Peace on Earth. Wonderfully joyous wishes to you and your loved ones this holiday season and the upcoming new year from your ISST family.

As the year comes to an end, many of us have celebrated, are celebrating, or look forward to celebrating Bodhi Day, Chinese New Year, Christmas, Diwali, Gantan-sai, Hanukkah, HumanLight, Kwanzaa, Mawlid, Solstice, or another holiday. Some of us may have also created our own traditions to honor.

As an international community with diverse backgrounds, we deeply appreciate the varied traditions and experiences of our members that enrich all of us. Holidays are an ideal time to reflect on our lives, and to feel gratitude for our journey.
 
To pause and think about how much life has changed for us this year is bewildering. For many of us, the global pandemic has restricted almost all aspects of what we do. For some of us, it has also provided unforeseen opportunities for newfound freedoms, reminding us even more of what matters in our lives.

Even though our darkest days of this pandemic may lie ahead in the near future, knowing that a light appears at the end of what may feel like a long tunnel is enough to ignite a burgeoning hope for the new year.
 
As many of us know all too well, the pandemic has thrust us onto the front lines of a growing mental health epidemic. We can be immensely proud of the work we have done as schema therapists, a force for good in the world through our caring, compassionate approach that touches the lives of people around the world.
 
Most of your clients or patients will never know how hard you work to help them get more of their core needs met. But they will appreciate the difference you’ve helped make in their lives, and the lives of their loved ones around them. Knowing that you’ve played a part in helping make people’s lives better is a powerful reward, and one that is especially important to remember during this holiday season, and throughout the coming year. Nothing else feels quite like it.
 
As this year comes to an end, our work to support each other as a schema therapy community to help improve the lives of others never stops.
 
Thank you for being part of our ISST family.
 
Season’s greetings to you and your loved ones,
 
Alp Karaosmanoglu
Executive Board President
International Society of Schema Therapy
 

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