming me; the shaming messages were coming solely from me.

In my journal, I described my depression & anxiety as “the two-headed monster” and the experience as “slowly sinking in quicksand while in total darkness.” If the descent seemed slow and gradual, the ascent and recovery felt like a slow and steep climb; but with support from my wife, Dorrie, her family, my family, and close friends, along with a gentle psychiatrist and a caring counselor I found the light again.

I have felt so good for so long now that the distant dark season feels like it happened a lifetime ago. Actually, it feels more like it happened to someone else. 

An experience like that leaves a “high-water mark.” After a flood recedes, you can tell how high the water rose from the stains on buildings and trash scattered in the trees. In recent years, I have reminded myself of my reference point, my high-water mark, whenever I have a bad day. 

That’s not meant to deny or ignore my sad/mad emotions but to hold the problem in perspective, reminding myself that I got through 2004, so I can certainly get through this. I sometimes say to my patients, “That you are here right now suggests that up to this very moment you have survived 100% of your worst days ever.” Then I smile, “Statistically, that record of success suggests you have an excellent chance of surviving this one too.”

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about The Marriage Counseling Center of Franklin?
I’m a licensed marriage & family therapist in private practice in Franklin with 30+ years of experience. My primary focus is couples therapy with dating, engaged, cohabitating, and married couples. Couples therapy can be very challenging, but it’s also very rewarding. I work with a lot of couples that are in a state of high conflict and low connection. And on any given day, I work with at least one couple healing from a partner’s exposed affair. It’s a hard journey, but the recovery rate (nationally) is quite high for such couples who seek therapy together.

I also counsel individuals seeking therapy for a relationship issue. Sometimes the patient’s partner is unwilling to participate in couples therapy. Sometimes the patient wishes to discuss their relationship concerns privately. 

I also do a lot of divorce recovery therapy with individuals. It may sound odd that a marriage therapist does divorce recovery work. But it comes with the territory of working with people who are struggling in a relationship, whether a current partner or a former one. I’m one of the featured speakers in the DivorceCare curriculum. DivorceCare (www.DivorceCare.org) is the largest divorce recovery program in the world, and they do great work in providing helpful guidance and support to separated and divorced adults.

Can you share something surprising about yourself?

Okay, for fun, let’s play multiple choice. Which of the following is true? 

A. I ran out of air 60-feet from the surface during a scuba dive.

B. I am an ordained minister and have been an associate pastor.

C. I have done stand-up comedy on stage at Zanies. 

D. During the first wedding I ever officiated I forgot to say the words “You may be seated.”  Yes, the congregation stood through the entire ceremony. 

E. I had the priceless opportunity to be mentored one-on-one weekly for a year by a poet twice-nominated for the Pulitzer Prize—Stellasue Lee. 

F. One of my prized possessions is a black & white photo of me at 6- years-old sitting in the driver’s seat of Richard Petty’s #43 Plymouth with The King leaning against the car. 

G. During a wedding I officiated in Florida the bride caught her hair on fire with the unity candle. 

H. All the Above

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ramonpressontherapy.com
• Facebook: Personal: www.facebook.com/ramonpresson Business: www.facebook.com/DrRamonPresson
• Youtube: Book Trailer Video for “When Will My Life Not Suck?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdbL_8ZqxgA
• Other: Presson’s Author Amazon Page: https://amzn.to/3PlbKtP —– Presson’s Newspaper Columns: https://bit.ly/3zCSv92